August 15, 2023 . The whole India was celebrating its 77th Independence Day from the Britteeshers. On the same day, the people of India had the opportunity to watch and feel the struggle of a person for whom an indispensable part of our society, that part which in spite of being citizens of free India suffered from a crisis of acceptance, identity and equal rights, could actually get freedom, acceptance, identity and rights.
On this day “Tali”, a TV Series, was released on the app named Jio Cinema, which throws light on the challenging life story of a famous and brave transgender activist Shree Gauri Sawant aka Gauri Sawant. The film is led by another incredible personality of the Indian film industry Sushmita Sen, who is admired a lot for her unique personality, contribution both in fashion and film industry and amazing representation of independent Indian women all over the world. And finally it is the result of this beautiful collaboration, which is stealing million hearts all over the country.
The series deliberately reflects the struggle that has to be made by the transgender people firstly as an individual, starting right from self doubt , non acceptable of the family, confusion, anxiety etc and secondly, as a community, where the society refuses to accept them, they are deprived of the basic legal and even fundamental rights guaranteed by our constitution. The protagonist of the film ,Gauri Sawant is the representative of all these. And therefore we will describe this amazing piece of work less and leave it for the readers to enjoy watching.
The series basically puts emphasis on a very famous and landmark judgement of the apex court in 2014. The case is so important that even the activist, Gauri Sawant , associated with it held in an interview with the Supreme Court Observer that “It set the background for pushing the rights from their basic understanding, to secure the rights to a dignified life for the Queer community. ”
The case name is National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, 2014 INSC 275. The case was heard before a two judge bench of the Supreme Court consisting Justice K. S. Panicker Radhakrishnan and Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri. The judgement of the case led to one of the most significant changes our legal system could ever do. They can be point out as follows :
1. The court recognised that fundamental rights guaranteed under Part III of the Indian Constitution are available to the third gender the same way as these are available to male and female. It further held that non recognition of them in both civil and criminal statutes are discriminatory.
2.Court declared that insisting on Sex Reassignment Surgery as a condition for determining gender is illegal.
3.Further court directed the Centre and State Government to take proper means of health and sanitation for the third gender ( for example, separate public toilets, separate HIV tests etc.) , to ensure socio economic rights for them and to spread greater public awareness regarding them.
Another important aspect of the series that has to be addressed is the way it represents explicitly or implicitly the factors or elements which gave strength to the fight of the community. These are
Education: Education is the fundamental weapon which has the power to change the entire world. The primary reason for which the community has been deprived from their rights and means of living, a dignified life and is detached from the mainstream life is lack of education. The film by portraying the life of Gauri Sawant represents how important education for them. She has studied in the University of Mumbai. After that she established an NGO named Sakhi Char Chowghi Trust in 2000. She is the first transgender to be named as one of the 12 Ambassadors from Maharashtra by Election Commission in 2019. Her education that gave her that social position is the factor which enabled her to be a life changer of the entire community.
Approach: Another important factor that helped her in the long struggle is her positive approach towards life and the positive way she chose. It is often seen that even if the ideology, the motive and vision of activists whether related to feminism, political ideology or anything are mind striking, but only due to the approach being negative, their sacred movements attract little. But Shree Gauri ji has shown how being positive they can attract the attention and also assistance at large scale from the society. It is because when the approach is correct people themselves seek to be a part of it. In a scene of the series it is also portrayed how hygiene, well manners and we’ll speaking skill helps a lot in a long struggle.
These are basically things that has been drawn from the series. The world is on its 21st century. But there are people who are still surviving for a single identity, recognition from the society. This fight as observed is basically against patriarchy that desires to keep any other gender , whether female or the third , on its foot. The dominance is still there. Even after years and years of struggle the women are still surviving. Therefore, the fight of the third gender is obvious to be a long one. But as Emily Dickenson said, “Hope is the thing with feathers…and never stops at all”, it may take long while, but the morning will surely be shining. Because as Gauri Sawant says in the series, ” The applause does not appear on its own, it has to be brought” ( Taali bajti nahi he, taali bajwana parta hein) .
References:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legal_Services_Authority_v._Union_of_India
uri-sawant-biography/