#8 Land Acquisition, Trans Representation and Growing Up
Hi, let's talk about the land acquisition practices in India, Bollywood's poor representation for Trans people and on approaching adulthood.
Whose Land Is It Anyway?
- Sneha

Picture this: you wake up on a quiet Saturday morning, the weather is pleasant, your coffee is hot and you’re looking forward to spending your day off at home among your books until an envelope is slipped under your door. It’s a notice from the local government authorities asking you to vacate your home. You’re confused and almost sure this is a mistake because the last you checked you own this house and by extension this land. Surely someone somewhere has messed up big time. Except that they haven’t. The notice very legibly asks you and your neighbours to leave with your lifetime’s worth of possessions because the government is going to take over your land for a highway they have decided to build there. They are also willing to pay you compensation. But you do the math and the money doesn’t even begin to make up for your losses. There is a clear winner and a loser here. But you’re left with no option.
The above scenario is dramatised, for obvious reasons, but reality is not far from it. Land Acquisition and unethical practices surrounding it have been a cause for concern for the longest time now. It was first introduced by the British to acquire land for building simple infrastructures like roads, canals, railway networks or anything meant for “public purposes”. Soon it became legislation applicable for the whole of British India. Land Acquisition Act, 1894 was the primary law governing all acquisition matters even after independence and it was used till as recently as 2013. Yes, keeping Angrezi laws made in the 19th century for their colonial benefits is a passion for us. And why wouldn’t we? That law can be credited for a lot of the fancy urban infrastructure we see around us. Without which we couldn’t have created our thriving economies. If you’re from Mumbai, you’ve been to Marol’s Seepz area at least once. Just like SEEPZ, we have many other Special Economic Zones around the country. These are areas marked off for only corporates who receive special tax concessions in an attempt to drive up employment. And many of these SEZs in India are built on agricultural land that is often forcefully acquired from farmers.
An awfully unfair deal has been put to the original owners of the land each time this has happened in history and continues to happen. Many have been promised alternate accommodation that never came through. Not just the landowners. A huge majority of agricultural labourers are landless farmers, those whose livelihoods depend on others’ farms. And they are often not even considered for the compensation leaving them all the more vulnerable. The results of this are massive displacement and loss of livelihood and income for lakhs of people. Around 50 million people were affected by this until 2011 since independence. All of them were forced to leave their lands and livelihoods in return for a pittance in the name of compensation. We built mines and dams and drove profits while trampling over the lives of millions. This also includes Adivasi tribes who’s forest lands are forcibly taken over for development projects.
It was a double blow when the government started acquiring land and handing them over to private companies. And often the term “public purposes” was interpreted to the convenience of what the government deemed was “public purpose.” There are also many cases where a lot of the land acquired was not even used. These ghastly practices have led to many protests over the years. In 2011, Uttar Pradesh saw violence in the protests against land acquisition for building the Yamuna Expressway. Finally, after much deliberation, the Parliament passed the new Land Acquisition Act in 2013. This brought on many improvements to the affected population. Under the new law, compensation was bound to be higher, even those whose livelihoods were dependent on the land would also be compensated along with the landowners, companies are now mandatorily required to do a social impact assessment and many other such improvements. However, this did not go down well with the industrialists and pro-business folks. This would mean that the companies would have to shell out more money and a social impact assessment may just mean that they won’t be able to acquire land at all. Booo, powerful lobbies won’t be able to steal land anymore, what a bummer! The current BJP government is even trying to dilute some of these provisions with an amendment to the 2013 Act under the guise of improving ease of doing business, but the amendment has not yet been passed.
But wait, why is the government so powerful as to be able to force people to give away their land in the first place? Haven’t we all bought our land with our hard-earned money? How can they just throw me out of my own house for “public good”? That’s where things get interesting. Following Independence, Right to property was deemed a fundamental right, i.e. no one can take away this right from us. Later, in a historic judgement, Right to Property was turned into a constitutional right meaning we still have the right to own property but now it can be taken away by law. This may have been done to redistribute land among socially deprived groups taken from the zamindars who were in possession of much of the land then. The Indian state much like others in the world has the power of eminent domain whereby it can take over any piece of land anywhere in the country even without full consent of the owner, provided it is for a public purpose and with due compensation. But clearly, the compensation was never enough and the public purpose was always vaguely defined.
Land laws in India are anyway a very tricky subject. Technically, no one really “owns” owns their land in India, you know. The land-related documents are only a signifier of the transfer of ownership of land from the seller to the buyer. These newfound rights are reflected on some papers you possess. But the ownership of property is not guaranteed by the government. And what happens when you lose these papers? Kiss goodbye to your ghar, jaidaat, and zameen. I’m kidding, there are ways to get it back through the help of our sarkari babus whose swiftness and efficiency we are all aware of! Now imagine if these sarkari babus only take away your land, who do you then go to?
Read more:
Ownership of land will always be a caste question. Dalits have been historically prevented from owning land which plays a huge role in their marginalization. Read: ReutersRead: Frontline
On how land acquisition laws in India changed over time: Read: Quartz
Read to understand the land disputes: Read: CPR
PS. there are fewer hyperlinks and additional stuff in this piece because most of it is really long, boring academic text. Which is why I thought it would be nice to write about it!
Laxmmi Bomb and the Case of Tokenistic Representation
- Diti

In latest news about the world’s favourite author who has single-handedly ruined her own legacy, JK Rowling’s new book in the Cormoran Strike series she writes under the alias of Robert Galbraith features a killer, a man, who dresses up in women’s clothing and wigs to kill people. This comes after the severe backlash she received for the tone-deaf transphobic comments she made earlier this year. Indian netizens and former fans of the author took to Instagram and Twitter to publicly boycott this book, but we forget that our beloved film industry has had similar characters for years now. I’m back with another episode of ‘What’s wrong with Bollywood’ and this time let’s talk about Bollywood’s problematic representation of transgender characters.
In the 1999 film Sangharsh, Ashutosh Rana plays the role of Lajja Shankar Pandey, a trans woman and a Kali-worshipper who abducts and sacrifices little kids. Now, the movie did more than horrify a generation of people about the idea of a cannibalistic serial-killer, it also further enforced the demonic, I exaggerate we only want to take away all their agency and right to self-identify (cough Transgender Bill 2019 cough) image of trans people that has been created in our minds. Bollywood repeatedly portrays queer, especially transgender identities, to be outside the boundaries of what is considered ‘normal’. If one draws up a (pretty short) list of trans characters two things will pop up instantaneously; 1. The complete erasure of trans men and 2. Their portrayal as either the scary monster behind every evil or convenient comic relief. Think about movies like Sadak (1991), Murder 2 (2011), Masti (2004), Kya Kool Hai Hum (2005), I can go on. The positive representations like Tamanna (1997), Daayra (1996) and Super Deluxe (2020) are few and far in between. Also, characters like Pappu in Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare (2020) and Ben in Good Girls film industries across the globe are taking a small step towards portraying younger characters as they question their gender identity.
Stories about queer identities are slowly becoming a part of the mainstream with bigger names doing films that are often called ‘bold moves’ for their careers. The quality of this representation in several cases is questionable but a positive change seems just around the corner. However, is it really possible to celebrate queer identities without celebrating queer people? As queer representation is increasing in films it becomes even more apparent that queer people have no place in the industry. Ayushman Khurana received accolades for his portrayal of a gay man in Shubh Mangal Zyaada Savdhaan and yet he himself is a straight man. Similarly, Sonam Kapoor in Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, Fawad Khan in Kapoor & Sons, Kubra Sait in Sacred Games, Vijay Sethupathi in Super Deluxe, etc., are all cisgendered, heterosexual actors playing queer characters and its time that we go beyond this move that can range from well-intentioned to tokenistic.
Unfortunately, this is a problem that is not restricted only to Bollywood. Jared Leto won an Oscar for his portrayal of a trans character in Dallas Buyers Club, while Eddie Redmayne was nominated for one for his role in The Danish Girl. Along with taking over of trans narratives by cisgender men, similar misrepresentation of queer characters exists there, too. But things are changing. Actor Hunter Schafer playing Jules Vaughn in HBO’s Euphoria is a great example and we need more such representations in industries around the world. But things haven’t changed much for Bollywood in 2020.
When he is not asking the Prime Minister of our country pressing questions like whether he eats mangoes, actor Akshay Kumar makes two types of movies; the first, blockbuster, masala films that have no qualms in being sexist or racist, and the second, movies with social messages on problems faced by women in India. (Kumar is not the only actor to take over female narratives to make them more digestible for Indian audiences, but I’ll get into that some other day.) Both types of films earn him occasional praise from critics and unfailing monetary success, making him one of the most bankable actors in the industry today. Using the same formula, Kumar is set to release his new movie, Laxmmi Bomb, on Disney Plus Hotstar, a horror movie in which he plays the protagonist who happens to be a trans woman.
It will be interesting to see how they manage to walk the thin line between portraying the her as the protagonist of a horror movie while keeping the portrayal safe from any stereotyping or demonising. But the film brings me to my main contention, why can’t Bollywood cast a trans woman to play one? There’s no way there are no trans actors in this country who would be more than willing to play such parts, the industry is just unwilling to take the efforts required to make such a move. Or is it that they are afraid of the flak they may receive? At the end of the day, Kumar’s name makes the character palatable. The concern, however, is bigger than just that.
From Bollywood biggies like Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan to the stars of reality talk shows like the much talked about ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’, Indian audiences have been faced with men dressed in drag for years now. Trans characters may not be acceptable to them but using drag as comedy or to reinforce ideas of masculinity and femininity is pretty commonplace. The repeated portrayal of trans women by cis men furthers the antiquated notion that trans women are just men dressed as women, not ‘real women’. Kumar, like the other actors mentioned earlier, will receive praise for his ‘brave’ move to play this character while taking away an opportunity from a queer person to voice their own story.
Queer people have faced discrimination and stereotyping from cis, heterosexual people for decades. So, Kumar really has no right to exploit their stories for his own gains when he is neither a vocal ally and nor has he come out in protest of the Transgender Bill 2019. The trans portrayal is hollow when it is not backed by trans representation, it is just what cisgendered audiences are comfortable with seeing. It is 2020 and Bollywood needs to start being inclusive by amplifying queer voices instead of shouting over them. The Indian film industry does have talented trans people working very often behind the screens, all they have to do is look deeper and we will be able to have beautiful stories with more depth and reality. While the protagonist of Tanuja Chandra’s A Monsoon Date, a trans woman, is played by Konkona Sen Sharma, a cisgendered actress, the screenwriter is Gazal Dhaliwal who has worked on screenplays for other great movies like Lipstick Under My Burkha and Qarib Qarib Single and is very vocal about her identity as a trans woman and she is just one example. And while I am on this topic, all of us really need to apologise to Bobby Darling for all the ridicule we aimed at her, she is a stronger person than we deserved and I hope today we can be better allies to trans actors.
In this article, I do not speak from lived experience and so my thoughts are secondary. You can follow many amazing people on the internet to educate yourself on the issue from the perspective of a trans person. Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju is just one such person.
The transgender community is constantly discriminated against and they still live on the margins of society. The 2019 Transgender Bill is only taking us backwards. Read: Scroll
The lockdown and the pandemic have been really hard for the transgender community for whom major sources of income are no longer viable. Read: The Wire
Casting trans people in trans roles is worth taking efforts for. Read: Vice
Hollywood has a history of casting cisgendered actors in trans roles. Watch this video to know more.
I repeat, it is not possible to celebrate trans stories without celebrating trans people! Watch this video to know stories better than any made by Bollywood recently.
The Real World
- Sneha

I turned 22 recently. In 2014, when the world was jamming to the song titled 22 by Taylor Swift, I promised myself that when it’s my turn I will be screaming this song on the top of my lungs. Now that I am here, I can confirm, that’s not the case at all. While the official age for adulting is 18, we don’t think about it until we graduate. When we finally leave the education system and the “real world” slaps us right in the face.
It is a truly strange time to be in. The brief period between graduating and getting a job is perhaps a perfect introduction to what adult life looks like. Uncertainty, fear, and “oh my god money??? And to graduate into this crumbling, virus-infested economy is truly a once in a lifetime experience. At least I’m hoping it is. I remember watching a video about people who graduated from college during the 2008 recession and how the impact of it is still felt in 2020. I had jitters run through my spine and immediately craved to be launched off into space after watching it. I will not share the video here because do you really want to be terrified of what’s coming your way?
We once had this seminar in college wherein the instructor asked us to write down where we see ourselves in the next 5 years and 10 years. I almost drank some water so I could dramatically spit it out in reaction. 10 years? Does anyone actually have their whole life figured out at the age of 20? Are we supposed to? Is that the norm? To my surprise I found many of my classmates scribbling away at their books while I stared at the blank page. For all I know they could have just been writing song lyrics but what if they weren’t? And apparently, this is a thing. Young people are routinely asked to list out their lifetime plans even before we have lived any life at all.
How are we to fix our careers at 20 when we know that the world is going to look very, very different by the time we are 30? Who knows what jobs become redundant and what new jobs are created? What new robot is going to take over our lives? What new climate disaster awaits our discovery? Which new authoritarian government will spring into our lives and enslave us? And you want me to worry about the home loan I’ll take on in 2035? High hopes, Karen, high hopes.
And what about the people who marked out their 5-year plans but did not accommodate for a pandemic in there? Surely no one anticipates history being created while they’re alive. Now, look at all the students worldwide who will graduate into a recession. Not at all a part of their plan. Taylor Swift did not warn me about this.
I will end my existential dread spiral here but I have no resolutions for you. A wise man once did not say, “real-life offers more questions than answers.” Here’s hoping we manage to find easier questions in the future.
Somethings to watch out for this week from India and around the globe:
Farmers unions have called for Bharat Bandh today. Widespread protests are underway, as you read this, against the three bills passed this week in a manner that should make us question just how democratic our parliament is. A quick explainer on the bills Read: Indian Express
The pandemic has affected small local economies as much as it has affected the large industries. Watch how it affected Varanasi.
While India faces multiple crises on multiple fronts, what seems more important is to interrogate Bollywood about their drug habits. What better topic to distract people from reality than vilifying their favourite stars right? Read: Scroll.in
In this promised horizon of New India, Hindu rashtra, Ram rajya or call it what you will, there will be no decadent elites. No drugs. No debauched dance parties at the flashy houses of film producers. But till all this cleaning and weeding is done, we have to learn to bear with a few discomforts – like lost jobs, crumbling hospitals, invading neighbours, tax raids, jailed political opponents, maybe even a dip in our democratic credentials on the international stage. For ultimately, all will be well.
US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was known as a feminist icon for bringing change from within the legal system. Read: The Guardian
Russian President’s strongest critic Alexei Navalny was allegedly poisoned by the Putin government recently. Navalny’s assets are now frozen while he is still in a coma. Hm, wonder why. Read: New York Times
A reminder that authoritarian and fascist governments are not born overnight. It’s a slow, gradual process. Also, if this was not enough to fulfil any cravings for Russian drama, let us be the ones to introduce you to the Russian ‘reincarnation’ of Jesus. Read: Indian ExpressIf you’ve ever heard someone say that Indian authors are just not good enough, smack this list on their face. Check out this year’s JCB Prize shortlist for some excellent book recommendations from India. Read: Scroll.in
That’s all folks.

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Until next week
Love & Maple Butter Waffles,
Diti & Sneha
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