Raj Thackeray’s recent hate-speech against North-Indians who have moved to Mumbai has highlighted the issue of migration, yet again. The focus, as usual has been largely on the male migrant — who has been coming seeking employment; even though women have always been present in migratory flows. Some of the migration of women has been, and is, ‘tied’ — ie as dependents who move along with their husbands, fathers and sons.

However, increasingly, women are migrating to be the breadwinner of the family or for educational and other opportunities. Another less documented reason for their migration is to escape from certain forms of oppression and even persecution.

Persecution, that in many instances is unleashed due to their religious beliefs and faith; as evident from the outflow of Muslims from Gujarat after the pogroms of 2002. In other cases, the reasons are even more invisible and totally off the radar. This is the forced migration of women due to their sexual/gender identity. These are women who do not conform to heterosexual norms of loving, living and marriage.

Women, who are attracted to other women, and who may or may not identify themselves as lesbians or as bisexual women. Women who would rather be men. Women who are “different” and, we more powerful in our inability to respect and celebrate differences — especially differences that threaten our comfortable status-quo — persecute them.

In a society that is hypocritical, narrow and hostile to those who refuse to toe the given line on sexual behaviour and gender identity, sexual minorities are repeatedly exposed to serious and widespread violation of their rights.
Further in a patriarchal social order, women are further silenced and oppressed and even when they choose to adopt a male identity; redemption is not theirs.

Far removed from the stereotypical images of sexual minorities as being Westernised urban and upper-class, these women come from myriad class, caste and religious backgrounds — and are often grappling with multiple discriminations. For working class women, the battle is made more difficult due to their lack of access to a range of resources and privileges; and the fact that there are very few spaces that seek to address their complex interrelated needs.

The women who spoke to me have spoken of the pressures of living double lives and carrying the burdens of guilt, fear, confusion and unhappiness. They are labelled as “evil”, as “deviants” as “perverts” and often forced to end their relationships. They have narrated innumerable incidences of the violence that has been targeted at them on a daily basis — for being “unusual” women. From cheap snide remarks, taunts and lewd comments, of the neighbours and passers-by; to restrictions on their mobility and emotional blackmail by family members, to harsh physical torture and violence by family and/or community members. The archaic legal instruments become yet another weapon for the state to beat them with; so police and lawyers often sanctimoniously invoke the law to harass and torture them.

So they often survive by denying their feelings, their thoughts, their ideas themselves. It is only when driven to deep desperation and fear of losing limb and life that some of them flee their towns and villages, seeking asylum in the metropolis. Bangalore has become one destination for many of them from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and other surrounding regions.

They come here seeking safety, support and acceptance; they come bearing great courage and grit. The migration is often sudden and a last resort measure. They come as refugees, who have uprooted themselves from everything that is familiar, due to the fact that their “terrible secret” now stands revealed. Besides feeling lost and vulnerable in Bangalore; they confront a series of basic survival issues.

Issues of housing, of employment, of health. And they are unfamiliar with Bangalore. For women who arrive without male “protectors” the problems are manifold. Unlike most other migrants, they mostly travel alone or as a pair of women — with no relatives, or clan members to provide even a temporary safety net.

What then is the beacon that beckons them to risk so much and travel to Bangalore? It is the presence of other women, who have trod this path before; who have wrestled with identity issues, and have started to articulate their rights, their dreams, and their desires. It is also the knowledge that there are groups like LesBit and organisations like Sangama to offer support, understanding; to champion their rights, provide them space and make central to their work the concerns of these women who are forging new paths. Paths that allow them to walk free, tall and proud. The questions for us are, do we have it in us to allow this to happen? Are we willing to paint a more nuanced picture of a phenomena like migration?

(Lesbit can be contacted at 080-23439124)