Dancing and singing eunuchs are knocking on doors in the Indian city of Patna in a bid to embarrass shopkeepers into paying their taxes.
The new shock strategy, in which sari-clad and heavily made up eunuchs accompany officials on their rounds of crowded shopping areas in a country notorious for tax evasion and non-payment, has been declared a success.
The hijras are comprised of eunuchs, transsexuals, transvestites, and hermaphrodites “who have been ostracized by their families” and create close-knit families-by-design, in which they live on the margins on society. Atul Prasad, a top official in Bihar noted that "People may be afraid of them, but they are very much part of society and are useful,” and paid the hijras a commission on every tax collected.
It’s notable that government officials are willing to align themselves with the hijras, who were only granted the right to vote in the mid-90s, and managed to elect the first hijra MP by 1999—a political force with a lot of momentum, even as hijras continue to suffer violent discrimination, serious health concerns, and poverty by virtue of reduced opportunities. They are generally prostitutes and beggars, relegated to the margins. It’s a sad state of affairs that there is still fear and hatred to be exploited, but compare this to what the GOP has been doing in America. Instead of exploiting fear of the hijras to further marginalize them, the local government embraced the hijras and shamed people who don’t feel they’re “very much a part of society,” who are so dissociated from the hijras and their lives that they suspect them of having occult powers, and give them money for fear of mystical retribution. Would that every locality in India engage this “shock strategy” until there was no one left to be shocked at all.
On an amusing note, have the officials in Bahir been watching Eddie Izzard?
“I didn’t join the army, as you might have noticed… And um, and uh, yeah, cause there’s not much makeup in the army, is there? No? They only have that nighttime look, and that’s a bit slapdash, isn’t it? That’s a bit… And they look a mess. And so you can’t join, even though the American armed forces have a distinct policy of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ towards the alternative sexualities. If you’re a bloke wearing a lot of makeup, you know, uh, I don’t think they need to ask, really. And so you can’t join. They go, ‘No, no, you can’t. It’s—wrong shade of lipstick for the army, I’m afraid…’ And they’re missing a huge opportunity here cause we all know one of the main elements of attack is the element of surprise. So what could be more surprising than the 1st Battalion Transvestite Brigade? Airborne wing—the airborne wing parachuting into dangerous areas with fantastic makeup! And a fantastic gun. And the opposing forces going, ‘Fucking hell, look at these guys. Hey… Suckaaas. They’ve got guns! They’ve got guns! Jesus, wha—they’ve got guns!’ Ahhh, bugger. I was so surprised. Were you surprised? I was surprised’.”
The hat tip goes to Shaker Kristin, who says, “This is what we need in America: a SWAT team of transpeople, drag queens, and Dykes on Bikes, going around and harassing wingnuts into doing the right thing.” The Sod Squad! I would so pull a Count Victor Grezhinski to join that squadron, bitchez.
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