(Representative image)

Bengaluru: The word 'eunuchs' is all set to go out of use, at least in police circles of Karnataka. The legislative assembly on Friday passed the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Bill-2016 to substitute the word 'eunuchs' with 'persons' under Section 36(A) of the Karnataka Police Act-1963. The idea is to create sensitivity among policemen, while referring to transgenders in official records or otherwise.

Transgender rights activists, though, aren't upbeat about the change. They say merely changing the name won't reduce the detrimental effect of Section 36(A) on the community.

Section 36(A) of the Karnataka Police Act literally seeks to regulate the transgender community as it empowers the police commissioner to crackdown against 'eunuchs' who emasculate boys and commit unnatural offences. Karnataka has the highest transgender population (8,500 in the voters list) in the country; the two other states with significant transgender population are Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government's move to bring in a legislation to create sensitivity among the policemen by replacing the word enuch'' with persons'' while referring to them in records seemed not have impressed the community.

While the legislative assembly passed the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Bill-2016 on Friday to pave way for the substitution of the word 'eunuchs' with the 'persons' in Section 36(A) of the Karnataka Police Act-1963 the transgender activists were not upbeat about it. The latter hit back: Merely changing the nomenclature will not reduce the detrimental effect of Section 36(A) on the community.

Section 36(A) of the Karnataka Police Act literally seeks to regulate the transgender community as it empowers the police commissioner to crackdown against 'eunuchs' who emasculate boys and commit unnatural offences. Karnataka has the highest transgender population (8,500 of them are in the voters list) in the country; the other two states with significant transgender population are Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. A major complaint from community pertain to rampant use of Section 36(A) by police.

Explaining the content of the bill, a home department official told TOI: "With this, police personnel will be instructed not to refer to members of transgender community as 'eunuchs' in official records. This is a shot in the arm for the transgender community as it'll no longer be looked down in the government circles. Directives have been issued to take up gender sensitization programmes for police officers."

The government's move comes in the backdrop of a PIL filed in the high court by Karnataka Sexual Minorities Forum, seeking deletion of Section 36(A) from the Karnataka Police Act - 1963. Transgender rights activists had termed Section 36(A) as 'regressive', as it empowered the police chief to pass orders to maintain a register of "names and places of residence of eunuchs (transgender community) who are reasonably suspected of kidnapping or emasculating boys or of committing unnatural offences or any other offences abetting the commissioning of such offences.

In fact, Section 36(A) was introduced in 2011 based on recommendation from former law secretary K R Chamayya, following reports of young boys being abducted or lured by transgender community.

IT'S STILL PROBLEMATIC

It's still problematic. Merely replacing the word 'eunuch' won't eliminate the spirit of Section 36(A), which is detrimental to the transgender community

Ramya Jawahar | lawyer specializing in gender rights & member of Alternative Law Forum

REVOKE SECTION 36(A)

We have been asking for complete revocation of Section 36(A), which is nothing but an extension of the repealed Criminal Tribes Act - 1871. But they have only done some minor tweaking. Anything short of complete revocation is completely unacceptable and it's still an infringement on the movement and right to equality

Gowthaman Ranganathan | consultant for Karnataka Transgender Committee

