In the ongoing seven-phase parliamentary election to determine whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will get a third term, India’s 970 million voters include over 48,000 transgender people.

And of the 8,039 candidates nationwide – a four-fold rise from 1,874 in the 1952 election, India’s first – three candidates are transgender; a fourth dropped out. And a fifth is hoping to sit in the state assembly of Andhra Pradesh in south India, for which voting was on May 13.

India has long had a tolerance for transgender persons, however this has nothing to do with the Western LGBTQ+ movement – indeed, Indians are merely trying to overcome the colonial-era laws that tried to stamp out its own ancient traditions on the ‘third gender’.

The transgender community comprises Hijras, eunuchs, Kothis, Aravanis, Jogappas, Shiv-Shakthis, and more. Evidence for the existence of third-gender people can be found in Hindu holy texts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata.

In Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, and further back in Vedic culture, three genders were recognized. The Vedas (1500 BCE to 500 BCE) describe individuals as one of three categories according to one’s nature (‘prakrti’). These are also spelled out in the Kama Sutra (c. 4th century AD) and elsewhere as pums-prakrtistri-prakrti (female nature), and tritiya-prakrti (third-nature).

Various texts suggest that ‘third sex’ individuals were known in pre-modern India and included male-bodied or female-bodied people as well as intersexual. Third sex is also discussed in ancient Hindu law, medicine, linguistics, and astrology.