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2004 National College Media Convention
Next Generation Radio Project
Nashville, Tennessee
November 2-6, 2004
Erik Howard's Script
 Hear Erik's piece
I went to India with an open mind. I wanted to understand why and how the alis were struggling. I knew that the Indian people were open-minded. They'd elected a woman as prime minister and several transsexuals to public office.
But the alis aren't typical transsexuals. They're male but choose to be castrated. They engage in homosexuality but disdain homosexuals. They believe themselves to be women, but they don't menstruate or give birth. For a western observer it was very confusing.
(rickshaw)
I took an auto rickshaw to meet Maari, the senior-most member of the ali community.
Do you have people like alis in America?
Maari was once a famous folk singer and dancer. She participated in the traditional work of the alis' found in Hindu sacred scriptures.
Well, the people say, come and sing, come and dance. We come and sing, we come and dance. In a way that is an answer. That is how they take part in the social life cycle rituals. Actually, they are taking part in a very important occasion - the end point, the death - they take part in the death rituals.
At 74, she's now too old to sing or dance or recruit young alis to the fold. Most are brought into the community by a recruiter at a very young age. Indian people from poor communities often force their loved ones from the home when they can no longer support them. As a result, recruiting alis can be as easy as picking someone up from the street.
Seetha was forced from home at age ten. Her father thought he was too effeminate.
She belongs to this place and from the age, after 10 years, or the 11th year, started realizing she is not like the other boys. When she was 11 years old she was brought up here. And brothers and sisters? They all split. They all left her.
Seetha and Maari make money by dancing. Other members of the community are better educated and have more opportunities. Rajesh, another member of the ali community, has a master's degree. He's part of the new generation of alis who qualify for higher paying jobs. However, in order to hold his job, Rajesh must hide his transgendered status. He wears male clothes, has a moustache, and cuts his hair short. Rajesh feels humiliated by having to dress and act like a man. Our translator, Sheker calls him an undercover ali.
When I was a kid all the alis were all wearing saris only nowadays I see people like Rajesh, they are all wearing the male clothes but inside they are a woman. -And why is that?- Society will not accept those of us in the ali community.
Experts say the alis were stripped of their identity when the British colonized India in the late 19th century, Dr. Bill Harman is an Indologist and Head of Philosophy and Religion Department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Well generally speaking, the Brits who brought with them a very unapologetic Christian culture, were rather repulsed of the whole notion of an ali community, they didn't give them either the respect or services that they were able to provide other Indians and so it became quite clear in India that from the Western perspective, the British perspective at this time, that being an ali was in many ways a disadvantage from the point of view of a colonial power that was dispensing all the goodies.
The British left India almost six decades ago but their influence is still felt. Alis are being pushed out to the margins of Indian society. The vast majority of alis now prostitute themselves to earn a living. But, while many alis are failing, some are succeeding. Six alis have been elected to public office. They're fighting to establish an official third gender in India. But, Professor Harman says their future is still ambiguous.
On one hand, it's possible their rising political career -- which is very very new -- it may gain a certain kind of respect in the communities they never had before. I think the real issue is whether or not they are going to take a certain amount of pride and self-respect with who they are. Whether the alis end up being simply prostitutes or whether they are able to establish or sort of carve out something more than that, I think that is an important issue.
Some sociologists say a society is ultimately judged by how it treats its weaker classes. The alis hope India will be a model for the rest of the world in the way it treats all of its unconventional citizens. For Next Generation Radio, I'm Erik Howard.
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