Appeal to President: Call upon Parliament of India to Repeal VB-GRAMG Act, Restore & Strengthen MGNREGA: Uphold Rights of Millions of Rural Women Workers
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Appeal to President: Call upon Parliament of India to
Repeal VB-GRAMG Act, Restore & Strengthen MGNREGA
19th February, 2026
To,
Hon’ble Droupadi Murmu,
President of India,
Rashtrapati Bhavan,
New Delhi
Sub: Appeal to call upon Parliament of India to Repeal VB-GRAMG Act and Restore, Strengthen MGNREGA in the interests of millions of rural and women workers.
Dear Madam,
We the undersigned are writing on behalf of All India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA), Agrarian Alliance and Workers Forum of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), to express our grave concerns regarding the recent repeal of the two-decades old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA, 2005) and enactment of the Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-GRAMG Act, 2025), which was granted Presidential assent about 2 months back.
The VB-GRAMG Act dismantles the hard-won legal right of employment that has supported the livelihoods of millions of rural working poor families, since its inception in 2005. This is bound to have an adverse and disproportionate impact on women from rural marginalized backgrounds, especially adivasi, dalit and bahujan women. Lakhs of workers, especially women workers across India have been protesting against the new Act.
We urge you to kindly call upon Parliament of India to pass a legislation to repeal the VB-GRAMG Act immediately and pending the same, hold back on operationalization of the Act. We also urge you to call upon the Parliament to restore and strengthen MGNREGA, in the interests of millions of rural workers, in particular women workers.
The VB-GRAMG Act is a retreat from India's commitment to social justice, dignity of labour, and democratic accountability that was written into the core of the MGNREGA Act, 2005. The detrimental impacts of the new law are not incidental, but central to the Act, which retreats from even the minimal right to employment and social protection of the working poor. The VB-GRAMG Act was passed without meaningful consultation with workers, gram panchayats, women’s collectives, trade unions, disability rights groups, or social movements that have made MGNREGA work for the marginalized peoples over the past two decades. This absence of democratic process is particularly alarming, given the scale of the programme and the depth of evidence already available on both its achievements and its implementation challenges, over the past two decades. A restructuring of rural employment at this scale, without public deliberation, undermines democratic accountability and constitutional norms of participatory governance.
MGNREGA’s acknowledged gendered impact:
MGNREGA as a large-scale public employment programme saw women’s participation rising steadily over time. This is the result of specific design features like a legally enforceable right rather than discretionary provisioning of work, demand-driven access to work, decentralized decision-making, proximity of worksites to habitation, gender equality in wages for similar work, and provision of child care facilities.
Approximately 70–80% of rural women workers are engaged in agricultural and allied labour, much of it unpaid, underpaid, or informal. In this context, MGNREGA enabled women to combine paid work with care responsibilities, access independent income, and exercise a limited but significant form of economic citizenship. This achievement has been widely documented across states and social groups. The VB-GRAMG Act by replacing the basic feature of MGNREGA 2005 as a justiciable right has dealt a harsh blow to women’s right to paid work.
Crucially, MGNREGA’s character as a justiciable right was the bedrock of the legal guarantee of work, time-bound wage payments, decentralized planning through Gram Sabhas, and the absence of discretionary selection. This core feature of MGNREGA Act as a justiciable right created conditions under which women could demand work without mediation by employers, contractors, or political gatekeepers. These features explain the high proportion of women workers in MGNREGA over two decades. The presence of such a high proportion of women workers in MGNREGA in the context of low women’s labour force participation rate (WLFPR) in India in general is revealing; it is a clear indication that MGNREGA’s architecture and design provided large number of rural women enabling paid work opportunity, within the broader backdrop of agrarian distress.
VB-GRAMG Act’s structural exclusion of women
The VB-GRAMG Act replaces several women-worker friendly features of MGNREGA 2005 and harms women, especially Dalit, Adivasi, disabled, elderly and single women, as well as gender-diverse persons, whose access to paid work is shaped by care burdens, mobility constraints, ill-health, and social location.
Key provisions of the Act having direct gendered consequences:
Ø Centralisation of work allocation and
location: This move forces workers to travel to notified sites, rather than
enabling work close to home. This effectively excludes women responsible for
childcare, eldercare, and domestic labour, reversing gains in labour-force
participation.
Ø Seasonal withdrawal of work during agricultural periods: This denial of alternative work in periods of high labour demand weakens women’s bargaining power in labour markets, and within households pushing them back into unpaid, exploitative labour, and legitimizing the huge gender pay gaps in agricultural labour.
Ø Discretionary provisioning and capped demand erode women’s ability to claim work as a right, rendering them dependent on local gatekeepers and intermediaries.
These exclusions in the VB-GRAMG Act are not incidental casualties. They are the obvious outcome of a deliberate choice in the new VB-GRAMG Act to move away from the rights-based framework of MGNREGA. Under MGNREGA, sustained public mobilization ensured that the Union government could not arbitrarily restrict demand, cap employment, or selectively apply the Act across regions. The introduction of discretionary powers under the VB-GRAMG Act represents a rollback of these hard-won safeguards. For women whose access to paid work is already mediated by caste, patriarchy, and local power structures, this discretion translates directly into exclusion.
The weakening of Panchayats and Gram Sabhas under the proposed framework further intensifies gendered exclusion. Local self-governance institutions which have statutorily mandated women representatives were critical sites where women could collectively articulate work priorities and negotiate access. Centralised, command-driven allocation removes these collective entry points and recentralises power away from women workers.
Technocratic control impacts gendered exclusion
Over the last decade, the increasing reliance on biometric authentication, centralised digital systems, and rigid technological protocols has produced widespread exclusion under MGNREGA. The VB-GRAMG Act deepens this disturbing trajectory. Women, particularly elderly women, women with disabilities, single women, Dalit and Adivasi women, as well as trans persons and those with limited access to technology, are disproportionately affected by biometric failures, poor digital connectivity, and system errors. These exclusions routinely result in denied wages or deletion from records for work that has already been performed.
These technocratic systems have also paradoxically increased corruption by shifting power to intermediaries who control access to enrolment, authentication, and grievance resolution. Women workers, especially those with limited literacy or mobility are compelled to rely on brokers, local officials, or informal agents, eroding the autonomy that MGNREGA was designed to provide.
Such technocratic governance treats the poor as subjects of experimentation rather than rights-holders. As has been widely observed, these systems systematically ignore embodied realities of ageing, disability, care work, and gendered access to technology.
Fiscal restructuring will lead to the erosion of women’s livelihood security
The proposed 60:40 Centre - State funding ratio further undermines women’s access to work. Poorer states with high concentrations of women agricultural workers may be compelled to ration and reduce employment, deepening both regional and gender inequalities.
Union budgetary allocations for MGNREGA have steadily declined in real terms over recent years. Even under the MGNREGA, workers were getting 36-44 days of employment in the last two years and not the guaranteed 100 days of employment. In this context, the promise of 125 days under VB-GRAMG, without assured funding, wage revision, or demand-based access - appears largely illusory.
At the same time, the Act is silent on periodic wage revision, despite stagnant and inadequate wages being among the most pressing concerns for women workers. The promise of expanded workdays is rendered meaningless without livable wages or guaranteed access to employment.
With approximately 26 crore workers currently registered under MGNREGA, these changes represent a nationwide restructuring of rural livelihood security in which women will bear the heaviest costs.
Constitutionally Regressive VB-GRAMG Act Will Cause Gendered Harm
The disproportionate impact on women is not merely a social concern, it is a constitutional one. By shifting employment provision from a justiciable right to a discretionary scheme, the VB-GRAMG Act undermines the constitutional guarantees of equality, dignity of labour, and social justice. For Dalit, Adivasi, and rural women, whose access to land, assets, mobility, and alternative livelihoods is already structurally constrained, this represents a profound rollback of citizenship rights and intensifies rural agrarian and livelihood distress, aggravating gendered impacts and violence.
In light of the above, we respectfully urge you to call upon the Parliament of India to:
1. Pass a legislation repealing the VB-G-RAM-G Act with immediate effect. Pending the passing of such repeal legislation, the operationalization of the VB-G-RAM-G Act must be put on hold.
2. Recognize and undo the gendered and multi-dimensional adverse impacts of the VB-G-RAM-G Act on millions of rural workers, in particular women workers.
3. Initiate a transparent, consultative process to restore and strengthen MGNREGA by increasing budgetary allocations and addressing implementation failures, instead of dismantling it.
For millions of women workers, MGNREGA is not a welfare benefit but a vital guarantee of dignity, autonomy, and survival. Scrapping it constitutes a serious regression in India’s constitutional commitment to gender justice and democratic governance. We hope your high office will intervene appropriately in the interests of rural women across India.
Signed on behalf of All India Feminist Alliance, Agrarian Alliance and Workers’ Forum - NAPM
1. Aarthi Pai, Bangalore
2. Albertina Almeida, Advocate, Goa
3. Arti Zodpe, Activist, Maharashtra
4. Anita Cheria, Bangalore
5. Arundhati Dhuru, UP, NAPM
6. Anuradha, Saheli, Delhi
7. Bhanumathi Kalluri, Social activist, Hyderabad
8. Bittu Karthik, Social activist, Delhi
9. Bhargav Oza, Lawyer, Researcher, Ahmedabad
10. J Devika, feminist historian, Kerala.
11. Gouthami, ALIFA, Goa
12. Gova Rathod, Gujarat
13. Indira Rani, Independent Researcher
14. Kiran Vissa, Rythu Swarajya Vedika
15. Madhu Bhushan, Bangalore, Karnataka
16. Mamata Dash, Activist, New Delhi
17. Medha Patkar, NBA & NAPM
18. Meera Sanghamitra, NAPM
19. Mina Jadhav, Majur Adhikar Manch, Gujarat
20. Neetisha Xalxo, Dhanbad Jharkhand
21. Nikita, Activist, Delhi
22. Nidhi, ALIFA, Rajasthan
23. Puja, ALIFA-Delhi
24. Dr Preeti Edakunny, Bangalore
25. Poushali Basak, Researcher and activist.
26. Radhika Desai, Feminist researcher, Goa
27. Rahee, Social Activist, Maharashtra
28. Renuka, Social Activist, Maharashtra
29. Ritu, Queers for Constitution, Lucknow
30. Ritash, NAPM-ALIFA & JSA
31. Rohit Chauhan, Saurashtra Dalit Sangathan
32. Rukmini Rao, Social Activist, Hyderabad
33. Sagari Ramdas, Food Sovereignty Alliance
34. K. Sajaya, Social activist, Hyderabad
35. Dr. Sanju, ALIFA Rajasthan
36. Soumya Dutta, MAUSAM & NACEJ-NAPM
37. P Shankar, Dalit Bahujan Front, Telangana
38. Adv Dr Shalu Nigam, Delhi NCR
39. Shiva, Researcher, Delhi
40. Svati Shah, Academic
41. Suneetha A, Feminist researcher, Hyderabad
42. Usman Jawed, Workers Forum, NAPM Mumbai
43. Yuvraj Gatkal, Agrarian Forum, NAPM-Pune
All India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA–NAPM)
E-mail: nariva...@gmail.com
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Instagram:alifafeministalliancenapm
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12 Years of Landmark NALSA (2014), One Month of Historic Struggle Against the Regressive Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026
ALIFA-NAPM in Solidarity with Transgender Movements Across India Demanding Withdrawal of the Unconstitutional 2006 Act
ALIFA Calls Upon All Democratic Movements to Unitedly Resist the Dismantling of Constitutional Rights Though the Parliament!
16th April, 2026: It is indeed a precious coincidence that the historic NALSA judgement of the Supreme Court was delivered on 15th April, 2014; just a day after Ambedkar Jayanti on 14th April. Together, these two days are not just ‘symbolic’ but hugely significant for social justice, transgender and gender-diverse communities, who have faced historical injustice. As we mark 12 years of the Supreme Court’s NALSA judgement, that explicitly recognised transgender persons’ constitutional right to self-determination and acknowledged the need for not only protection from discrimination, but also proactive systemic action to be taken, in order to enable a concrete participation of transgender persons in all aspects of life, the All India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA-NAPM) re-affirms its continued and unflinching solidarity with transgender movements across the country, calling for repeal of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Act, 2026.
Since the 13th of March, when the Bill was tabled for discussion in the Lok Sabha, with no prior community consultation, not even with the statutory authority created for this purpose i.e., the National Council for Transgender Persons, (NCTP) large-scale mobilizations have taken place across all states of India. Transgender persons included and omitted from the Act have spoken firmly against it, ranging from persons from different socio-cultural communities, trans men, trans women, intersex persons, genderqueer and gender diverse persons.
In spite of rapid mobilisation and representations made to members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and to officials at the local level, and in spite of reasoned arguments made in both houses of the Parliament by Opposition MPs, protest resignations of two NCTP members, and going against the request of the SC appointed Asha Menon Committee, the Bill was passed in unjustifiable haste within two weeks. All along, the Union ‘Social Justice’ Ministry (MoSJE) continued to act from a deficient and discriminatory understanding of the lives and requirements of transgender persons as full and equal citizens of India. Despite appeals to her by numerous feminists and lawyers, the President of India assented to the Bill on 30th March. The Amendment Act is currently awaiting the framing of the Rules that will prescribe the manner of its application.
Even though the Act has not technically come into effect, its draconian provisions have already had a serious material impact on some of the most vulnerable members of the community. Trans persons who were already in the process of medical and legal transition have been asked to wait, since service-providers fear possible criminalisation and other implications on them. Mental health professionals have drawn attention to the severe impact on the community which already sees higher incidence of mental health issues triggered by facing daily systemic forms of discrimination. Transgender persons fear loss of protection from discrimination and violence, and are already facing institutional reluctance to provide an enabling environment in education and healthcare. This is even though transgender persons’ rights continue to be guaranteed constitutionally and through the provisions of NALSA.
As we mark the 12th Anniversary of the NALSA judgement, we re-assert along with our transgender comrades from within diverse movement spaces and in all walks of life:
1. All transgender persons have the right to protection against violence and discrimination:
The 2016 Amendment Act is a draconian rollback of constitutional rights and a betrayal of hard-won progress. It blatantly violates the equality, non-discrimination and dignity guarantees under Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Indian Constitution. It undoes even the minimal and hard-won protections of the Transgender Persons Act, 2019. Far from protecting transgender persons, the Amendment imposes brahmanical, patriarchal and medicalized control over bodies and identities. This legislative move is a political assault on transgender people in the name of ‘protection’.
Contrary to the stated intention of the Bill to ensure the protection of “transgender people who face societal discrimination of an extreme and oppressive nature” the barriers introduced in the Bill will ensure that most marginalized and oppressed cannot access its protections. In many ways, the logic of the amendment, affecting not just trans people but their support systems and chosen families, is reminiscent of colonial laws, where the aim was to eliminate transgender people from existence altogether and relegate them to second-class citizenship, once again!
The reason for an amendment to the 2019 Act, as laid out in the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill are “to recognise a specific class of transgender persons who face social issues and to create a regime for their protection.” The Bill creates a farcical and unscientific classification removing transgender persons who self-determine their gender identity from protection. In the process, it leaves out in their entirety trans women who are not associated with socio-cultural communities, trans men and gender-queer persons, even though sufficient proof exists and has been made available on numerous occasions as to the violence these groups face, starting from severe natal-family violence, to violence in educational institutions, at work places and in society at large.
In fact, the Act itself is discriminatory and constitutes a violation of self-determination and bodily autonomy. Our Constitution guarantees equality under Article 14, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex or gender under Article 15, and protects the right to life, liberty, privacy and bodily autonomy under Article 21. In NALSA the Supreme Court made clear that the right to self-determine gender is inherent to these guarantees.
Even the 2019 Act recognised these principles by allowing self-declaration for identity documents. As against all of these, the 2026 Amendment tramples these protections by deleting and decimating the right of self-identification and requiring state validation of gender identity. The 2026 Act denies transgender people the autonomy, privacy and dignity that Article 21 enshrines, and it treats their identities unequally, undermining Articles 14 and 15. In short, the Amendment imposes state surveillance and control over individual freedom and dignity.
2. Transgender and intersex persons’ lived experiences and knowledge, and implementation of existing legislation must be taken into account before making legislative changes:
The Amendment Bill has been proposed without any consultation with the transgender community. In fact, two members of the National Council for Transgender Persons have since resigned in public protest, after having tried to approach MoSJE and ignored in all attempts to perform their role and communicate the concerns of the community regarding the act. Consultation with the community would have revealed important aspects:
In bureaucracy: The 2026 Act introduces multiple regressive provisions that will gravely harm transgender lives: legal recognition will depend on state approval rather than individual declaration, gender recognition is now subjected to a two-step process in which a District Magistrate may issue a certificate only after receiving a recommendation from a government-appointed medical board headed by doctors, the Magistrate may seek further expert opinions. Even with the existing (2019) legislation, members of the community often have to become legal and medical guides and constantly sensitise the service providers with whom they come into contact, from medical professionals to District Magistrates.
In practice, ill-informed bureaucrats and medical panels, will be expected to ‘determine’ the gender of a person, on the assumption that they ‘know’ better than the person themselves. Additionally, 7 years since the Transgender Act (2019), the mandated state-level welfare boards in multiple states have not even been constituted, or are to all intents and purposes not running. What meaning, then, is there to changing legislation with regard to something that has not been implemented with good will?
In addition, community members have been involved in ongoing training and sensitisation with medical care professionals, and the bodies regulating them to ensure sensitivity in addressing the needs of transgender and intersex persons. While this work is ongoing and challenging as it is, the Act also points to mandatory reporting of gender-affirming surgeries that may force hospitals to surrender confidential medical information to the state and causes stress about a chilling surveillance regime around healthcare.
In education: Transgender persons continue to face discrimination in accessing education at all levels; in being able to fully participate in all educational and recreational activities on campus; in accessing housing on campus; and in being protected from bullying and discrimination. With the new Amendment, the severity of this discrimination will only increase for the majority of the community that has been left out of the ambit of the law.
In protection from violence and discrimination: In spite of protection being extended under previous legislation to the range of transgender persons, institutions of the state such as the police continue to refuse to recognise individual freedoms and compel individuals to return to violent natal and marital families or communities trying to pressurise them.
The Amendment was proposed without regard for the Jane Kaushik Advisory Committee set up in October 2025 after the Jane Kaushik v. Union of India case, where the Supreme Court of India found that the Government of India has not implemented the 2019 Act and upheld the rights of transgender persons to legal recognition and social security. Infact, Jst. Asha Menon, Chairperson of the SC-appointed Advisory Committee wrote to the Minister, MoSJE to withdraw the Amendment Bill, which was not heeded to. Even if governments set up welfare and protection measures as required by the 2019 Act and the Supreme Court, few people will actually pass the red tape needed to become ‘eligible’ for them.
In addition, there are cases in various courts, including the Supreme Court, challenging the previous Act and the current Amendent Act, but also asserting the demand of intersex persons to be identified as a separate and specific category, in order to allow for the protection of their rights.
3. Transgender persons’ livelihoods and welfare need to be addressed in a nuanced, evidence-based way
It is important to note that working-class trans activists have consistently raised demands for economic justice. Many have sought to move beyond precarious forms of informal labor, such as begging or sex work, into more stable opportunities in education, formal employment, and entrepreneurship. Their activism has also included protests against policing practices that target traditional livelihoods, as well as demands for affirmative action, social security, and inclusive public policy.
Many Garima Grehs explicitly bar people who earn their living through begging or sex work, occupations forced by exclusion from formal labour, and they often impose arbitrary exclusions and age limits that deny assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable. These exclusions mirror casteist and puritanical attitudes and punish people for survival strategies shaped by caste and class marginalisation. In response, trans organisations have repeatedly organised and also pursued legal action up to the Supreme Court to secure basic rights. The new Amendment attempts to limit and police trans persons’ access to benefits and distract from the ongoing strong demand for horizontal reservations.
The fact is that financial allocations for the welfare of transgender persons, insufficient to begin with, are in any case underutilised. Several states have acted on the earlier recommendations of NALSA and made specific provisions within the state, including states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu which have introduced limited reservations, and other states. All this must be taken into account before trying to define a politically-motivated sub-category of ‘transgender’ as sole ‘real’ beneficiary.
4. Transgender persons have the right to access friends, networks and structures of support:
In the absence of such protections, trans and queer communities in India have had a long history of grassroots organizing, particularly led by working-class and marginalized groups such as hijra, kinnar, Dalit, bahujan and Adivasi communities. Their struggles have centered on securing livelihoods, dignity, and legal protections in a society that has often excluded them. Over the years, this activism has resulted in the creation of community-based welfare systems, such as shelters, community living and income generating arrangements, crisis intervention and support in negotiating legal and medical interventions. These efforts reflect a broader ethic of solidarity rooted in shared experience.
In this context, the creation of broad criminal offences (under section 18) for “forcing” someone to assume or present a transgender identity, while framed as preventing abuse, is dangerously vague and in practice threatens everyday acts of care and support, family members, friends, colleagues or community leaders who assist a person to transition or to live openly could be branded as criminals, this effectively criminalises chosen family arrangements and communal support networks.
As soon as the proposed Bill became public, responses to this threat of criminalizations have come from the range and breadth of community support structures and allies: from queer, trans, intersex groups across caste, class and state; from feminist collectives, organisations and networks; from people’s movements for land rights, ecological justice, labour rights, civil liberties to mention but a few; from lawyers’ and medical practitioners’ associations and collectives; writer’s associations etc. All of these are the structures of support to which transgender, gender diverse and intersex persons belong, and which are now threatened by the new Act.
5. Authoritarian projects of the State can’t be hidden under the guise of ‘technical’ fixes. This legislation affects everyone:
The current Amendment must be understood not as a technical fix, as it claims to be, but as part of a wider authoritarian project. Far-right majoritarian and fascist movements globally have made transphobic attacks a central plank of their ideology, seeking to purge “threats” to a mythic national purity by targeting gender-nonconforming bodies. In Europe and US, bans on gender-affirming care, pronoun use, or trans visibility are explicitly justified as protecting traditional gender order.
These tactics echo historical fascism: the Nazis infamously raided and burned Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexology in 1933, destroying the foremost archives on trans and queer lives. “Kidnapping and castrating” myth and its age-old roots in the casteist, racist, Criminal Tribes Act, 1860, keeps resurfacing and movements have fought this away in Karnataka and Telangana Police Act cases—the idea that transness and the creation of trans networks is a contagion that needs to be ‘controlled’ is both very old and very new. This amendment can be read as part of India’s broader bid to join a global conservative-fascist order by projecting value alignment.
Brahmanical and patriarchal, to the core, this Amendment legitimizes state control over gender, kinship and care. It privileges a narrow upper-caste imagination of gender roles, erasing identities that do not conform to that imagination. In effect, it proclaims that identity is what the state decrees. This logic is inseparable from casteist exclusion. Just as caste hierarchy enforces notions of purity and occupation, the Act punishes those at the bottom of the social order.
It upholds patriarchal family norms, it treats transgender people as wards of the state rather than autonomous individuals and it undermines any form of family, relationships and care that does not fit a heteronormative model. By criminalizing chosen families and communities, the state is effectively forcing transgender people into isolation or into dependence on (often violent) natal families or state-sanctioned institutions.
This Amendment aligns India with a dangerous international pattern of authoritarian attacks on gender and sexual minorities. Around the world far-right and fundamentalist movements have made transphobia and queerphobia central to political projects, they stoke moral panics about imagined threats to ‘tradition’ or ‘national identity’ and use punitive laws and state instruments to scapegoat vulnerable communities. In the present context, such moves resonate with the consolidation of hindutva fascism, where brahmanical control over bodies, gender and social order is reinforced through law and governance. The current Amendment normalises surveillance of bodies and relationships and uses criminal law and paperwork to assert ideological control, in this sense it forms part of an authoritarian playbook that scapegoats minorities through punitive legislation and moral panic. Clearly, these amendments don’t just impact transgender people, they impact any and all of us by giving the state more arbitrary powers to intervene in our everyday lives. It creates more bureaucracy with no corresponding benefits or enlargement of democracy.
ALIFA stands in unwavering solidarity with transgender persons, gender-diverse persons and intersex persons, in their ongoing struggles, at all levels for:
- The immediate and unconditional repeal of the Amendment Act, 2006. The government must immediately restore and guarantee the right to self-identification of gender;
- Ensuring that legal recognition continues to be available on the basis of individual declaration without medical or bureaucratic gatekeeping;
- State recognition and protection for chosen families, relationships and diverse kinship and caregiving arrangements including hijra gharanas, queer friendship groups and co-parenting partnerships. Laws should permit individuals to designate any trusted person for inheritance, medical decisions and custody; regardless of blood ties and all clauses that criminalize supportive relationships must be removed,
- Horizontal reservation to be implemented by the Union and State governments for transgender persons across all categories of education and employment, with dedicated sub-quotas within SC, ST, OBC and general categories to ensure representation.
- Expansion of social welfare such as funded, accessible healthcare that includes but is not restricted to gender-affirming care; pensions, scholarships, skill training and livelihood programmes prioritising the most disadvantaged, Garima Grehs and other support schemes that are inclusive, non-punitive and adequately funded.
- Meaningful representation of transgender persons in all governance bodies, committees and task forces and at all levels, with decision-making powers, to oversee policy. Similar representation in police and bureaucratic training and review bodies, to ensure policies are designed and implemented in consultation with the community.
- Accountability ensured for state violence, with prompt investigations and action in all reports of police brutality, harassment or neglect, mandatory transgender-sensitivity training instituted across law enforcement and the judiciary, and independent oversight mechanisms established to monitor enforcement of rights and to handle complaints, wherein victims of violence have access to legal aid and rehabilitation.
- Acknowledgement from public authorities and political leaders that transgender, gender-diverse and intersex persons are equal citizens entitled to dignity, work, security and happiness, and action to rescind discriminatory and punitive laws in favour of protecting the human rights of all.
ALIFA stands firmly with transgender, gender diverse, gender queer and intersex communities in this ongoing struggle. We call on civil society, political parties, media and all democratic movements to support the struggle on all fronts and make the fight for gender justice inseparable from our struggle against caste and patriarchy, social and ecological justice. We will continue to organise and mobilize in solidarity and determination, until transgender, gender-diverse and intersex persons can live free of state, societal violence and with full and equal citizenship. We hope we are all able to build broader solidarities; across all democratic movements fighting the roll back of various pro-people laws and ensure the Parliament, being run by brute majority, is held accountable for eroding constitutional rights of the marginalized millions.
All India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA - NAPM)
All India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA–NAPM)
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