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After cops ask Santhi for gender proof, Tamil Nadu govt orders probe, says won’t happen again
Former athlete Soundarajan has won 12 international medals for India and is the first Tamilian to win a medal at the Asian Games in 2006.
The Tamil Nadu government has ordered a probe into allegations by former international athlete and coach Santhi Soundarajan against a police officer claiming that he asked her to prove her gender while questioning her in connection with a harassment case she had filed against her former colleague, her representative said on Wednesday.
Soundarajan had filed a case against her former colleague at the Tamil Nadu Sports Development Authority, Rajan Abraham, in September 2018 alleging that he repeatedly used casteist slurs against her and ridiculed her gender.
Former athlete Soundarajan has won 12 international medals for India and is the first Tamilian to win a medal at the Asian Games in 2006. But she was stripped of her silver medal in the 2006 Asian Games after she failed a gender test due to hyperandrogenism (excessive testosterone in women). Subsequently, she was barred from participating in track and field events.
After she fell on hard times and started working in a brick kiln, former chief minister J Jayalalithaa gave Soundarajan a permanent job at the state’s sports development authority in 2016.
As a coach, Santi filed a complaint in September 2018 with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) against Abraham. Her representative, Gopi Shankar Madurai told HT Abraham insulted Soundarajan several times with jibes against her caste and gender.
Santi is not allowed to speak to the media as per her contract. A person familiar with details said that she would be called as “Mr Santhi”, she would be told to use the men’s toilet when she went into the women’s toilet.
Madurai said that he also witnessed such harassment when he went to meet Soundarajan at Chennai’s premier Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
In October 2018, Soundarajan wrote an open letter to her alleged harasser saying he repeatedly humiliated her over the 2006 Asian games issue.
“Do you know how much you have humiliated me and hurt me? Because of you, I cry every day. Why are you torturing me?” she had written in the letter.
The NCSC started a probe into the case in 2018 when former Tamil Nadu BJP chief and current minister of state L Murugan was the chairperson. “But the case stalled. It has come up now again because Abraham gave an interview last year to a Tamil magazine saying that Santhi isn’t a woman,” said Madurai.
The National Council for Transgender Persons then took suo moto cognisance of the magazine article on charges of being discriminatory and interphobic. “That’s when the case took off again,” Madurai said.
As part of the investigation, Santi was called in for questioning by police on February 27 this year. According to Soundarajan’s complaint to the state government, one of the investigating officers, G Harikumar, allegedly asked her to prove her gender.
“The police have asked her if she is a man or a woman. They have said if she doesn’t submit proof that she is a woman they would form a committee to affirm her gender. Who gave them the authority to do this?” said Madurai.
“Santi’s assigned gender at birth is that of female and she identifies herself as a woman. Some people have intersex traits and she has excessive testosterone. How can we say she is not a woman because of that?,” said Madurai, who is the south regional representative of the National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP), a statutory authority under the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
Madurai further said they have received communication from chief secretary Irai Anbu that a probe has been ordered into the incident. “He told me that such things won’t repeat again and the issue is sorted,” said Madurai.
HT has reached out to Greater Chennai police commissioner Shankar Jiwal on the action taken.
