As the movement for horizontal reservation for transgender people in government jobs and education picks up pace in northern India, taking cue from activists in southern States, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has now taken cognisance of an atrocity complaint against Uttar Pradesh’s Transgender Welfare Board Member Devika Devendra S. Manglamukhi, a strong proponent of vertical reservation, “because the Dalit Trans community lives with fear in U.P. due to her”, as per the complainant.
While vertical reservations would translate into a separate quota category under which all trans people would qualify, irrespective of their socio-economic category, many trans activists across the country have stressed that horizontal reservations are the need of the hour as vertical quotas ignore the layered nature of discrimination trans people from marginalised castes face. Horizontal reservation would ensure a percentage for trans people in each socio-economic category.
Based on the complaint from a Saharanpur-based Dalit trans woman activist, Yashika, the Commission for SCs issued notices to the district administration and police in Saharanpur on January 3. “Ms. Devika is known to routinely call many trans activists who support horizontal reservations and abuse and harass them. Her position on horizontal reservations is also public on her social media,” Ms. Yashika told The Hindu.
She added that she had submitted a recording of one such call to the Commission, where Ms. Devika, whom she described as a “prominent upper caste transgender”, allegedly used casteist and transphobic abuses, including deliberate misgendering.
Ms. Devika rebutted the allegations. “First, the voice in the recording is not mine as is being alleged. Second, there are no details of when the call recording is allegedly from, and third, is it legal to record calls in such a manner?” she told The Hindu. Ms. Devika also accused the complainant of “misusing the Constitution, and the transgender identity”, and insisted that the NCSC is “being taken for a ride”. “I am also approaching the NHRC and NCSC to file a complaint,” she added.
In her complaint against Ms. Devika, Ms. Yashika, who also runs an Instagram page named the Bahujan Queer Collective, has called for action to be taken under relevant Sections of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs, Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act. The National Commission has asked the Saharanpur district administration and police to submit Action Taken Reports by January 17.
After the NCSC issued notice on the complaint, Ms. Devika has been posting on her profile about the social work she has undertaken to uplift and empower the Valmiki community.
Since the 2014 judgment of the Supreme Court that directed governments to provide reservation to trans people in government jobs and education, the demand for quotas from the community has only grown. But an arguable ambiguity in the Supreme Court’s direction, which called for transgender people to be treated as “socially and educationally backward classes of citizens”, has divided opinion within the transgender community on what kind of reservations should be provided.
Ms. Devika, a trans woman herself, is of the view that the community should instead be fighting for equality in society, and vertical reservations. In Facebook posts, most recently on Monday (January 6), she said: “We are equal, that’s why we want vertical reservation for Transgenders”.
“When trans people are abused and discriminated, it is not based on caste, it is purely based on our gender,” she said, and cited the ambiguity in the 2014 judgment’s direction. “The judgment calls for us to be treated as socially and educationally backward classes (SEBC). So then, being a trans woman makes me an OBC (Other Backward Class). How can the complainant call me ‘upper caste’ or ‘Savarna’?” Ms. Devika said.
Based on the 2014 judgment, she further insisted that a person could not continue with their socio-economic category’s caste identity after identifying as a transgender person. “Because the judgment says transgender people are SEBCs, they cannot also then continue to be SC,” she said.
The Supreme Court of India had in March 2023 refused to entertain a petition that asked for a clarification on the ambiguity in the 2014 direction for reservations. One interpretation of this direction has already resulted in the Madhya Pradesh government including transgender people as a community within its State OBC list in April 2023.
This, even though High Courts, including the Karnataka High Court, Madras High Court, and more recently, the Calcutta High Court, have interpreted it differently, and directed that the community be provided horizontal reservations.
Chennai-based trans rights activist Grace Banu, who has been spearheading the movement for horizontal reservation in southern States, told The Hindu that Ms. Devika’s interpretation and understanding of the 2014 National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgment is “casteist” and “reflected the dominant caste mentality” that the transgender people of the country continue to fight.
“This reading denies the reality that there are transgender people in all caste categories. How is bunching them up as OBCs serving the purpose of equality?” Ms. Banu said.
Published – January 07, 2025 11:18 pm IST