A STORY EONS OLD

The Khwaja Sira Discourse

When read about the transgender community and their rights in Pakistan, one must ask, did we always treated them like this? Do we even know how rich was their history? And how has our perception of this community changed over the century and why?

Before the colonial rule in the subcontinent the transgender community held an immense importance in the society, particularly in the Mughal sultanat. The very community which we now continue to humiliate, suppress and scold were the very people who tutored Raja’s children and held important positions in the court. “Some Khwajasarais were politically important figures.

“Some Khwajasarais were politically important figures.”

To understand the change we must understand Michel Foucault. The French historian and writer looks at power through a difference lens. Foucault argues that discourse produces knowledge, which then forms what we call “reality”. “According to Foucault, power works through discourse to shape popular attitudes towards phenomena such as crime, madness or sexuality.” But what importance does this holds to the transgender community?

“Power works through discourse”

It was after the Bristish arrival in India that they were force to the margins of the society. “By mid-century, the power of the Khwajasarais in north India was in decline. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, the East India Company had sought (largely unsuccessfully) to limit the power of Khwajasarais in the Mughal successor state of Awadh, which neighboured the NWP.”

“By mid-century, the power of the Khwajasarais in north India was in decline.”

“Consequently, the term khawaja sira eventually disappeared from the public eye until it was reclaimed in Pakistan much later by khawaja sira activists in the early 2000s.” This is where Faucoult comes in. You formed a discourse in the society, through laws like Criminal Tribes Act 1871 and Buggery Act 1864 that trickled them down to the least of the society.

“Why are the only three professions open to us that of prostitution, dancing at weddings and beggary? You and your western overlords have treated the climate like you’ve treated the Khwaja Siras. You’ve used and abused us on your own terms and relegated us to an afterthought for eons.”

“You and your western overlords have treated the climate like you’ve treated the Khwaja Siras.”

Their are leading personlities from Khawaja Sira community who hold important position in our society but still they are always looked down by a society which once gave them immence importance, and considered them as human as they are. The British distribution of “truth” about this community completetly changed the way we think about them. One cannot but say that one half problems of this country are gifted from Zia and the other half from the Bristish.

“Truth is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of statements. ‘Truth’ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A ‘regime’ of truth.” Michel Faucoult.