By Mahesh Trivedi, TwoCircles.net
While the Indian government and state administrations have done precious little for their starving families, the Corona carnage has become a heavy blow to the cash-starved daily wagers living in tumbledown shanties. But at a time when COVID19 is spiraling into a deadly pandemic at an unprecedented rate, help has come to their doorstep from the most unexpected quarters during the lockdown days: The country’s 500,000-strong transgender community has risen to the occasion in these trying times and have been providing succor to the homeless and slum dwellers.
In various cities of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, the transgenders, themselves hard-pressed without any source of income, have not only been distributing essential items like rice, flour, sugar, tea leaves, edible oil, etc. to the worst-hit but also explaining them the importance of staying indoors.
These golden-hearted from the LGBT (lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgenders) community in Surat, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, have not only been feeding the underprivileged sections day after day but have also donated Rs 150,000 to a family whose breadwinner was killed during a clash with one of the eunuchs. In Godhra and Bhuj cities, the queer community cancelled their grandiose plans for an annual congregation to celebrate their annual religious dance festival due to the fast-spreading viral infection, and used the money thus saved for offering food packets to the needy. In Ahmedabad, the better-off among them gave away cash and grains to the needy.
“Only transgenders help transgenders,” said Transwoman Rukhsana who stays in a colony near Muslim-dominated Rakhial area in Ahmedabad. She explained that those kinnars who were rich never failed to care for their trans brothers and sisters whose usual life suffered a jolt in this lockdown as they could not anymore eke out a living by begging, collecting cash during celebrations and offering sexual services. More than a year ago, the Gujarat government had set up a transgender welfare board “…but the community still remains a worried lot sans jobs, housing, education and medicare”, she said. Rukhsana was all praise for an LGBT group for appealing to donate funds for Mumbai’s sex workers.
In Uttar Pradesh, when the LGBTs of Bareilly and Prayagraj got wind of the fact that the dread viral infection had affected thousands of daily wagers and migrant workers, they set up community kitchens and have been serving hot, fresh food to the families of laborers.
Even in Kolkata which boasts of a massive 100,000-strong community of transgenders, the queer men and women have been distributing rice, potatoes, dal and other food material to rickshawpullers, domestic workers and daily wagers who have been pushed into penury by the deadly Novel Coronavirus disease.
However, Ahmedabad-based social activist Abeda Momin said that the Good Samaritans among the LGBTs are extremely few and according to a study, 87 percent of LGBTs are struggling to make both ends meet. “They are shunned, ridiculed, ostracized and stigmatized by society and are hit the hardest in the pandemic,” she sighed.
More susceptible to contracting COVID19 than others because of their low immunity levels, the LGBTs have been demanding separate isolation wards in hospitals fearing harassment and discrimination in male or female wards but in vain. Adding to their woes, the community that usually live in groups of five or six and in claustrophobic dwellings are more exposed to the risk of the virus given such miserable living conditions. What’s more, according to Gujarat-based human rights activist Manvendra Singh Gohil, whose trust has been working for the welfare of the LGBTs, non-availability of the all-important anti-retroviral therapy during the lockdown sends these minorities into depression as they cannot visit hospitals even for common illnesses. Gohil added that the Gujarat government had promised to issue cards to the LGBTs for easy access to the special treatment as HIV prevalence among the transgender people is as high as 3.1%.
Says Pradip Shah, former Gujarat government Class I officer: “In the absence of documents like aadhar cards or bank details, transgenders are also deprived of several benefits of government schemes.”
All said and done, the Supreme Court had ruled in 2014 that transgender people, who are often isolated by their families and refused jobs, education and healthcare, had equal rights but the queer community continues to struggle for basic rights denied by both government and society.