Eunuchs not always born but made

They gatecrash weddings and childbirths, sing lewd songs and make extortion demands that are quietly acceded to due to the accident of their birth.

But a recent study by the All-India Hijra Kalyan Sabha (AIHKS) reveals that only 1 per cent of society's invisibles are born eunuchs, while the rest have joined the community under duress or for money.

Khairali Lal Bhola, Sabha president, says most eunuchs in the country are not transvestites or hermaphrodites. They are actually castrated men or chibbras.

The study indicates that Delhi alone has 30,000 hijras. Putting a number to the growing population, it says about 1,000 youths are converted into eunuchs in Delhi every year.

As per estimates, only one in a lakh is born a eunuch. Arun Kumar from Sahara Group, an NGO that works with eunuchs, says what the statistics don't reveal is how kids and youths are kidnapped for sex work.

"Eunuch gurus and their paid agents get these kidnapped youngsters addicted to opium and then initiate them into homosexuality. Eventually, they are castrated in a gory and risky operation."

Indira, general secretary of the Hijra Kalyan Sabha and victim of a kidnapping, hit out at eunuch gurus. "These gurus have become millionaires by making eunuchs service homosexuals," says Indira, formerly known as Rajendra, who was castrated.

"I can never return to my wife and two daughters. My life has been destroyed forever." Alka, 45, is fair and lighteyed but he's grown to resent his looks.

"I lost my parents and siblings to communal strife in Kashmir, but a worse fate was in store for me. Eunuchs picked me up and brought me to Delhi.

In no time, I was introduced to hashish and brown sugar (an impure form of heroin)," says Alka, a sex worker who's now quite popular with the gurus for the money he brings in.

Kirpal,who was sold to eunuchs by his employer at Old Delhi railway station, was luckier. Though he did have to work as a sex worker, the sabha saved him from castration.

The Supreme Court intervened to order that Kirpal be provided full protection. He is now working for the Hijra Kalyan Sabha.

But the sabha president admits this is the only rescue that his organisation has managed. "Others will probably have to wait for the eunuch-police nexus to end," says a dispirited Bhola.

Courtesy: Shveta Bhagat, TNN | Sep 5, 2005, 01.03AM IST @ "http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Eunuchs-not-always-born-but-made/articleshow/1219979.cms"