Why the trans community fears exclusion in the ongoing SIR

Earlier this month, Rayyan Monkey, a trans woman who lives in Mumbai, received a visit from the booth level officer of Worli. The special intensive revision of electoral rolls had kicked off in Maharashtra just a few days earlier, and the officer was overseeing the process in Rayyan’s locality.

After checking the records, however, the officer informed Rayyan that there was a problem: she could not be “mapped” to the electoral roll. That is, her name was not on the roll prepared after the last revision in 2002 – unsurprising, since Rayyan was a child then. Neither were the officer or Rayyan able to find her immediate family’s names on the earlier roll, which could have helped ensure her inclusion in the revised roll.

There was a specific reason for this difficulty. Around four years ago, when Rayyan embraced her trans identity, she had to sever ties with her family, who were not accepting of her. They moved abroad some time after. This estrangement has placed obstacles in the way of Rayyan ensuring she is enrolled as a voter.

Since her parents are not on the 2002 rolls, she would have to prove her links to other family members, such as her grandparents, to complete the verification process. But she has not been in contact with those relatives.

“While my immediate family has shifted abroad, my extended family still lives nearby,” she told Scroll over a phone call. “If I was on speaking terms with them, they would have helped me figure out my grandparents’ details and documents, but unfortunately, I’m not.”

But even if Rayyan had been able to confirm details of other family members who are on the rolls, she would struggle to prove her links to them because her parents have taken several of her documents with them.

This effectively blocked off an avenue laid out by the booth level officer, of appearing for a hearing at which she could present documents such as her birth certificate and educational certificates, linking her to her family.

There is another fear that looms ahead for Rayyan as a result of the SIR process. Her voter card is one of only two documents she has in which her gender is recorded as female – other documents, such as her Aadhaar, still record it as male. “If I don’t get through the SIR, they will cancel my voter card, which only leaves my passport with my correct gender identity,” she said.

Her anxieties are compounded by recent statements by the ministry of external affairs that passports do not constitute proof of citizenship. As a Muslim trans person, she worries that such a position will only lead to her becoming even more untethered from official records, given that in some states, Muslims have been disproportionately excluded under the exercise.

“I’m Muslim. It is very obvious that this exercise is targeted against minorities,” said Rayyan. She expressed concern about news reports of trans persons being declared “fake hijras” and “Bangladeshis” and being deported from the country.

She also cited reports in which concerns of both gender and religion overlapped – in one case, from Bhopal, for instance, a trans person formerly known as Abdul Kalam was arrested, accused of being a Bangladeshi living under a fake trans identity and threatened with deportation. “There is this constant stress that I have, it’s been very frustrating,” Rayyan said.

The wider community’s fears

Rayyan’s experience is one that is echoed across the transgender community. With the third phase of the special intensive revision exercise underway in 18 states, transgender persons across the country are struggling to meet the requirements of the process and ensure that their names are listed on the electoral rolls.

Like in Rayyan’s case, their struggles result primarily from the fact that many are estranged from their families – as a result, some cannot trace family members in rolls, others lack necessary identity documents to link them to family members, and still others have documents with inconsistent details that they are unable to resolve. As a consequence, they fear that they will be disenfranchised – and in some cases, even that their status as Indian citizens may come under threat.

Activists have warned about these risks. Earlier this month, the All India Feminist Alliance, a pan-India feminist network that includes women, transgender and non-binary persons, wrote to the Election Commission of India, urging it to take measures to ensure that women and gender and religious minorities are not erased from the electoral rolls.

It noted that in the previous two phases of the SIR, “women, transgender persons, and members of minority, especially Muslim communities got deleted in greater percentages than their proportion in the population”.

The alliance urged the commission to expand the verification of voter eligibility beyond “patriarchal lineage, kinship and household”.

It added that, “Many transgender people entered the electoral roll only after the NALSA judgement of the Supreme Court in April 2014” – referring to the landmark judgment that accorded formal recognition to the community.

It cautioned that members of the community were “at various stages of their papers and transition. Most are cut off from families and places of origin. Their name and gender documents may not match. Their photos and their documents also may be misread and they could be excluded from the rolls for no fault of theirs.”

Those already excluded

Trans people’s fears of exclusion are exacerbated by the fact that some members of the community have already found themselves excluded in earlier phases.

Abir, a trans man based in Kolkata, left his natal family and household four years ago, and has never considered returning. Earlier this year, he was reported as “absent” by the booth level officer in his area after the SIR was conducted. He was told that if he wanted to register afresh, he would have to obtain copies of his natal family’s documents to prove his link to them.

But approaching them is out of the question for him. “It would be dangerous to go back,” said Abir, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He tried to explain this to the official, but received no support. “They just told me that I am beyond help and nothing can be done about it,” he said.

Abir, too, now fears that he will be struck down from the electoral roll, and that that will threaten his status as a citizen.

Those under threat

In other states, where the process is underway, trans persons fear that the process will exclude individuals who fall outside conventional social structures.

In Jharkhand, for instance, Sanjana, a trans woman who lives in Jamshedpur, is concerned about the fate of trans persons whose voter cards do not carry the names of their biological parents, but of their guru maa, community leaders who typically head groups of trans persons who live together in a gharana.

“There was a mass voter registration drive here in 2015, when some 60-70 of us had our voter cards made,” said Sanjana, who lives in a basti in Jamshedpur. At the time, officials enrolled many of the individuals without recording their parents’ names, and instead listing them with the names of their guru maas. Now, they fear they will be struck off the rolls because they are not linked to their parents’ names.

In fact, Sanjana faces yet another possible hurdle because in the previous voter registration drive, she herself was recorded as the guardian for around 50 trans women in her neighbourhood. Over the years, some individuals re-established contact with their biological parents, and had their voter cards modified to reflect those names, but many still list Sanjana as a guardian on their documents.

This could present a challenge, Sanjana fears, because in the previous phases of the SIR, a person who was listed as having more than six children was often flagged as a “logical discrepancy”. Sanjana is concerned that she and other guardians will face this problem.

In Karnataka, Christy Raj, a trans man and activist, has been supporting fellow trans persons in the SIR process – here, too, estrangement from families leaves individuals unable to trace them in electoral rolls and thus unable to enrol themselves. “And most of them can’t return to their natal homes to get their parents’ details,” Raj said.

One who came to Raj seeking help had left his home many years earlier. His parents had died since, and he could not remember any details about them, other than their names. “Their names are very common, so they will have to look through multiple lists and even then, they can’t be sure,” he said. “They are desperately trying to trace their roots now.”

The individuals also fear hurdles because of inconsistencies in personal details between different documents. “Many trans men are in a fix because their names and genders don’t match on their voter and Aadhaar cards,” he said.

Raj noted that for instance, a Muslim trans man who came to him for support had for some time severed ties with his natal family, and formally taken on a Hindu name. After a few years, however, they renewed their bond with their family and adopted a Muslim name again. “Now their voter card has their former Hindu name, and their Aadhaar card and other documents have their Muslim name,” he said. “They are very worried about what will happen.”

Raj is also concerned about the difference in trans persons’ appearance in their photos before and after transition. “If a trans man looks like a woman in their voter card photo, will the BLO verify them accordingly?” he said. “There is a lot of sensitisation training that BLOs should have undergone, but that is not a concern for anybody.”

Adwait, a member of the Indian National Congress, who trains party workers as agents with block level officers, said that trans persons’ deletions from the SIR did not seem to be a concern for political parties. “The numbers of queer and trans persons are marginal for political parties so they are not a priority,” he said. “There are people out there trying to support the community at an individual level, but not an institutional level.”