India’s Eunuchs Gather for Election of Representative

BHOPAL, India — Hundreds of eunuchs who were former servants in the harems of India’s princes have gathered in the central city of Bhopal to elect a national leader for the first time in 80 years, organizers said today.

Surayya Bai, a spokesman for the eunuchs, said it was the first time since 1906 that such a conference has been convened, and only the third time in the last 160 years.

Most of the eunuchs, who adopted feminine names and attire, were born with deformed genitals or castrated by kidnapers and sold into royal households.

But with the collapse of their courtly world, the eunuchs were forced into begging, prostitution and dancing, often working together in groups maintaining the centuries-old traditions of the eunuchs’ cult.