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Abstract

This paper draws upon empirical data in order to offer insights to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Peshawar City, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan. The paper also considers the resilience that the community developed during this time. Drawing on Butler’s concept of precarity and liveability, we in this article demonstrate how the precarious positionalities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic and thereafter in Pakistan. 10 members of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities were engaged in face-to-face interviews, and the paper demonstrates how community is made and maintained by Khawaja Sara and Hijra, who are amongst the most vulnerable, marginalized, oppressed, and isolated people in South Asian communities. Whilst not shying away from the violence that characterises the lives of participants, who face familial rejection, community, and social pressure to conform to strict cultural gender norms, and sexual and physical violence, the paper also works to highlight the ongoing adaptability and resilience of these ancient communities through engaging with the ways in which participants supported each other through the pandemic.

Keywords

Khawaja Sara Hijra transgender resilience Pakistan COVID-19

Introduction

In this article, the authors consider how the emergence of COVID-19 impacted Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities living in postcolonial Pakistan. To do this work, we draw upon social research carried out during the pandemic that examines its impact upon vulnerable and/or marginalised communities globally, and with transgender communities specifically. The paper is also shaped by our empirical work that was carried out with Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Peshawar City in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan shortly after state-imposed lockdowns in 2020. The paper uses Judith Butler’s (2004) concept of ‘precarious life’ as an analytical tool that allows us to understand the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra as part of an oppressed minority whose oppression has roots in British colonialism. Understanding postcolonial positionalities¹ in this way enables us to take up Butler’s call to recount complex histories and to read the present within the context of such histories. Thinking with Butler’s reading of precarious lives also enables us to consider the material conditions of the lives of our participants. For Butler, precariousness is an ineradicable part of human experience emerging from the fact that all lives are vulnerable to the possibility of injury and destruction. These concepts allow us to reflect upon the ways in which the pandemic had a deep and potentially lasting effect on the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra because of their already isolated positionalities within the social landscape of contemporary postcolonial Pakistan.

Khawaja Sara and Hijra are part of a global transgender community, however it is important for us to acknowledge that transgender and gender diverse people are understood differently according to context. In South Asia the terms Hijra (mostly used in India) and Khawaja Sara (used in addition to Hijra in Pakistan) are used to identify people whose sex assigned at birth does not reflect their gender identity (Mount 2020; Nisar 2018). Khawaja Sara and Hijra identities are also bound up with complex religious, ethnic, and economic diversity within the context of postcolonial South Asia. These terms also have religious, linguistic, and cultural significance, and have taken many shapes and so have different meanings, some of which are discussed in the literature review section of this paper.

As with many nations globally, in Pakistan during specific periods in 2020-2021 people were locked down and directed to work from home if they could. This had particular implications in developing nations such as Pakistan, where many people engage in forms of earning known as ‘daily waging’². Many workers lost their earning resources as a whole, or their earning opportunities were severely limited because of the lockdown restrictions and social distancing. It is in this way, that the COVID-19 pandemic further disadvantaged already precarious human lives globally as the world’s economy took a downturn (Laster Pirtle, 2020). The pandemic also put pressure upon health and education systems in ways that also further disadvantaged those on the lowest social rungs in societies worldwide. Sharma (2020) writes that,

The spread of COVID-19 has impacted almost every community, overwhelmed health systems and disrupted economies and livelihoods with effects reaching far beyond the health sector. It has also disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable.

Among the worst affected and most precariously employed groups in Pakistan were the communities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra. Already amongst the most marginalised and oppressed in Pakistani society (Azhar et al., 2024), as this paper will demonstrate, the COVID-19 pandemic and associated periods of lockdown increased the precarious positionality of the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in contemporary Pakistan. This is because the nature of work that is available to most Khawaja Sara and Hijra includes dancing and singing at night parties, begging, sex work and offering blessings, all of which are dependent upon face-to-face contact and freedom of movement. The paper also illustrates the resilience of the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities of Peshawar, and demonstrates how the pandemic opened up possibilities for new solidarities.

Literature review: tracing Khawaja Sara and hira identities

Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Pakistan are a heterogeneous group that includes gender non-conforming individuals (Nisar, 2018). Because of strict cultural, social and religious codes that shape discourses around gender in Pakistan, Khawaja Sara and Hijra often face familial rejection, community and social pressure, as well as sexual and physical violence (Saddique et al., 2017) as they navigate their identities within local cultures. The communities mostly earn their living through begging, singing, dance, the collection of charity called Badhai³ (Alamgir, 2024), and by offering a voluntary practice of blessing to newborn children and newly married couples in mostly urban localities of Pakistan (Jami, 2005; Nisar 2018; Sharma 2012). The urban location of this work reflects the need for Khawaja Sara and Hijra to relocate if they are from rural communities, where the threat of familial rejection and violence are exacerbated by severe local social, cultural, and religious codes. Similarly, living in the urban landscape, Khawaja sara and Hijra find themselves at the intersection of tradition and modernity, encountering a blend of acceptance and discrimination within their own communities. The rapid pace of urbanization in cities like Peshawar offers numerous opportunities of earning such as participation in music concerts, dancing and night parties, good opportunities of access to shelter, and healthcare facilities such as hospitals and established health clinics. However, those Khawaja Sara and Hijra residing in rural areas surrounding Peshawar confront with entrenched traditional gender norms and societal stigmatization, leaving them more vulnerable due to the prevalence of strong socio-cultural practices like honor and respect. For earning, majority of the Khawaja Sara and Hijra rely on begging, blessings and charity nets. It is important to note, that the juxtaposition between begging and blessing in the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra reflects the ongoing effects of British colonisation upon these social groups who, in precolonial times, were revered as holy individuals within both Sufi Islam and Hinduism and occupied high positions within Mughal courts (see Hinchy, 2017; Michelraj, 2015).

During British colonialism, Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities came to occupy the lowest rung on the gender hierarchy in the subcontinent as the colonial era Criminal Tribal Act (CTA) robbed them of the high status they enjoyed during the Mughal period. The CTA brought with it Victorian notions of morality and amorality, and Khawaja Sara and Hijra were classified under the law as ‘male persons’ (Hinchy, 2017). Their traditional dress, singing and dancing were also outlawed, meaning that they turned to unofficial means of employment such as begging and collecting alms, practices that continue today. They were exposed to a ‘colonial pandemic’ during British colonialism where the gender and sexuality of Khawaja Sara and Hijra were challenged and regulated with laws and policy regulations. During the colonial pandemic, members of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities actively resisted against laws and policy regulations that attempted to confine and erase them from public life. As part of their resilience mission, some Khawaja Sara and Hijra corresponded with the British government through letters that argued with the government about their precarious situation. Similarly, many of the Khawaja Sara and Hijra relocated themselves to different regions in the subcontinent, settling themselves beyond the colonial borders where policies were not enforced.

Following the end of the British occupation of the Subcontinent, and following Pakistan’s independence from India, Khawaja Sara and Hijra continued to be strictly regulated. Under General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation of Pakistan through the Hudood Ordinance of the late 1970s, the community continued to be classified as being involved in homosexual activity, crimes which carried harsh punishments such as life imprisonment and/or stoning. Research demonstrates how, in contemporary Pakistan, Khawaja Sara and Hijra remain amongst the most vulnerable, marginalised, oppressed, and isolated communities (Kilbride 2015; Mount 2020).

Khawaja Sara and hijra in contemporary Pakistan

In contemporary Pakistan, Khawaja Sara and Hijra are classified under a national identity scheme as ‘third gender’, however if they are found to be engaging in intimate partner relationships, they can be punished by anti-homosexuality laws that carry a prison sentence, and incarceration in male prisons. There is no official survey available on the actual number of transgender populations in Pakistan, however 10,418 Khawaja Sara and Hijra were reported in the 2017 census. This figure is, however, widely criticised by national-level organisations who question the small number of identified Khawaja Sara and Hijra in the context of a Pakistani population of 208 million. Additionally, in the report of a local organisation (Reuter) in Punjab has announced that there are 0.4 million transgender individuals in Pakistan (Alamgir, 2024).

Khawaja Sara and Hijra are severely marginalised within Pakistani society as documented in the studies of Abdullah et al. (2012) and Ahmed et al. (2014). These studies demonstrate that most members of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities either choose or are forced to leave their familial home, meaning that they are left without property or inheritance rights. Once Khawaja Sra and Hijra people leave the family home, they are often subject to oppression and marginalisation from the wider community in Pakistan (Khan, 2014; Pamment, 2010).

To mitigate this, Khawaja Sara and Hijra live in Dera, a kind of communal home run by elder members of the community, known as gurus. Novice Khawaja Sara and Hijra, known as cheelas, earn their keep within their Dera by begging, collecting alms, giving blessings to newly born children and singing and dancing at night parties. Sex work is not uncommon as a way for Khawaja Sara and Hijra to earn a living but is not a main source of income for most community members in Peshawar, as the majority earn income through dancing, singing and participation in night parties (Abbas and Pir, 2016). During lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the communities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra were forced to remain in their Dera’s, which significantly restricted their regular means of income. This made them more vulnerable and economically precarious, and widened their sociocultural, economic, and political inequalities in Pakistan. Whilst we wished to engage with all of the potential means of making a living available to Khawaja Sara and Hijra, university ethics required that we did not directly ask participants about sex work, as this is illegal in Pakistan. Therefore asking participants to disclose participation in illegal activity may put them, and the researcher at risk. Where participants voluntarily disclosed undertaking sex work, we honoured this and refer to such data in this paper where appropriate.

During the COVID-19 crises, the lack of attention and support from both the government and civil society organizations has exacerbated the already ongoing challenging circumstances of transgender people in Peshawar. But, organizations like Blue Veins and Transaction Pakistan were found to step up and to fill the gap in social support and welfare measures. Both the organisation along with the support of their donors provided much-needed assistance to transgender individuals in Peshawar. Distributing essential items like food, hand sanitizers, and masks is crucial for their well-being and to live with resilience during these difficult times.

Khawaja Sara and Hijra can be understood as living what Judith Butler (2004) terms ‘precarious lives’. For Butler, precarious life is a common mode of human vulnerability that emerges because embodied human existence depends on interdependency. In other words, humans are fundamentally constituted through relations and through exposure to the other. For Butler (2004, p.30), the situation of “being given over to the touch of the other, even if there is no other there, and no support for our lives, signifies a primary helplessness and need, one to which any society must attend”. From this perspective, the differences in vulnerability primarily develop through different forms of identities, in which certain lives or souls are highly protected, whereas other lives and souls do not qualify as being “grievable.” Precarity, then becomes a differential distribution of bodily destruction and grievability that emerges through specific social and political arrangements (Butler 2004). Butler’s insights on precarity and precariousness are important here because the COVID-19 pandemic has not only produced but increased the risk of vulnerability and uncertain conditions in the lives of many across the globe, including the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities of Peshawar.

Fernández-Caparrós (2021) argues that,

precarity refers to the fact that much of the world’s population lacks stable work and steady incomes. Informal, temporary, or contingent work is the predominant mode of livelihood in the contemporary world, where garbage picking, performing day labour, selling petty commodities, and sourcing task-based ‘gigs’ through digital platforms exemplify some of precarity’s many forms (p 120).

Butler (2009) argues that precarity is the differential distribution of precariousness where it ‘designates that politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death’ (p. 33). In the context of this paper, populations such as Khawaja Sara and Hijra ‘are at a heightened risk of disease, poverty, starvation, displacement, and of exposure to violence without protection’ (p. 33-34). Populations such as Khwaja Sara and Hijra may appeal to and rely on the government for protection from violence and harm, but the government “is precisely that from which they require protection’ (p. 34). For Butler precariousness is understood ‘as a shared condition, and precarity as the politically induced condition that would deny equal exposure through the radically unequal distribution of wealth and the differential ways of exposing certain populations'' such as Khwaja Sara and Hijra ‘to greater violence’ (p. 35). In the next section we discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted some groups disproportionately.

The pandemic and the amplification of marginalisation and precariousness in Pakistan

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and amplified the many inequalities that exist within societies globally. These inequalities were perhaps made most apparent by the impact of the pandemic upon the lives of the precariously employed. These effects have been substantially examined from a Western perspective, where it is evident that the effects of the pandemic were not evenly distributed. Wilson et al. (2020) have highlighted the unprecedented precarity that has been heightened by COVID-19 pandemic across the globe that further increased the level of division in terms of economic recessions and human resource development for different groups. This means that some social groups during the pandemic crises were impacted disproportionately (Sevilla and Smith 2020). Whilst there is less research available on the impact of the pandemic upon developing countries, the research that does exist demonstrates that the effects were even more acute (see for example Mooi-Reci and Risman, 2021). For example Agarwal (2021) has described how women in rural India were responsible for providing care as extra labour to those in home quarantine during the pandemic lockdown.

Amongst the precariously employed the COVID-19 pandemic had devastating effects globally, particularly if this work was located on the social margins, such as sex work. Colander and Hunt (2022), for example, has examined the global male sex work industry, and demonstrated how the pandemic meant a severe loss of income for male sex workers, many of whom, because of the precarious or illegal nature of their work, did not have access to government financial aid.

South Asia’s nine countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Islamic Republic of Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka - represent 30% of the world’s total population. Their situation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic became increasingly precarious. A United Nations report published in 2020 - COVID-19 and South Asia: National Strategies and Subregional Cooperation for Accelerating Inclusive, Sustainable and Resilient Recovery – notes that South Asian countries entered the COVID-19 crisis with many existing challenges that have significantly hampered progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These challenges include high incidences of poverty and hunger, gaps in the public health infrastructure of different states, and access to basic services such as clean drinking water and sanitation, and inadequate social protection systems. (ESCAP 2020: p.2)

Amongst the South Asian countries, Pakistan provides a window into the region’s challenges and opportunities, and how to plan for a future where the risk of global health and climate crises may become more frequent (Anwar et al., 2023). Pakistan currently faces many challenges in human development terms. The Human Development Index 2020, for example, (HDI) has ranked Pakistan 156th out of 189 countries - lower than all comparable countries in South Asia. Pakistan’s population growth rate is among the highest in the world which, coupled with poor health and education outcomes, further entrenches socio-economic inequalities (Hassan and Zeb, 2021). A study conducted by Khan et al. (2021) suggested that Pakistan was amongst the least prepared nations to battle against the COVID-19 pandemic, and that people in the wider communities in Pakistan did not take seriously the gravity of this pandemic. The study of Abid et al. (2022) has highlighted that the struggling economic and health care systems, together with a high population growth, meant that the intensity of COVID-19 pandemic was greater in Pakistan compared to other countries in South Asia. One of the reasons for this is that the majority of the population live below the poverty line and are involved in work dubbed ‘daily waging’. In this context, the country could not impose a complete lockdown for a long period of time as this would have increased the death rate due to hunger, rather than COVID-19.

A relatively small number of research studies have been conducted to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on gender and sexually diverse (GSD) communities in different parts of the world, including a limited number of studies on the Khawaja Sara/Hijra communities in the South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. These studies have largely focused on the mental health, sexual health, psychological distress and/or the employment situation of GSD communities (Bhalla and Agarwal, 2021; Goel, 2020; Kidd et al., 2021; Sifat, 2020). Bhalla and Agarwal (2020), for example, have discussed the daily life experience of working-class gay men in Indian societies and described their psychological problems during the lockdown period in India. They suggest that many working-class gay men in India were forced to return to their familial homes during the lockdown and had to negotiate their sexuality and COVID-related mental health problems within the context of homophobic psychological and physical violence in their family homes. Similarly, Sifat (2020) suggests that Hijra communities in Bangladesh were at heightened risk during the COVID-19 lockdown as they became isolated from basic health facilities and earning opportunities. Sifat (2020) indicated the need for safety net programmes, including free counselling services for the Hijra community in Bangladesh, as a means to reduce their stigmatisation and discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic. In her study in India, Goel (2020) observed that many Hijra, who are dependent on antiretroviral drugs because of their HIV + status, and also on gender affirming hormonal medications, faced increased precarity and difficulties as they were unable to travel to medical centres during lockdowns because public transport was not available. The lack of access to medication had produced significant physical and psychological implications for Hijra in India.

Methodology and methods

This article emerged from a larger research project conducted by the first author that was titled Khawaja Sara and Hijra: Gender and Sexual Identity Formation in postcolonial Islamic Pakistan that investigated transgender communities in Peshawar. The aim of this research project was to address and explore the social, economic, cultural, religious, and political forces that shape the gender and sexual identities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra. and how they come to understand these identities in contemporary, postcolonial Pakistan. Additionally, this research project was also historically situated and examined the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial understandings of Khawaja Sara and Hijra, and explored the ways in which the traditional roles of Khawaja Sara and Hijra in South Asian societies were dismantled during British colonisation.

The first author collected additional data during the COVID-19 pandemic to investigate the impact of the virus and successive lockdowns on the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijras and their resilience in Peshawar. Investigating transgender resilience can add significant value to the literature because it provides insights into the unique challenges that this minoritised community encountered, as well as illustrating how they navigated new adversities brought about by COVID-19 pandemic. We employed a qualitative research methodology selecting en research participants from members of the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Peshawar using a snowball sampling technique. In-depth face-to-face and photovoice interviews were conducted with the research participants, in order to elevate the voices of Khawaja Sara and Hijra within a local and national context that often silences them.

Snowball sampling helped the researchers to interview participants who were referred by their kin from Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Peshawar. In this research, both the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra in Peshawar city were examined, because the pandemic changed the social and cultural ways of living. To find the magnitude and impact of pandemic this study was centred with two broad questions: What was the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra in Peshawar city? How did the Khawaja Sara and Hijra adapt to new ways of living during the COVID-19 pandemic and after in Peshawar city? The interviews also explored social isolation, and participant demands for recognition to be adopted in case of future crises in Pakistan.

The process of data collection was completed between May and September 2020. Khawaja Sara and Hijra usually spoke the local language, so in order to give voice to participants, all the interviews were conducted in Pashto, the dominant language in Peshawar and also to give respect and recognition to participants' participation in the study. All interviews were recorded through audio recorder upon consent provided by the participants. On completion of the face to face in depth interviews, all the interviews were carefully translated and transcribed from Pashto to English and thematically coded for analysis⁴ while pseudonyms were given to participants upon using their quotes for analysis. This was the tactically strategy to provide anonymity and protection to the study participants. The research was undertaken with participants' informed consent and was approved by the College of Design and Social Context Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC).

The next section explores the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra during the pandemic lockdown and demonstrates how COVID-19 has affected the socio-economic possibilities for them.

The pandemic and its impacts on Khawaja Sara and hijra communities and livelihoods

In Pakistan, the communities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra suffered significantly during the pandemic, particularly in terms of the consequences that flowed from public health measures to ‘flatten the curve’ of infections through such strategies as lockdown restrictions and social distancing. These sorts of restrictions had the effect of pushing these communities further to the margins of Pakistani life. Because the marginalisation of Khawaja Sara and Hijra continues from families of origin to wider cultural and social settings, they are often denied access to quality educational facilities and employment opportunities (Sharma 2012; Winter 2002). Khawaja Sara and Hijra histories and contemporary lives show us how bodies and subjectivities are politically constituted (Butler, 2004), and how the loss and vulnerability that Butler speaks of are experienced socially, culturally and economically. The losses that the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities experienced in terms of pre-existing inequality and marginality were amplified by the pandemic. The loss of material conditions was experienced acutely, as for many Khawaja Sara and Hijra, making a livelihood involves an ongoing struggle to earn whatever income they can from practices such as daily begging on roads, singing, participation in dancing or night parties, and for some, engagement in sex work, all of which rely on the physical presence of another.

Chotti, a young cheela from a guru-cheela house in Peshawar city stated that,

Dancing and night parties are the major sources of earning for us in Peshawar city. During COVID-19, we have lost our earning opportunities because of the government-imposed ban on night parties and dance functions. Community individuals have also postponed their programmes and wedding parties because of the COVID-19 lockdown. During this pandemic we are in a very precarious position because we have no funds, no net cash, and no savings and therefore, we are unable to meet our daily life expenses.

Chotti quote encapsulates the economic plight faced by the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Peshawar during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dancing and night parties, integral components of their livelihoods, traditionally provided a crucial source of income (Riaz, 2023). However, the government-imposed ban on such gatherings, a necessary measure to curb the spread of the virus, abruptly severed these financial lifelines. The impact of COVID-19 restrictions were not confined to individual earnings alone; the communal fabric itself was strained by the absence of funds, net cash, and savings that left Khawaja Sara and Hijra individuals grappling with the harsh reality of being unable to meet their daily life expenses. This account underscores the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 measures on communities already marginalized and highlights the urgent need for targeted support mechanisms to address the unique challenges faced by transgender individuals during times of crisis. The interconnectedness of their economic activities and social events rendered the community vulnerable, amplifying their precarious position.

COVID impact on mental health

The COVID-19 pandemic not only wrought havoc on livelihoods but has also cast a long shadow over the mental well-being of Khawaja Sara and Hira Hijra in Pakistan. All of our participants were estranged from their families of origin, and so did not receive any social, emotional, or economic support from them. The loss of regular income meant increased physical and mental pressure for participants. Additionally, there was also little if any income support available from state institutions because the regular sources of income for Khawaja Sara and Hijra exist on the margins of society. In this sense, the consequences of lockdown measures on this community were much more significant than for other minority groups in Pakistan who did have access to familial resources and state-based economic support. Due to the strict COVID-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs) that were established by national and provincial governments, Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities could not travel to other areas to perform/participate in dance parties as they would have done previously. As Nayela, a senior guru in Peshawar city explains,

“Kala na che Covid-19 lockdown start shavy di no zamong pa zindagy bandy deer asar prewaty dai” (Pashto Direct Quote) Covid-19 lockdown disrupted our daily life routine since it started (English translation). We are unable to travel freely and in this way people in the wider communities do not invite us to their festivals and night parties.

Due to the fear of potential COVID infections, the majority of the Khawaja Sara and Hijras were locked inside in their Deras and lost their income and sources of earning.⁵ Shanza, a young cheela, observes that,

As we are locked inside our houses, we are doing nothing and living in a very stressful situation. Majority of members from our communities are still suffering and struggling to live their life. We received many notices from our building owner because some of our Khawaja Sara or Hijra friends have no funds to pay their rent, electricity, and water bills. COVID-19 has pushed some of our members to the roads for begging because they have no other option except this. Even I would say that COVID-19 has had an impact on our relationship with our boyfriends because we are asking them for money and support that in fact they don’t have because they are also suffering as we are suffering from COVID-19.

As Shanza indicates, during the pandemic lockdown many of Khawaja Sara and Hijra faced rent burdens and also received eviction notices from their landlords or house owners on the non-payment of the monthly rents for their Dera. With no money, they were also unable to buy groceries and access to health care services. It is in these circumstances that Khawaja Sara and Hijra have been deeply affected by the pandemic, with increased risks associated with poverty, mental health problems, hunger, and homelessness. All the participants in the study were in distress as they had all lost their income resources. These challenges have also been discussed in the studies of Moen et al. (2020) and Pacheco et al. (2020) who have demonstrated that during pandemic lockdowns economic activity across the globe has been severely disrupted, with a range of significant challenges for those already living precarious lives, including those working for daily wages, and manual labourers. In Pakistan, this is especially impactful for precariously employed transgender people who work in the unofficial economic sectors such as begging, singing, and dancing (Pandya and Redcay 2022). This situation became particularly challenging for Khawaja Sara and Hijra because of how it exacerbated existing precarity within the community.

Our discussion in this section illustrates how COVID-19 increased precarity for Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Peshawar because of the temporal and contingent nature of the practice through which they earn their livelihood. Furthermore, COVID-19 not only increased the risk of losing their earning opportunities but has also exacerbated their inequalities, as they were not eligible for the assistance provided to many people by the responsible authorities, and they had been rejected by their families which made their lives more stressful and precarious. Our analysis in this section has shed light on the deepening precarity in the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peshawar and highlighted the emergence of new modes of vulnerabilities.

Resilience in guru-cheela houses

So far, there is a paucity of empirical work that has emerged to discuss the resilience of LGBTIQ + communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context we were interested in the resilience of Khawaja Sara and Hijras that they have developed during this period of time. Through a lens of resilience, this resection explores the coping mechanisms, robust communal support systems, and inherent individual strengths that not only enabled the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities to weather the profound challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic but also empowered them to rise above adversity.

This is important work because it brings to the fore what Butler (2004, p.27) describes as ‘another way of imagining community’. Khawaja Sara and Hijra are minoritised by the colonial imagination, Islamisation and changing cultural values that shape postcolonial Pakistan, and they find ways to exist by virtue of one another, by acknowledging that they are ‘dependent on one another’ for survival (Butler 2004: p. 27). The guru-cheela relationship and the Dera as dwelling place is an evidence to their resilience, and as this section attests, were essential for Khawaja Sara and Hijra in Peshawar in order to live their lives in the era of COVID-19.

Participants were asked to describe how they imagined and put into practice new ways of living to accommodate the various challenges and problems that they were facing during the pandemic. Nargas, a senior guru in Peshawar city, explained how the community was forced to rely on alternative forms of income during the lockdowns:

During COVID-19 pandemic when all our dancing and night parties are cancelled then as an alternative source of income a majority of our members are relying on sex work and begging to earn money for our life in Peshawar city.

Prior to the pandemic, the Aurat Foundation (2016) had reported that 15% of the transgender community in Pakistan were engaged in sex work.⁶ Whilst there are no figures indicating if and how this changed during the pandemic, what is known is that the public health responses to the pandemic had further narrowed the employment options for Khawaja Sara and Hijra. This was distressing and troubling for many Khawaja Sara and Hijra who were already vulnerable to factors such as poverty, lack of education, disconnection from family, and unemployment, and who have now increased their exposure to the risks associated with sex work such as sexual violence and vulnerability to STIs (Majeedullah 2016; Shah et al., 2021).

Nayela, another senior guru in Peshawar city, shared her experience of living in what she sees as an impossible situation:

Da jawond terolo da para ho ba da gaty waaty zarorat v dasi ho na dai mumkina che mong ba nast u awo paisy ba hapala razi (Pasto Direct Quote) We need money to live our lives, without money it will be impossible. It is not possible to do nothing and still get money (English translation). The majority of members have taken some loans from other members to support one another. Some Khawaja Sara are relying on their savings, while others who are poor and have no saving have pushed themselves towards sex work.

Transgender women, including Hijra in India experienced similar disruptions during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Research suggests that in order to survive, many relied on high-interest loans after depleting their savings, which added to their psychological stress (Chakrapani et al., 2022). The stigmatisation of Hijra in Bangladesh during lockdown forced them to earn money through sex work, blessing newlywed couples and newborn babies (Aziz and Azhar, 2019), and collecting money from shops (Sifat 2020). Various research of the situations faced by Hijra in Bangladesh reported that 94% were anxious about money and 68% about food during the COVID-19 lockdown (Rashid et al., 2020); 82% did not receive money in the previous fortnight, and 59% did not receive aid from support programs (Akhter 2021); and 16% experienced mental abuse with a relative few facing physical torture and violence (Matin et al., 2020). Given the economic hardships brought on by the pandemic, the data in this research demonstrate that many of the members of the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities have organised fundraising and provided loans to one another in order to meet their essential needs such as food, shelter, and healthcare.

Similarly, participants reported that the lack of government assistance and stigmatisation of Khawaja Sara and Hijra had left them with very few options, if any, to survive in Peshawar. Alishba discussed that,

During COVID-19 in Peshawar, government assistance was scarce. We, the Khawaja Sara and Hijra community, received no food or cash grants from local or federal authorities. While cisgender individuals received aid packages, we were overlooked, with no consideration for government assistance in Peshawar.

Alishba highlighted the lack of Government response towards transgender people in their assistance programme. She described howtransgender people were not prioritised although they were one of the most precarious communities. In spite of this, because of their resilience, activist groups within the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities raised their voice against the Government’s apathy and unresponsiveness for their unique challenges during the pandemic,. advocating for inclusive policies to insure the support from government and non-governmental organizations. In contexts such as this, Butler’s (2004, p.20) questions: Who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? What makes for a grievable life? seem particularly important, and poignant. As Butler (2004) argues,

It is as true for all claims to be free from racist attacks, physical and verbal, as it is for feminism’s claim to reproductive freedom, and as it….is for those [who] labor under duress, economic and political, [and] conditions of colonization (p. 25).

Engaging with and attempting to understand the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra offers us a way to engage with the ongoing impacts of British colonisation, as well as with the ways in which politics, culture and religion act to colonise the lives of those who are differently gendered in Pakistan.

The pandemic, however, also allowed for new solidarities and pathways for activism to emerge. Many transgender activists approached NGOs and aid organizations to provide support in Peshawar while the community themselves produced alternative means of earning resources One of these was:Kamra Band” or “Closed Room” parties. Chocolate, a young cheela in her twenties, describes Kamra Ban as one of the strategies used to continue to generate a living when confronted with inadequate or non-existent government responses to their situation,

Majority of our Khawaja Sara or Hijra are waiting for Government assistance in respect of lockdown. Some of our members do participate in some functions that are organised secretly or privately and have limited participants. We call that function the “Kamra Band'' programme or the dance function that is arranged inside a closed hall or a room with limited seats or a limited number of people. For the majority of our Khawaja Sara and Hijra members, arranging these programs is always difficult because we are afraid of police raids on them.

As these claims and observations suggest, the risk associated with the unofficial earning possibilities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra increased because of lockdowns and the possibilities of police raids when this work is available. The data therefore demonstrates how Khawaja Sara and Hijra had to adapt to many challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alongside increased risk and marginalisation however, this section has demonstrated how the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities came together to support each other through loans and the setting up of the Kamra Band events. Additionally, the “Kmara Band” parties provided a valuable insight that explains how Khawaja Sara and Hijra have adapted to the Pandemic challenges. Considering the nuances of these activities, the socio-economic implications of participants, and their role in fostering community resilience have enriched our understanding on the alternative livelihood strategies of transgender people during COVID-19 pandemic in Peshawar. This demonstrates the resilience and adaptability of these ancient Pakistani communities, who have found ways to survive since the British occupation.

COVID-19, marginalisation, precarity and resilience: lessons from Peshawar’s Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities

Our paper has shown how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the marginal positionality of Khawaja Sara and Hijra in Pakistan and increased their precarity. The findings describe that with the implementation of public health measures such as lockdowns and social distancing have severely impacted the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra further pushing them into economic precarity and increasing mental health challenges. Moreover, like many other gender and sexual minorities globally, the communities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra in this study live away from their families of origin. This means that during the COVID-19 pandemic Khawaja Sara and Hijra were unlikely to receive support from their families, or from the wider community. Whilst for many non-LGBTIQ + individuals in India and Pakistan the COVID-19 pandemic provided a joyful experience for some families who became closer by being in lockdown together (Ahmed et al., 2020), we found that the communities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra were restricted to their Dera and received little if any financial aid from outside of their own community.

Batty (2020) has highlighted how the marginalisation and oppression of LGBTIQ + communities were exacerbated during lockdowns and the precarious position and high level of discrimination that the global LGBTIQ + community faced meant that they could not easily access emergency relief, shelter facilities, and any other disaster support during the pandemic. In a similar vein, we found in this research that COVID-19 has brought many challenges for Khawaja Sara and Hijra in accessing health-related facilities.

In a Singaporean context, Gomez’s (2021) research has indicated that because all bars and pubs were closed, many transwomen lost their employment opportunities and they were unable to join other sectors of the economy, which placed them in a situation of extreme vulnerability. In this regard our findings suggest that Khawaja Sara and Hijra in Pakistan who lost their primary sources of earning developed strategies to mitigate these economic losses, for example through participation in Kamra Band events. By their nature, these events were risky in terms of being able to maintain social distancing and other COVID-safe advice and regulations. In addition, the illegality of the Kamra Band events meant that they were frequently raided and closed down by the authorities in Peshawar. This meant that many Khawaja Sara and Hijra were pushed towards sex work as a source of income. As our work has shown, the sense of family and community fostered within the Deras of Peshawar reveals the resilience of the ancient communities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra, and how their traditional ways of living as Guru-Cheela encompass the sharing of resources and a sense of belonging to lives that are precarious, vulnerable and risky.

We have drawn upon Butler’s (2009) work on precarity to help us to describe and think with the social marginality and vulnerability in the lives of Khawaja Sara and Hijra. Butler (2009) draws a clear distinction between “precariousness and precarity”. Butler understands precariousness as a feature of the human condition. She argues that “lives are by definition precarious: they can be expunged at will or by accident; their persistence is in no sense guaranteed” (Butler, 2009: p. 25). Precarity is an archetypical condition of vulnerability, displacement and insecurity which occurs through means of social, phycological and physical alienation and is experienced by vulnerable groups including minorities, marginalised communities, and low-income individuals and groups who are exposed to economic insecurity, frequent violence, and forced migration. For those who belong to these groups, their social values and physical existence are considered differently, and limitations on access to, and experience of their basic rights, further decreases their chances of security and protection in comparison to other individuals. At this point vulnerability not only becomes a social condition of different marginalised groups that are harmed and hampered by others but is also experienced as an embodied porous identity which is dependent on others for survival.

We have seen that despite immense adversities, the Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities demonstrated remarkable resilience and solidarity with their people in Peshawar city. Through innovative coping mechanisms such as alternative forms of income generation and communal support systems, they navigated the challenges imposed by the pandemic. Initiatives like the “Kamra Band” parties exemplify their adaptability and determination to survive in the face COVID lockdowns. This was an alternative source of earning that Khawaja Sara and Hijra people developed to earn money with a limited number of spectators inside the closed doors. Additionally, the resilience and resourcefulness that is shown by the members of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities served a testament to their strength and resilience that not only challenged the adversities of pandemic but also produced a hope of survival and existence. The stories shared by participants demonstrate the importance of amplifying marginalized voices, challenging oppressive structures, and fostering solidarity in the pursuit of a more just and equitable society.

As we reflect on the experiences of Khawaja Sara and Hijra, this research necessarily asks us to reflect on what it means to be vulnerable, what it meant before, what it meant during, and what it will come to mean after the COVID-19 pandemic for Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities in Peshawar specifically, and Pakistan more broadly. Therefore, it is crucial to recognize the structural inequalities and discrimination that continue to shape their lives. Efforts to support and empower these communities must be grounded in a commitment to social justice and inclusivity, addressing not only immediate needs but also systemic barriers to the well-being of transgender people in Pakistan.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Alamgir Alamgir

Emily Gray

Notes

Dr. Alamgir Alamgir has completed his PhD RMIT University Melbourne with a research interest in the field of Gender, Sexuality, and Education. His PhD thesis entitled Khawaja Sara and Hijra: Gender and sexual identity formation in postcolonial Islamic Pakistan investigated and located the identities of Khawaja Sara and Hijra within pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial contexts in order to challenge the ways in which their lives are understood by scholars and policy makers in Pakistan. Alamgir has served as an officer in Social Welfare Department Khyber Pukhtunkhawa for 10 years and has a prolific experience of working in the development sector, research, and academia. Dr. Alamgir lives in Melbourne Australia and can be reached on alamgirsocio7@gmail.com/ +610433973737.

Dr. Emily Gray is Senior Lecturer Education Studies and Higher Degrees by Research Delegated Authority at RMIT’s School of Education. Emily’s research is interdisciplinary includes sociology, cultural studies, and education. Emily's empirically informed scholarship provides insights into educators’ lived experiences in relation to gender, sexisms, sexualities and workplaces and she aims to illustrate how, where, and why educational inequalities occur as well as to shape responses to them. Her research is theoretically engaged, and she develops new ways of working with and thinking through social theory in its application to research problems and questions, as well as within knowledge translation mechanisms. The breadth and depth of Emily's research means that her work has impacted significantly in the fields of gender discrimination in higher education; workplace-based discrimination in relation to LGBTIQ+ educators in both schools and in higher education; sexisms in higher education and finally, popular culture and gender representation. Dr. Emily can be reached emily.gray@rmit.edu.au.

Prof Dr Peter Kelly research focuses on young people, their education, training and employment pathways, and their health and well-being, at a time of profound planetary crises that are emerging at the convergence of the 6th Mass Extinction and the 4th Industrial Revolution. The Young People's Sustainable Futures Lab is a repository for Kelly’s current research project collaborations. Dr. Peter Kelly can be reached peter.kelly@deakin.edu.au.

Seth Brown is a Lecturer in Health and Physical Education in the School of Education in the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT University. He joined RMIT after working in universities in the USA and New Zealand. Dr. Seth research interest includes health and physical education, vocational education and training, recreation, youth studies, elite athlete programs, sport, gender, olympism and Poststrucuralist theory. Dr. Seth can be reached seth.brown@rmit.edu.au.

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“We are in a very precarious position”: Exploring the resilience of Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Literature review: tracing Khawaja Sara and hira identities

Khawaja Sara and hijra in contemporary Pakistan

The pandemic and the amplification of marginalisation and precariousness in Pakistan

Methodology and methods

The pandemic and its impacts on Khawaja Sara and hijra communities and livelihoods

COVID impact on mental health

Resilience in guru-cheela houses

COVID-19, marginalisation, precarity and resilience: lessons from Peshawar’s Khawaja Sara and Hijra communities

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

Funding

ORCID iDs

Notes

References