Agreements of the Soul: The Labour of New Identity Forged by Girmitiyas and Trans Women in India

Abstract

What’s in a name?
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.
It is inconceivable to talk about ‘Girmitiya Migration’ without mentioning the terms ‘contract labour’ and ‘indenture’. With the entire discourse pivoted on an unequal barter, one cannot help but wonder about the other ‘agreements’ that we seldom talk about, the hijra jamaat being one of them. These jamaats are full-fledged trans communities that function on strict hierarchies. Willingly or unwillingly, trans folks often end up in these jamaats, that come with an exploitative setup, supreme leader (nayak), dirty politics, and conditional support. The jamaat often offers trans folks a place to live (home) and supports them in Sex Reaffirmation Surgeries (SRS) in lieu of their labour (mostly, begging and sex work). The grounds on which these contracts are made are often hazy and deceitful. The current paper aims to throw light on the same while comparing hijra jamaats in India with the Girmitiya existence, migration, and its social and psychological repercussions. The research would be based on real experiences from the biographical works of A. Revathi (The Story About Me: A Hijra Life Story, and Our Lives Our Words Telling Aravani Lifestories) and Laxmi Narayan Tripathi’s Me Hijra, Me Laxmi. The mentioned texts would be compared with Gaiutra Bahadur’s Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture where she explores her family’s Caribbean history, the less talked about women of Girmitiya migration and the possibility of queer and trans narratives in their stories.