Hijra/Hejira

Social Organization and History

Hijras have played a significant role in Indian culture for many centuries. Several Sanskrit and Pali texts refer variously to the existence of the “third sex” and [Page 421]some scholars have proved the existence of hijras in precolonial and pre-Islamic India. The word hijra is believed to be an Urdu term and suggests that hijra culture and identity evolved during the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire in India where eunuchs served as confidants, political advisors, and guardians of the harem. During the British colonial period, hijras were classified as a separate caste or tribe because of their distinctive social organization and occupational identity, but they were also identified as a “criminal caste,” placed under surveillance and regulation, and arrested under Article 377 of the Indian Penal code, which prohibits sodomy. In contemporary India, hijras are both venerated because of the special powers attributed to them and denigrated because of their transgressive sexual practices.

Hijras have a unique social organization. They are organized according to seven houses, which are symbolic descent groups through which each member traces her genealogy. Each of these symbolic houses contains many households in which hijras live communally and share their incomes and household responsibilities. Each descent house in a region is headed by a nayak (a leader) and has gurus (spiritual leaders) and celas (disciples). The nayaks form a council for governance and arbitration of disputes. The nayaks meet from time to time nationally to decide on policy or to celebrate an event of great significance. Each region's nayaks also form a council called a jamat that works to solve regional issues. Hijras live in family units with gurus, share their income within the family, and support one another economically. Hijras are initiated into their houses by sponsoring gurus and seniority is an important aspect of hijra social organization. Gurus and celas have a parent-child relationship where gurus are responsible for the well-being of their disciples and the disciples owe obedience and loyalty to their gurus. Through the guru-cela relationship, hijras form a web of kinship including “sisters,” “aunts,” and “grandmothers.” Some hijras get married and take husbands and live with them. These husbands may sometimes be men who identify as heterosexual and have a wife and children but also take a hijra for a wife. Hijras with husbands may have a separate household but still connect to their symbolic house of descent for their social needs.

...