Gai Jatra : The Androgynous Connection

September 1, 2013 , by Sewa Bhattarai, Leave your thoughts

Gai Jatra is a traditional Nepali festival held in memory of the dead. Family members of a person dead within the last year take out a procession, with either a cow or a person representing the dead person. The celebration goes back to the Malla king Pratap Malla ordering his subjects to make his queen laugh, who was grieving for her dead son. As a result, this festival traditionally has elements of humour and latitude in dressing.

Of late, the festival of Gai Jatra, as is tradition, has been noticeable for extension of elements besides traditional ones. The Neophytes, the third gender, have been taking part in the festival with separate rally eventually merging into the culture, dressed in costumes considered outlandish for the conservative Nepal. Men (cross) dressed as women, wearing short skirts, heavy make-up, long hair and padded or augmented breasts. But are they as alien to our culture as we assume them to be? We talked to culture expert Tejeswor Babu Gongah to find out the cultural place of third gender in Gai Jatra.

“Gai Jatra is also known as Hela Jatra, or, in other words, a day of fun when nobody cares what you do. Outlandish yet creative costumes have always been a part of Gai Jatra, so it is almost like the festival was ‘tailor-made’ for those who like to dress up as the opposite sex. Perhaps that is the reason they choose to come out in Gai Jatra and not in any other festival” said Gongah. Sunil Babu Panta, Nepal’s first openly gay politician, agrees that the reason many people of third gender feel confident about expressing themselves on this day is that they blend in with the exuberance of the festive ambience of the day.

Gender anomaly has always been a part of the festival. “Gai Jatra is a day that commemorates the dead, and people go out dressed-up as a man or woman based on the gender of the person who died in the family. In earlier days, women were not participating or allowed out in public Jatras, so men dressed up as women to add to the colour of the day, and substitute for the absent women.” Even today, the tradition continues, and we see many men, boys, kids dressed as women in ornate costumes, rouge and ornaments.

But today, third genders are using the forum as the one day which permits them to go out in public the way they feel inside, without being ostracised. Apart from the culturally sanctioned cross-dressing, third genders also use Gai Jatra as a forum to make the socio-political statements. Sunil Babu Panta mentioned that many people come out only on this day, and some take this day as a sort of “coming out of the closet” day. After each Gai Jatra, the number of third genders living openly in Nepal swells. For them, the Jatra is a forum to exert their identity and existence.

For the past eleven years, people of third gender have been campaigning and spreading awareness of their existence, and voicing their demands for dignity and equal rights through this Jatra. Kranti Chaudhary, who dressed in a green ‘lehenga‘ and called herself a “third gender” believes that their rally spreads awareness about people like her. Dipika Tamang, who likes to call herself a woman, is campaigning for her fundamental rights. Mohan was a homosexual man who was bare-chested, wore make up and masquerade masks on his face, and butterfly wings and a sexual-rights slogan on his back. He believes that no one should be persecuted for their sexual orientation.

In fact, once we delved deeper in the crowd, we found that they are not all people of the third gender. All kinds of sexual minorities; gays, lesbians, sex-workers were part of the parade. “Why are you here?” I asked Maiya, a 48 year old woman who confessed to preferring women over men, sexually. “Because the third genders are people just like us. They are our friends. We support each other and help each other out in trouble” she replied. Her statement aptly illustrated how all kinds of sexual minorities are treated in Nepal. Sexual minorities, though very different from each other, feel the need to band together for unity, because society treats them all as pariahs.

Sunil Babu Panta concurs. “Gai Jatra is a day when we commemorate the dead, but people of third gender are treated as good as dead when they are still alive” he began. “They have very little support from their family. That is why we, the community of sexual minorities, decided to take out this procession in memory of dead members of our community.”

When they first took part in Gai jatra in 2002, the rally consisted of 48 members. And today, there are hundreds of sexual minorities from all over the country taking part in the Jatra. Many students of BSW and MSW from college in the valley also came out in force to support them. Panta feels that the rise in awareness has definitely contributed to a rising acceptance of sexual minorities in society, but it is still not enough. “We want to live with dignity” said Sita Thapa, a former prostitute in her mid 30s who lives with many other women like her. They raise kids together.

When asked how that can be possible, Maiya named respect and employment as the two pillars that allow every individual to live with dignity. She feels that the main reason for discrimination against sexual minorities is their sexual preferences and the subsequent denial of their being by society, resulting in lack of equal employment opportunities. This put them in precarious socio-economic circumstances. If our society gives lets them compete socially/professionally without discrimination and prejudice, it will help them become financially independent. This in turn will help society understand, accept and respect the third gender equally, creating a harmonious and humble society as we are identified by the world. This will allow the ‘third gender’ to be as intelligent, productive, capable citizens of this nation as we expect every individual in our society to be. And finally, this will allow the minorities to prove that they are as valuable and remarkable individuals as normal men and women.

But why do they choose Gai Jatra to make political statements? According to Gongah, Gai Jatra has always been used for such purposes. In the days of Rana regime and Panchayat, it was a sacrilege to speak against the regime. But Gai Jatra was a day when everything was pardonable, so people used it to vent about everything from social rules to oppressive regime. “Rulers were oppressive, but they need feedback too, to understand what the people thought of them. Since they did not let people speak on other days, they used this day to find out what people felt” said Gongah. One such occasion was in 1979, he recounts. Gongah had invited government officials including the chief secretary of King Birendra to view the Jatra. The effigy of Panchayat system was brought around and set on fire right in front of their eyes. King Birendra got the message and carried out a referendum the next year, between the Panchayat system and a multi-party system. Though it may look like a day of fun and frolic at the outset, that is how powerful a statement Gai Jatra can make.

To those who may not know, Nepal is one of the few countries to recognize third genders in government documents like citizenships and passports. A court verdict in 2012 for Badri Pun made it possible, deciding in favour of the trans-gender Pun to be identified as such, and also scrapping all discriminatory laws. In 2012, Nepal became the first country in the world to count third genders in its official census. What more do they want? “We want the same rights as the other two genders” said Dipika Tamang, dressed in sensuous shoulder-less sari. “We want our fundamental rights,” said Sunil Babu Panta, “including the right to vote, the right to be represented in the parliament, and the right to property. And we want our marriages to be recognized.”

Gai Jatra was historically and culturally initiated as a way to bring smiles to bereaved families, and in later periods also became a system to keep count of deceased citizens, validate the dead with sacred elements, and express compassion to grieving family members. It is time we identified and validated the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual & Transvestite) community the way we, the ‘normal’ people are by society.

Culturally, they have always been part of our society. This one day provided opportunities, not only to them to come forward, but also to ‘us’ to realize that there are varieties of us, in different anatomical forms. We have had them among us, we pass them by in the crowd, we see their faces time and again, and except for minor differences, we really don’t differentiate them as strange. We do accept them, only we need to include them in our legal system. We need to accommodate them within the system of our human civilization that believes in harmony, co-existence, and sacredness of each individual (with god in every person). If our system keeps tabs of deceased people, is it fair that living humans live in oblivion? Their lives are as precious as yours and mine. Their dreams are as powerful as any one of ours. Remember how they have made you smile with their very difference on the day of Gai Jatra! Here is to hoping that all sexual minorities in Nepal realize their dreams of an equal and dignified life.

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Text by: Sewa Bhattarai
Photographer: Bikkil Sthapit