“Hijras, the Kinnars daughters” reflects the reality that lives transgender community in rural India. With no work, and pushed away from the society, most of the people from the community has to do sexual work or beg on the streets to survive.
Hijra community is one of the most unknown and stigmatized in the world. Hindu religion is highlighted to do not have a clear god gender definition and from the antiquity, the third gender had been playing an important role in Hindu religion.
Back on the days, the third gender was accepted and really appreciated for Hindus. It was thought that transgender people had magic and even they were mentioned as Kinnars in the old texts of Mahabaratha (the sacred book from Hinduism) as a figure that must exist and be part of the universe.
It wasn’t until the Mongol empire that they were pushed to convert to Islam. Later on, with the British colonisation, the stigmas and homophobia came to India and almost end up with the transgender community, their culture and their traditions.
Nowadays they are getting back the respect they deserve and making their space in society, but there is still a lot of work to do. It was not until September the 6th, 2018 that the Supreme Court of India cancelled the Act 377 that was criminalizing any kind of homosexual relationship. During the last year, in several states in India were starting to accept the third gender as a gender and the government was giving some facilities to the community.
Also we could see, for the first time, their presence in really important Hindu festivals such as Kumbh Mela in February 2019. The increase of the public in Kuthandavar festival, has been also a fact. This festival is dedicated to transgender community and during a three days gathering, they perform several rituals recreating the story in Mahabaratha, that talks about god Krishna changing the gender for a day.
Even tough, still lots of those people are pushed away from their own family and they are still not being accepted within society. Hijra community look for shelter between their people and they organize themselves in families of sisters “Cheelas” protected by a mother “Gurú”.