Are They Not Humans? Eunuchs: Citizens Without Right
10 Pages Posted: 23 Jan 2012
Date Written: December 30, 2011
Abstract
Most of us, at some point or the other, have encountered eunuchs, or Hijras or Kinnars as they are called, in trains, crowded streets or subways clapping loudly, singing, dancing and taking baksheesh in exchange for blessings. Unfortunately, that is only how far our knowledge goes about them. What is even more deplorable is that we refuse to see beyond those ridiculed faces and notice that there is more to them than this stereotyped image.
Eunuchs, or hijras as we Indians call them, are of course victims of social narrow-mindedness. Cast out for a fault not of their own, they are the hated beings of our society.
Currently, there are approximately 50,000 to 1.2 million hijras in India. Ostracized since birth, they are forced to create a marginalized community of their own, to live at the fringes of society. This marginalization does not ’just happen’. It is done by all of us ‘normal’ people, daily.
As the adage goes ‘There’s always light at the end of the tunnel’, even for this community signs of changing times have begun to appear. Up until recently, transgender community had no legal rights, no ration cards and no voter identity. Although gradually, but their status in the society is undergoing an improvement.
Keywords: Citizens without Rights, Hijras, Transgenderism, Third Sex, Eunuchs, Justice, Human Rights
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