The Role Of Transsexuals And Eunuch In Indian Society
February 13th, 2010 by BabeThe role of transsexuals and eunuchs, like many things in India, can appear contradictory to the outsider, as they are at once spurned and discriminated against, yet in some ways accepted as part of life.
They are common in Bollywood films where they frequently play comic roles and they often appear at weddings or at the homes of newly-born children where they are paid as a defence against bad luck.Often they extract money at such occasions by threatening to strip or resort to violence unless they are given a financial inducement to leave.
The idea of transsexuals or “otherness” has a long history in India and eunuchs are mentioned in the earliest Hindu texts, the Vedas, believed to have been written in the second millennium BC.
Being a transsexual or castrated is seen as curse in traditional Hindu culture, but the idea has historically been more widely tolerated and even venerated in India’s minority Muslim population.
Many eunuchs rose to powerful positions in the Islamic Mughal regime that ruled the subcontinent for hundreds of years after an invasion in 1526.
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