Proceedings of the 6th World Conference on Social Sciences Studies
Year: 2024
DOI:
[PDF]
The Synthesized Hijra Identity and its Scriptural, Religious and Cultural Constituents: A Review of Extant Literatures
Dr. Lhamu Tshering Dukpa
ABSTRACT:
In a generic sense, the Hijra identity in India is characterized by an assemblage and a synthesis of myriad cultures, mythical, religious and scriptural tenets. In context to India, the hijras and its identity constituents invokes connotations pertaining to asceticism, celibacy, gender ambiguity and queerness. The hijras of India transgresses conventional forms of gender identities and inhabit marginal gendered spaces within the Indian social matrices. Given the multiple axes of determinants when delineating the hijra identity, the present paper underscores on the premise that the hijra identity draws its interpretations and identity constituents from multiple, conflicting and myriad sources. The paper corroborates the above premise by investigating works of literature that allude to cultural and religious elements in pre- and post-colonial periods, the overarching Hindu mythological themes that lend its motifs and themes of queerness and ambiguity towards the construction of the hijra identity, periods of Mughal reign and the practices of emasculation. The paper therefore contends that there are no immutable monolithic, singular and linear ways of apprehending the hijra identity, or a discrete and insulated historical, religious and cultural lineage that can be directly attributed towards the consolidation of the hijra identity. Rather, the identity and its constituents are a consequence of a mélange of multiple impingements and intersections of contexts, differing religions, myths, cultures, beliefs and practices.
keywords: Identity and identity constituents, Hijras of India