There are also cases of eunuchs being deployed as tax-collectors. This lurking fear would also make many cough up the demand for cash, clothes or food at once. They are also known to ambush weddings and birthdays of young baby boys demanding large donations and upon the faintest mention of denial would flash their mutilated genitals – considered a bad omen to those who happen to see it. Many of these transgenders eke out a living either through aggressive begging or through performing sexual acts. Those under its ambit would include castrated males, men born with deformed genitals and effeminate boys discarded by their families. In a ruling Tuesday, the apex court has given the status of ‘backward’ caste to this community enabling them to have reservations in all walks of life and help them catch up lost ground after centuries of discrimination on account of their deviant sexuality. Balakrishnan in the Supreme Court, creating formally another category of people who would now jostle for jobs, medical entrance exams and claim to become lecturers in universities. The “recognition of transgender (people) as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue”, said Justice K. Today, there are about two million of these members of the so called Third Sex and all have been recognized as part and parcel of the mainstream society in India.
Upon prompting, Ram recalled how he became Rama the eunuch after being lured away into a ‘Hijrah’ stronghold and castrated with crude instruments and then made to eke out a living for a couple of rupees a day. But when he reappeared at the doorstep six–months later, the joy of the parents were cut short by a distinct queerness that had come over the boy who had aged much more than six years in the few months he was missing. He had just become another statistic in the numerous children who go missing each year. Last year in Delhi, when 13-year-old Ram did not turn up home from school, the police were clueless. They then assimilate the boy, ‘reborn’ now as a eunuch, to perpetuate their community. But for those who survive the healing process, the neem stick is removed, letting out a steady stream of urine which is at once acknowledged by celebrations from the eunuchs. In many cases, the pressure of the urine hit the ureters and damages the kidneys, bringing death and an escape from the agony. Meanwhile, the boy during this healing period does not pass urine, and is also not given water – to minimize the formation of urine. The wound is not allowed to fuse, enabling an orifice for urine to pass, which is ingeniously created by inserting a neem stick which is removed whenever the wound heals. Then the slower process of carving out the testicles is executed. First, the penis is cut off, without sedation, from young boys who are kidnapped pinned down by eunuchs themselves. Riboud describes in detail how eunuchs are created with the stroke of a dirty but sharp knife. If you happen to read the well-researched fiction of Barbara Chase Riboud’s ‘Valide – Novel of the Harem’’ on the Turkish Sultans, then there is much to squirm about. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.”ĭeuteronomy 23:1- “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.’’Įunuchs have been there for centuries and the scriptures have mentioned them in many places. NEW DELHI: Matthew 19:12 – “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. An over 2,000-year-old journey for ‘hijras’.