Nearly nine years after the Supreme Court’s landmark National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) decision, which recognized transgender persons as a third gender and issued directions to protect their rights and dignity, public education for trans people The movement to secure horizontal reservation and employment is gathering momentum, and includes a legal battle that seeks to modify a part of the landmark 2014 judgement.
The judgment directed the central and state governments to provide “all forms of reservation” to transgender people in admission to educational institutions and employment, and the transgender community in India continues to fight for its enforcement. But since the judgment also calls for trans people to be treated as ‘socially and educationally backward classes’, which runs the risk of lumping them with the OBCs, the community is also demanding that separate trans reservations be ensured in all categories. Used to be.
However, the central government revealed in a reply in Parliament that it is not considering any proposal to provide quotas to trans people, activists, scholars and lawyers pointed out. Hindu That their agitation for reservation will now intensify.
Grace Banu, a Chennai-based activist, is preparing to approach the Supreme Court for clarification on the direction of the NALSA’s decision on quotas that could risk mixing trans people with OBCs. Delhi activist Jane Kaushik’s petition filed in the Delhi High Court regarding horizontal reservation is awaiting the government’s response. The pendency of cases on the inclusion of trans people in the Most Backward Class (MBC) category is on the rise in Tamil Nadu. A contempt petition has been filed against the state government for failing to implement the directions on trans reservation issued in February 2022 during the hearing of the case of a trans woman police constable who was seeking promotion at the sub-inspector level. wants to apply for. ,
While Anjali Gopalan, founder of Naaz Foundation, an NGO working for trans rights, said that it is unfortunate that the government is not considering reservation, Bittu Kondaiah, an activist and associate professor of biology and psychology at Ashoka University, said that Definitely speed up the campaign for reservation now.
Jayna Kothari, one of the advocates who fought and won for 1% horizontal reservation for trans people in the Karnataka High Court said, “The government’s comment [in Parliament] Actually going against the decision of NALSA.”
In its reply earlier this week, the Ministry of Social Justice had said that the law already prohibits all forms of discrimination against trans people and it was not considering any proposal to bring reservation for them.
“They can give reservation to EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) but not us? For 70+ years we have been begging and doing sex work and we have nothing. They have made a law which gives a message but does not give us our rights. Reservation is important for us. If the government isn’t going to do it, what are we left with here? We can start seeking refuge elsewhere,” Ms. Banu, who also founded and runs the Trans Rights Now collective, said.
Ayesha, a 25-year-old zoology (honours) graduate from Delhi University, had appeared for the entrance exam for the postgraduate program in embryology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in 2022. Despite securing All India Rank 11, she did not succeed. “They only had six seats for the course. If even one seat was reserved for trans people, I would have got it.
“It is not clear why the government is not considering it. In that case, do you think OBCs are discriminated against more than transgender people?” Ms. Ayesha asked.
Pro. Kondaiah pointed out that while there are general-category trans people who can help connect with the OBCs, the trans community is now slowly coming to a consensus that horizontal reservation is “more realizable and politically viable to pass as well”. And this is an essential thing for trans people who are already coming from socially marginalized backgrounds.
Before announcing in Parliament that it was not considering a quota for trans people, the Union Ministry of Social Justice was considering a proposal to include them in the OBC category by 2021. In fact, the Allahabad High Court, in December 2022, citing a 2014 NALSA judgment, suggested that trans people be considered a “backward class of citizens” for the purpose of fixing OBC reservation in local body elections should go.
Senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal said, “My understanding of the direction is that it is assumed that the Center and the states will only take steps, but the intent of the direction is that you must provide reservation considering them as part of the OBC category.” ” Said.
But nothing in the NALSA judgment stops the State or the Center from bringing in reservations within each category (SC, ST, etc.), as the Karnataka government did after the High Court order for 1% reservation across the board. Did, explained Mr. Kirpal, who is the first openly gay lawyer to be approved by the Supreme Court collegium for a high court judgeship.
But he added that depending on how the system will be set up, people may have to choose whether to avail caste reservation or class reservation.
Ms Kothari said the experiment of including trans people in the MBCs had already been tried in Tamil Nadu and was “failing” as she found herself being crowded out by those relatively more privileged than her . “But on the contrary, in Karnataka, we are actually seeing an increase in the number of applications and representation after the 1% horizontal quota was brought in on the back of the High Court order,” she said.
“How will it be possible to mainstream if there is no representation of the trans community in employment and admission in educational institutions?” asked Ms. Kaushik, the petitioner in the Delhi High Court case.