AyushSaran.com

Indian eunuchs have started issuing their own photo-identity cards in a battle for business with “fake” transsexuals who have muscled in on their begging operations.

Eunuchs regularly barge uninvited as “auspicious” visitors to Indian weddings and to bless the births of children and leave only after collecting money to spare their hosts embarrassment.

Lured by the money-making prospects, eunuchs say many men are dressing up as women and are involved in small-time crime and use more aggressive tactics to collect cash - prompting the issue of cards for “genuine” eunuchs.

The newcomers demand up to 2000 rupees (roughly $A60) for an occasion and refuse to be deterred by lesser amounts, said Sanju Masi, a eunuch operating in Ahmedabad in India’s western Gujarat state.

“Before eunuchs were treated with kid gloves but the fake ones won’t go away with just 10 rupees,” he said. “The problem has intensified and they abuse people if they don’t pay them.”

Sonia Ajmeri, a eunuch leader who last year ran for the state assembly on an independent ticket to represent the estimated 40,000 eunuchs in Gujarat, said the “fake eunuchs” were a big problem and growing.

“Some male partners of eunuchs dress up and go about begging and taking part in thefts and robberies,” he said, adding that the card scheme had been running for about a year in Ahmedabad.

There were also about 300 “fake eunuchs” operating in another city in Gujarat, Surat, according to a report today, where a similar card scheme has been introduced amid claims the eunuchs’ reputations were being damaged.

“If a person gives us money out of joy, we accept it, otherwise we bless him and leave. But the fake eunuchs coax people and ultimately harass them,” one told The Indian Express newspaper.

India’s estimated one million eunuchs, once the guards for the harems of India’s Mughal emperors, are now more likely to be shunned and are ridiculed in Indian movies.