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Come Durga Puja, and the average Bengali metamorphoses into another entity altogether – noisy, boisterous and high-spirited. The festival literally transforms Bengalis, laced as it is with religious fervour, gaiety and fun. And tradition. And that is where this year’s Puja is different – in marking a departure from tradition.

Breaking all stereotypes, and for the very first time, one of the Puja committees, the Udyami Yubak Brinda Durga Puja, in partnership with Pratyay Gender Trust, a local transgender persons’ collective, will worship a transgender Durga deity during the regular Puja festivities. The committee’s Puja idol is fashioned after the ‘Ardhanarishvar’, the androgynous form of Shiv and Parvati. Interestingly, a dozen transgender people from Pratyay formed the Puja committee, and together stirred up something new, something inclusive. In fact, even in the previous year, one of the Durga Puja pandals had been inaugurated by a member of the transgender community. Moreover, members of the community have been appointed as judges for Kolkata Shree — an annual competition organised by Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to judge the best Durga Puja celebrations. But this year, a step further has been taken.

Then again, West Bengal has been at the forefront of inclusion of the transgender community in society. It was the first state to appoint a transgender, Dr Manabi Bandopadhyay, as a college principal. It is also the first to constitute a Transgender Development Board for the 30,000-strong community in the state. While Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra have also set up transgender welfare boards, the West Bengal board is aimed at development, and not just welfare. And recently, chief minister Mamata Banerjee instructed Kolkata Police to recruit transgenders in the Civic Police Volunteer Force in a move aimed at providing gainful employment to the community.

What it means to be a transgender in India

As heartening as these measures are, the story is far from encouraging when it comes to the country as a whole. Members of the transgender community continue to live in dismal conditions, with barely any support systems, except their own close-knit clans. Deprived of education, employment opportunities, and even medical care, they continue to suffer abuse and neglect at every step. The physical, psychological and emotional well-being of transgenders does not seem to be a priority, or even a necessity in this country. Harassed, abused and marginalized, the human rights violations of transgenders are rampant. A People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) report, titled Human Rights Violations Against the Transgender Community, details horrific and gut-wrenching cases of physical, sexual and emotional abuse of members of the transgender community, and the criminal treatment meted out to them even by the police, the very institution that should have protected them.

Our mass media has also failed the community miserably. Hindi cinema, arguably the most potent and influential mass medium of the country, has often portrayed transgenders as objects of ridicule, or used them as props for eliciting a few laughs. The narrative surrounding the transgender community has rarely gone beyond hand-clapping and “hai-hai” spouting. In fact, the very word to describe them, “hijra”, is often used as a pejorative word in Hindi cinema. Recall the famous line of Gabbar Singh in Sholay: “Thakur ne hijron ki fauj banayee hai” (Thakur has set up an army of eunuchs), which, essentially invests negative traits of cowardice and uselessness in the entire transgender community! This is not an isolated case; it has, more or less, been the norm in Hindi films. Very few movies have delved into the psyche of a transgender person with some measure of sensitivity, notable among them being the Paresh Rawal-Pooja Bhatt starrer, Tamanna, which portrayed an abandoned girl being taken care of by a eunuch.

Court rulings and legislation – will they help?

Recognizing the dire need for improvement of the lot of transgenders, the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment in 2014, created the “third gender” status for them.  Earlier, they were forced to write male or female against their gender. The Court directed the Centre to treat transgenders as socially and economically backward, adding that they should be allowed admission in educational institutions and given employment on the basis that they belong to the third gender category. Significantly, the Court also directed the Centre and the states to construct special public toilets for transgenders, and devise social welfare schemes for them. The apex court added that transgenders are part and parcel of the society and the government must take steps to bring them into the mainstream.

Keeping up with the Supreme Court, the Rajya Sabha passed the Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2014, in April this year for the protection and welfare of the transgender community. The Bill guarantees reservation in education and jobs, financial aid and social inclusion. However, it has yet to be passed by the Lok Sabha.

Legislation and court rulings apart, the inclusion of transgenders in our society as normal people with rights and access to education and employment will happen only when civil society shuns its abhorrence of the transgender community, and accepts them as equals. A transgender-friendly employment policy can do more for improving their condition than any law ever could. When companies state they are equal-opportunity employers, they need to include transgenders in that ambit. Education and job opportunities can go a long way in ensuring greater acceptance of the third gender. A secure income would pull them out of their morass and put them right in our midst – where they actually belong.