Akkai Padmashali and the fight for identity

IN PERSPECTIVE

I first met Akkai many years ago at protests and programmes connected with the rights of transgender persons and sexual minorities. As the years passed, we would often see this vibrant woman - shouting slogans, holding a banner - or dancing with joy back in 2009 when the Delhi High Court partially struck down Section 377 which criminalised homosexuality. I interviewed her after she won the Rajyotsava Award from the Karnataka government in 2015. Feisty and outspoken, she was a natural choice for the bites we needed for our TV news stories. Having met and spoken to her so many times, I thought I knew Akkai.

When I read her autobiography, ‘A Small Step In A Long Journey’ - a memoir as told to Gowri Vijayakumar - I realised that what I knew about Akkai was the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

In a country that criminalised homosexuality for so long and where sexual minorities were once described as a ‘miniscule fraction’ of the population, seeming to imply that they were too small a number to really matter, the life of a trans person is not easy.

And Akkai’s struggle from childhood to assert her identity was hard. She describes the traumas she faced with painful honesty in her book.

Akkai has survived several sexual assaults. And tragically - as often happens with such crimes - she has been blamed for the violence she faced. After a brutal attack in the toilet of the place where she was studying - she says the principal, seeing her with torn clothes said, ”If you had behaved like a man, this would not have happened…Don’t show your face. Please go out of this office, get clean and go back home.”

Her description of the marital rape she suffered is a stark reminder that a husband does not have right over his wife’s body - and that rape within a marriage is still rape.

Akkai attempted suicide when she was very young and was saved by her brother. He was present, years later, at the launch of her book.

After years as a sex worker, Akkai joined the NGO world. She describes how things can fall apart even when people have come together for a common cause. In many groups she found the voice of transgender persons, particularly those from the ‘working class’, was suppressed in favour of ‘elite’ voices. She has since formed her own organisation - ‘Ondede.’

She talks also of the deep biases among those in a position to help the vulnerable - politicians, officials, police.

Even within the transgender society, with its many rules and customs, Akkai fought against the system. She believes the leaders of the trans community do not have the right to impose archaic restrictions. The wearing of sarees, having long hair and undergoing a sex-change operation were expectations she initially resisted, deciding to follow those diktats only if and when she wanted to. Her guru from the community, Geethamma Nayak, was at the launch of the English version of her book.

There is a remarkable one-woman play based on Akkai’s life, scripted and directed by Dr Beluru Raghunandan and performed by Nayana Sooda. I asked Akkai what she felt when she first saw the play. “I cried from start to finish,” she said.

Despite all she has been through, Akkai does not want to be viewed with an ‘ayyo paapa’ mindset, with pity.

The child who was thrown out by her father, who slept under the market flyover and started sex work to survive, went on to become a woman who has spoken internationally on the rights of transgender persons and visited Rashtrapati Bhavan as an honoured guest.

The full name Akkai chose for herself -- when she left behind the childhood name of Jagadish -- is Ashta Aishwarya Ghana Sampanne Doddamane Akkayamma. This trail-blazer wanted an old-fashioned name.

Akkai’s story is far from over. She celebrated when homosexuality was decriminalised in India by the Supreme Court in 2018. But there are still huge legal challenges faced by sexual minorities in India. And a lot of work left for Akkai and her colleagues to do. Akkai, with her beautiful sarees and favourite long-sleeved blouses will be seen in the frontlines of that legal and social battle.

The personal is political.

She says at the end of her book, “I learn from the dreams of Nelson Mandela, of B R Ambedkar, of Gandhi. Society should not discriminate against us in the name of gender and sexuality. Society should not harass us, or oppress us, or kill us, in the name of patriarchy and power. I dream of a just world, a world without discrimination or social exclusion, where people exist for their sakes and lead their lives with dignity. I dream that tomorrow’s world will be one in which we are all born and die simply as human beings.”

(The writer is a senior journalist with NDTV)

Counselling helpline:
Karnataka Arogya
Sahayavani - 104;
Bengaluru Sahai - 080-25497777 (10 am to 8 pm)