There’s a peculiar efficiency in our policymaking. We rarely fix the problem, but we excel at redistributing its consequences. Someone, somewhere, misuses a provision and suddenly an entire community is summoned to prove its innocence.
Kare koi, bhare koi.
Elegant. Efficient. Entirely unjust.
The recent conversations around the Transgender (Amendment) Bill 2026 feel less like governance and more like an elaborate audition. Not for rights, but for legitimacy. Imagine being asked to present your identity before a medical board and a district magistrate, as if your existence were a disputed land title.
At what point did identity become a document, and dignity a bureaucratic favor?
The New Ritual: Authenticate Thyself
In a country that struggles to verify forged degrees, fake universities, and ghost beneficiaries, we have found our administrative clarity in one domain, human identity.
To be recognized as transgender, you must now prove it. Not live it. Not know it. Not endure it.
Prove it.
Is there a form for that?
Annexure A: Intensity of Dysphoria (a state of psychological uneasiness... opposite to euphoria)?
Annexure B: Consistency of Identity Across Seasons?
And of course, the ultimate certifying authority, a panel that has never lived your reality but will now validate it.
Is this sensitivity, or surveillance dressed as empathy?
The Misuse Argument: Our Favorite National Excuse
The defense is familiar. But what about misuse?
Ah yes, misuse, the all purpose detergent that washes away rights.
A few bad actors exploit a law, and suddenly the solution is to mistrust everyone.
But let’s extend this logic.
Some people evade taxes. Should we suspend income declarations altogether?
Some doctors commit negligence. Should patients now prove they are sick enough before entering hospitals?
Some voters sell their votes. Should democracy itself be placed under verification?
Or is this strictness reserved only for those already on the margins?
Some Case Files from the Republic of Suspicion
1. Dowry Law Section 498A IPC
Built to protect women from cruelty, it soon acquired the label of misuse. The response was procedural tightening. The result was that genuine victims now navigate skepticism before justice.
Question: When protection becomes conditional, is it still protection?
2. SC/ST Atrocities Act
A shield against historical oppression, often debated for alleged misuse. Judicial interventions attempted to balance it, ironically making access to justice more cumbersome for those it was meant to empower.
Question: Must centuries of oppression now compete with a few instances of misuse for credibility?
3. Reservation and Fake Certificates
A handful forge caste certificates, and suddenly every rightful beneficiary becomes a suspect.
Question: Why does fraud by a few rewrite the legitimacy of many?
4. Disability Certification
Persons with disabilities are repeatedly asked to prove their condition, sometimes annually, as if permanence were negotiable.
Question: Is suffering only valid when it is periodically re-certified?
The Pattern: Prejudice with Paperwork
Across these examples runs a common thread. We respond to exceptions by institutionalizing suspicion.
It is not just about policy. It is about perception. A quiet assumption seeps in. They might be lying.
And so systems are designed not to enable, but to interrogate.
When did governance become a cross examination?
Democracy, But With Conditions Applied
We proudly invoke the principle.
—Let a hundred guilty go free, but not one innocent suffer.
Yet in practice, we seem to have updated it.
—Let a few exploit, and we shall ensure none feel trusted again.
- Is this caution, or collective punishment?
- If dignity requires verification, is it still dignity?
- If identity needs approval, is it still identity?
- If rights come with suspicion, are they rights or privileges on probation?
The Satirical Irony We Refuse to See
We trust individuals to —elect governments, interpret religion, raise children, and drive on chaotic roads.
But we do not trust the human being on their intrinsic and biological calling—to know who they are.
Remarkable.
Towards a Less Suspicious Society
Perhaps the solution lies not in more certificates, but in more courage.
- Courage to trust self identification
- Courage to design smarter safeguards without humiliation
- Courage to include communities in decisions about their own lives
Because the alternative is a society where everyone is eventually asked to prove something fundamental about themselves.
And history tells us, once verification becomes culture, it rarely stops at one group.
Closing Thought!
Kare koi, bhare koi was once a lament.
It is now becoming policy.
The real question is not whether a law can prevent misuse.
The real question is this.
Can a society afford to protect itself by distrusting its own people?
Or worse.
Are we slowly normalizing a world where being yourself requires official permission?
Because sometimes, the most dangerous misuse of law is how we respond to it.
References
1. The Transgender Persons Protection of Rights (Amendment) Act, 2026. https://prsindia.org/billtrack/the-transgender-persons-protection-of-rights-amendment-bill-2026
2. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, (2019), Government of India. https://prsindia.org/billtrack/the-transgender-persons-protection-of-rights-bill-2016
3. NALSA vs. Union of India (2014), Supreme Court of India. https://prsindia.org/files/bills_acts/bills_parliament/2016/Transgender_rights_case_(NALSA_vs._UoI)_2.pdf
4. Law Commission of India Reports on Section 498A IPC. Replaced by- Section 85 (and 86) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS)... Read more at: https://vajiramandravi.com/current-affairs/national-commission-for-men-bill-2025/
5. https://www.theindiaforum.in/law/where-data-misuse-498
6. https://cjp.org.in/section-498a-misuse-or-inappropriate-application/
7. SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, amendments and judicial observations
8. Yogyakarta Principles, 2006 on Gender Identity and Human Rights. https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/library/resource/the-yogyakarta-principles---principles-on-the-application-of-international-human-rights-law-in-relation-to-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/
9.https://prsindia.org/files/bills_acts/bills_parliament/2026/Transgender_Bill_2026_Text.pdf
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