How often does one get to go to a eunuch convention? I didn’t want to miss this chance, so Alyssa Banta, the assignment photographer, swaddled my bowl-shaped belly in a scarf to prevent it from bouncing too much on the bumpy road. Telling our driver to tear away like the blazes should anyone try to carjack us, we set out in the Lucknow dawn for the road to Rath.
Indian newspapers had said that the hijra community was using the convention to kick-start its own political party-and start a new career path for their members. The eunuchs’ argument: that as social outcasts, without heirs or worldly ambitions, they would make incorruptible politicians.
Estimates of India’s eunuch population range from 50,000 to 1.25 million, but any visitor who looks hard enough in the older quarters of any large city is bound to see bands of roving men-dressed-as-women, and men/women who are the hijras. Made up of a mix of transvestites, castrated men, and the odd hermaphrodite, the hijra community makes its living by singing and dancing at births and weddings.
Up until the 18th century, hijras were accepted in aristocratic life, as trusted servants, cooks and confidantes to nobility and kings. But when the feudal system went, so did hijras’ social standing, Today, they are largely reviled: they make a lot of their money by being paid off simply to go away. A hijra ‘union’ in Mumbai can arrange you to pay them off not to show up at your baby’s birth or daughter’s wedding. Still, there are exceptions. There is a hijra who is a member of a local assembly in Madhya Pradesh, a hijra mayor, and a handful of local hijra politicians.
I had visions of doing a story on the eunuchs’ party as a sign of India’s thriving, if Balkanized, political culture-and it was the mirage of a smart political piece that buoyed me up over those seven hours, as I and my tummy bounced in opposite directions.
“Where are the hijras?” our translator shyly asked the first resident of Rath we came upon. The man laughed, and Ajay looked sheepish. It turned out the convention was being held in a local grade-school building stuck somewhere in the narrow lanes of the old town. Ajay banged on the gray metal gate of a compound. It slowly opened to reveal a huge yard decked in tinsel and thronging with hijras. Alyssa and I leapt out, and were immediately surrounded by scores of eunuchs, rouged, lipsticked, and in rainbow-bright saris and skirts.
We smiled and introduced ourselves, arrogantly assuming that they’d be thrilled that NEWSWEEK was taking an interest in their political aspirations. They pushed close. They stared. Unamused. Some snickered, and spoke so rapidly in their special hijra-dialect that Ajay couldn’t catch it all. Whatever they said, it wasn’t friendly. A chubby eunuch in a ragged T-shirt and full red skirt looked us up and down, then said that Ajay was a pimp to bring foreign journalists to them. “All they’ll write about us is lies, like all the other journalists,” he sneered. “It will hurt our position in society.”
Ajay, who earlier had only half-jokingly told his Lucknow friends that he wasn’t sure he’d return alive, looked miserable. “I’m scared,” he whispered. “But not very.”
One elegant hijra, slim and patrician in a white sari, was kinder than the rest. “We can’t speak without our leader’s permission,” she explained. Her name was Shobha Nehru, and she herself was a pro-Congress Party city councilor. She said she’d be happy to talk politics-if we’d make the journey to her district, 10 hours away. She just couldn’t talk politics here.
I exploited my pregnancy shamelessly, miming how I’d bounced along a bumpy road in 95 degree heat for a whole business day just to see them. Still no dice. We were told to wait in the sun while the rest of them went to eat under a shaded tent.
In India, not offering guests a cool drink or cup of tea is tantamount to slamming the door in their faces. And for the hijras, this was politesse: a friend of Alyssa’s who had tried to photograph them in Bombay had found herself kidnapped for a few hours while they demanded she pay them $200. She refused, and escaped without paying, but tales of hijra extortion for photos are rampant in India.
“Their leader is in a bad mood,” explained Ajay, as we leaned against a concrete stage in the midday heat. “She is angry because the press came, and wrote lies.”
Twenty minutes later, Shobha Nehru relented and sent someone over offering us a Pepsi. The offer emboldened us. “Ajay, go tell them how we will not lie, and we will not take advantage of them,” I pleaded. “Tell them all we want is ten minutes of their time, to talk about their proposed political party.”
A few minutes later, we were beckoned into the schoolhouse, where in a darkened assembly room, a few dozen hijras lay around dozing, gossiping, and popping boiled sweets. The leader, a round-faced hijra in a peacock-blue sari named Naseen Bai, had come out of her bad mood, it seemed. She greeted us graciously, smiling and bidding us to sit on the floor. “Poor thing,” whispered one hijra in a russet skirt, “She’s pregnant!” “Don’t bend over,” her friend chastised me gently. “It’s bad for the baby.”
I wasn’t here to get pre-natal advice, so I changed the subject. “Let’s talk about your foray into politics,” I said. “We’re fascinated by what this says about India’s democracy, that your community has decided to step in.”
“We aren’t stepping in,” said Naseen. “But the papers said…Did we travel all this way for a lie?”
“Yes. No politics. This is a cultural convention: we are here to worship our ancestors. We do not like politics. All the political parties are the same to us. If the public wants us to bring forth a political leader, we’ll definitely do it, and they’ll serve the country. But right now, we hijras don’t want to go into politics.”
And with that, the interview was over. She got up, shook our hands, posed for a photograph and walked out. One hijra began clapping her hands slowly-the sign that they were going to begin to ask for money for their time. The mood looked as though it would shift back to the previous nastiness. Alyssa and I looked at each other, and scuttled toward the car. “Drive. Now.” The car sped out of the compound, the gray gate shut behind us, and we lurched back toward our mundane lives.
