Private Lives Versus Government Morality, The Colonial Roots of India’s Transgender Rights Rollback
The year is 1852. It is the high noon of British rule in India. The East India Company has a chokehold over Bengal and is creeping up the Gangetic heartland—its mercantile impulses housed sharply by the tacit backing of the crown. The sepoy revolution is five years away. That year, a Hijra named Bhoorah was found dead, her head nearly severed clean off her body, in the streets of a Manipuri town. A guru within the intricate discipleship lineage of the Hijra community, Bhoorah lived with her two chelas, Dullah and Mathee. Like many other people from her community, Bhoorah performed and asked for bahai, a congratulatory gift following the birth of a child.
For two years, Bhoorah had lived with her lover, Ali Buksh, but shortly before she was murdered, she left him for another man. On August 17, 1852, Ali Buksh forced Bhoorah to return to him. Neighbours saw the couple arguing in the street before entering their house. Later, Bhoorah’s disciple Dullah ran out into the street, shouting that Ali Buksh had murdered Bhoorah. The Manipuri Sessions Court, and subsequently the Nizamat Adalat—the highest provincial court at the time—considered two suspects: Ali Buksh and Dullah. In the end, the British judges were convinced that Ali Buksh had killed Bhoorah due to the “severance” of their “infamous connexion”. He was convicted of murder. The case, formally recorded as Government v. Ali Buksh in the erstwhile North Western Province (NWP), appeared, on the surface, settled.
In reality, it was anything but. As Jessica Hinchy noted in Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India, the judges were alarmed at the presence of transgender people, variously describing them as “beggars” and “unnatural prostitutes”, seen as an “opprobrium” and a “reproach” to the British government. Unwin, the sessions court judge, opened his judgment with a statement of the “eunuch problem”: “The sickening details of this case involve the disgusting exposure of an abominable trade of unnatural prostitution regularly carried on by eunuchs dressed as women.” In the grand sweep of India’s history, the micro-realities of lives such as Bhoorah’s are often more than grains of sand—indistinguishable from millions of peers, and inconsequential on their own. Yet, the flood of anxiety unlocked by Bhoorah’s murder fundamentally altered the colonial administration.
After the crown took direct charge of the government in 1857, one of its first acts was to put in place a policy for the regulation and ultimately extermination of the transgender community. In 1865, the NWP declared a policy to “reduce the number of eunuchs” and “gradually lead to their extinction”. Within six years, the policy had been expanded nationally in scope and codified into the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA), whose little-studied Part II mandated police registers of “eunuchs”, expanded surveillance of these communities, banned “men” from wearing women’s clothing or performing in public, and asked authorities to remove children in transgender-populated households. Hinchy noted that the explicit long-term ambition of the Act was “limiting and thus finally extinguishing the number of eunuchs”, as officials argued transgender people were “habitual sodomites”, “beggars”, “an obscene presence in public spaces”, and “kidnappers and castrators of children”.
If some of these stereotypes sound familiar, it is because there is a straight line connecting the colonial moral panic underpinning the now-repealed Criminal Tribes Act and the amendments to the Transgender Rights Bill that passed Parliament this week. The changes—restricting the definition of the word “transgender” to exclude multiple communities; inserting several layers of medical bureaucracy in the process to obtain a transgender certificate; and instituting broad but vague provisions that criminalise those who cause someone to “assume” a transgender identity—reflect the same anxiety that the British government felt in their inability to understand or govern a population that sat outside the colonial understanding of gender. The year 2026 is not 1852, but the echoes are unmistakable.
When India transitioned from a colony to a republic in 1950, it attempted to eschew—at least on paper—the impulse to govern private lives in the pursuit of public morality. Both the legislation and the judiciary worked to liberalise laws around women, lower castes, and LGBTQIA+ people. Whether it be in the banning of dowry and untouchability, the protections for inter-caste and interfaith unions, the upholding of the right to privacy, or the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the republic established a framework that moved away from colonial obsessions about private behaviour and identity, towards rights and dignity. The NALSA judgment of 2014 was a high-water mark of this trajectory, recognizing the right of transgender persons to self-identify their gender and directing the state to provide reservations and protections.
How do the new amendments fare on this touchstone? The government has argued that the definition needed to be narrowed to avoid misuse. By whom? Reservations mandated under the NALSA judgment are patchily implemented; government data shows 1,400 transgender people among 43 million college and university students; only 20 criminal cases of violence against transgender people have been filed in the whole country since the 2019 Act was passed; and only 6 per cent are in formal employment, according to the National Human Rights Commission. Are people rushing to falsely identify as transgender for some imaginary handout, while braving the avalanche of social stigma and violence that the tag carries? The numbers suggest otherwise.
Similarly, the increased scrutiny on issuing transgender certificates and conducting gender-affirmative care belies logic. Practically, the transgender certificate does little beyond allowing a person to apply for documents, jobs, and education in the gender of their choice. Making hospitals inform officials before carrying out a procedure not only increases friction and delays in the process but also puts transgender citizens at an unequal footing compared to their counterparts. If all citizens don’t have to convince a government authority about their gender, or whether they deserve to receive medical care, why should some? The answer lies not in any evidence of widespread misuse, but in a deep-seated unease about gender diversity itself.
The broad criminalisation provisions are perhaps the most troubling. They not only penalise transpersons—importing the same Criminal Tribes Act stereotype that transgender people are kidnappers who lure children—without a word on natal family violence that forces many transpersons to flee homes, but they also hold the scope to punish almost anyone by using vague words such as “allurement” or “deception”. A parent who supports their transgender child could be accused of “alluring” them into a false identity. A doctor who provides gender-affirming care could be accused of “deception”. The vagueness of the language is not a bug; it is a feature, designed to chill support for transgender persons and to give the state broad discretion to prosecute those who do.
Fundamentally, it appears that the amendments stem from a mindset that seeks to regulate a community not on its own terms, but based on what someone believes is the correct idea about gender. This unease around ideas of gender unfamiliar to the government is not only reflected across the globe—including in the US or UK, where transgender rights have become a cultural lightning rod—but also in attitudes of India’s colonial masters 150 years ago. For a country that once took the lead in recognising diverse identities and has historically been more tolerant of non-normative expressions of gender, the amendments represent a step backwards. They are the opposite of devotion to the constitutional values of dignity, privacy, and equality. They are, instead, a return to a colonial framework that saw gender diversity as a problem to be managed and, ultimately, extinguished.
The amendments will be challenged in court. The constitutional arguments are strong: the narrowing of the definition violates the principle of equality under Article 14; the intrusion into medical privacy violates the right to privacy affirmed in Puttaswamy; the vague criminal provisions violate the right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19 and the right to life under Article 21. But the legal battle, however important, is only one front. The deeper battle is for the soul of the republic—for the idea that private lives are not the business of government morality, that diversity is not a threat to be managed, and that the long arc of history bends towards inclusion, not exclusion. The amendments of 2026 are a setback, but they are not the final word. The story of Bhoorah, murdered in 1852, is also the story of her community’s survival, of their persistence through centuries of persecution, of their slow, hard-won recognition. That story is not over.
Questions and Answers
Q1: What was the significance of the 1852 murder case of Bhoorah for transgender communities in India?
A1: The murder case of Bhoorah, a Hijra, triggered a colonial moral panic about transgender people. The British judges were alarmed at their presence, describing them as “beggars” and “unnatural prostitutes.” This anxiety led to the 1865 policy to “reduce the number of eunuchs” and eventually the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) of 1871, which mandated police surveillance, banned cross-dressing, and aimed at the “extinction” of transgender communities.
Q2: What are the key amendments to the Transgender Rights Bill passed by Parliament?
A2: The key amendments include:
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Restricting the definition of “transgender” to exclude multiple communities.
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Inserting several layers of medical bureaucracy in the process to obtain a transgender certificate.
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Instituting broad, vague criminal provisions that penalize those who cause someone to “assume” a transgender identity, using terms like “allurement” and “deception.”
Q3: What evidence does the article cite to question the government’s claim that the amendments are needed to prevent misuse of transgender rights?
A3: The article cites government data showing:
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Only 1,400 transgender people among 43 million college and university students.
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Only 20 criminal cases of violence against transgender people filed since the 2019 Act was passed.
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Only 6 per cent of transgender people in formal employment.
This suggests that there is no rush to falsely claim transgender identity for imaginary benefits.
Q4: What constitutional concerns do the amendments raise?
A4: The amendments potentially violate:
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Article 14 (equality before the law) by narrowing the definition of transgender.
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The right to privacy affirmed in Puttaswamy by intruding on medical confidentiality.
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Article 19 (freedom of speech and expression) and Article 21 (right to life) through vague criminal provisions that can chill support for transgender persons.
Q5: How does the article connect the 2026 amendments to colonial-era policies?
A5: The article argues that there is a “straight line” connecting the colonial Criminal Tribes Act of 1871—which sought to regulate and extinguish transgender communities—and the 2026 amendments. Both reflect an anxiety about gender diversity that the state cannot understand or govern. The stereotypes of transgender people as “beggars,” “kidnappers,” and a “reproach” to government from colonial times echo in the new criminal provisions and bureaucratic hurdles.
