For years after she was taken from her family by a gang of eunuchs, Ms. Nehru dwelled in a subculture of sexual outcasts who rank lower in India than the untouchables. They are notorious for crashing weddings, singing raunchy songs and dancing until paid to leave. But after her election to the municipal council in this city in northern India three years ago, Ms. Nehru has outshone her peers at getting water, sewer lines and roads for her district, a transformed slum. Now I entertain them by doing good, humanitarian deeds. Ms. Nehru and a handful of sister eunuch politicians are proof that eunuchs, long ostracized as freaks, are starting to emerge from the fringes of Indian society to gain mainstream respect.
Some males undergo castration to be accepted in the community.
Eunuchs deny longstanding allegations that they kidnap and castrate boys to keep their secret society alive, though over the years there have been a number of documented cases of adolescent boys being forcibly mutilated sexually. Eunuchs themselves cite the Hindu epic Ramayana to justify their right to exist. When the god-king Ram was banished to the forest, he urged all men and women followers to go home. Being neither, the eunuchs waited 14 years for his return. Moved by their devotion, Ram blessed these outcasts, or so goes the eunuchs' tale.