As we know that eunuch population is mounting in India and today we have around half a million population living as eunuch in India. This is a true fact that no one offers them work. They are left with no option but to beg from others for their survival. We never entertain them as our house keepers and not even as our sweepers. Even their parents don’t support them.
If they don’t get work then how will they endure? This is a very crucial question for all of us because when we think about complete development of our society so, how can we forget this major part of our society.
Transgender communities have existed in most parts of the world with their own local identities, customs and rituals. They are called baklas in the Philippines, berdaches among American Indian tribes, serrers in Africa and hijras, jogappas, jogtas, shiv-shaktis and aravanis in South Asia. The hijra community in India, which has a recorded history of more than 4,000 years, was considered to have special powers because of its third-gender status. It was part of a well-established `eunuch culture' in many societies, especially in West Asia, and its members held sanctioned positions in royal courts.
Hijras in India have virtually no safe spaces, not even in their families, where they are protected from prejudice and abuse. They are ill treated by every person and their family even don’t help them rather they also abuse them.
Hermaphrodites are deprived of Human Rights:
Eunuchs were given voting rights in 1994. Shabnam Mausi was the first eunuch elected from the Sohagpur constituency in Madhya Pradesh state’s Shahdol district in 1008. Her success story as an MLA has inspired a lot of Hijras in India to take up politics and participate in ‘mainstream activities’ in India, giving up their traditionally roles as dancers, prostitutes, and beggars, living on the fringes of Indian society. Of late the hijra community has begun to mobilize themselves through the formation of a collective effort. Sangama, an organization working with hijras, kothis and sex workers in Bangalore, has played an important role by helping them organize and fight for their rights. In December 2002, the community and in Bangalore formed a collective called Vividha, demanding repeal of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. It has also demanded that hijras be recognized as women, be given equal opportunities, with entitlement to housing, employment benefits and rail travel concession.
The International Human Rights Day comes and goes every year. Human Rights activists talk of torture of under trials in police custody. They talk about human beings being subjected to medical experimentation without their conscious knowledge. They discuss socially relevant subjects like violence against women, child abuse, trafficking or exploitation of child labor in TW countries. But the lot of the community of eunuchs is largely ignored even by their own. It is also true that at every stage of their existence, their rights to live and work like normal human beings are violated with impunity.
The term eunuch – hijra – that we commonly use to mean a ‘sexless’ person has been defined in the dictionary as a castrated man. A hermaphrodite is a creature possessing both the male and female organs. A transvestite is a person who chooses a sex other than the one he/she is born as. Facts tell us that neutralized neutral-sex persons are a rarity. The hijra population in India has a well-defined group structure and regional affiliations with a group head. Though Balucharaji is their Goddess and they revere Ambe Mata, there are religious demarcations. Most of them identify with the female sex. Within the eunuch community, incest is absent. Most of them have worked as prostitutes at one time or another. It is found that some persons labeled hijra in India are both prostitutes and celebrants of rites of passage.Hindu epics, “Puranas” and mythology are replete with the audacious feats of true hermaphrodites who, within these scriptures, have always been referred to as the ‘third sex.’ “But after the Arab attack in the eighth century, castration of males in order to put them on specific jobs began on a large scale”. Centuries ago, guards to king’s harems were castrated to ensure that no co-habitation between royal wives and guards took place. This led to the creation of the ‘third sex’ – the castrated eunuchs. But it was not the end of the story. These sexless wonders realized that perversions did exist in society. Many males found them distractingly attractive. And the potential ‘femme fatale’ was born.
