Eunuchs in high demand protecting assets in India

MUMBAI--In medieval India, eunuchs kept watch over royal harems so the king's consorts didn't fall prey to sexual advances from their guards. These days in Mumbai, they're protecting assets of a different kind.

Stripping off gaudy saris, smearing make-up, banging drums, clashing cymbals and swearing like troopers, members of the so-called third sex are employed to collect on a rising tide of overdue loans.

Finance companies, frustrated by a choked legal system, are exploiting the nuisance value of hijras--a term that applies to transsexuals, cross-dressers and hermaphrodites as well as castrated men. Debtors often pay up rather than be shamed by a raucous group of castratos. Equally dreaded by the superstitious masses is the curse of a neutered man.

"I have hired four eunuchs to get back my money and use them when companies don't pay up," said Keith Hallis, chief executive officer of Empire Securities, which lends to companies and offers home mortgage loans.

Companies using the services of hijras range from lenders such as Syndicate Bank and Saraswat Cooperative Bank to express freight companies including Blue Dart Express and Elbee Services. Lenders wouldn't reveal the names of debtors who had paid up after such visits.

India's total bad loans rose to 608.41 billion rupees ($30 billion) from 587.22 billion rupees in March 1999, according to central- bank figures. Bad loans accounted for 14.3 percent of the total loans by banks in the year ended March 31, compared with 15.9 percent in the previous year.

`Eunuchs are safe'

"We have been very successful in recovery of loans," said B.R. Shetty, owner of Unique Recovery Services, whose company has recovered more than 20 million rupees by using eunuchs.

"Companies and people fear social embarrassment more than the law," he said.

Shetty said it was safer to send eunuchs than strong-arm men to the offices and homes of a debtor. The use of thugs may give rise to charges of assault and molestation, he said, "but eunuchs are safe."

Not all hijras in India are castrated men, although the custom is still conducted as an initiation ceremony in some shadowy religious sects. Most are transsexuals who would otherwise make a living from begging, dancing and prostitution.

Getting debtors to pay up

The last official census, conducted in 1990, put the number of hijras at 314,818. Social activists say many of them were orphans or poor children when they were spirited away by organized criminal gangs and cults, castrated and pressed into begging or the sex trade.

Eunuchs, who are paid 150 rupees ($3.20) a day by the companies that hire them, enter a debtor's office in pairs or small groups and ensconce themselves in the reception area. They are usually quickly ushered into the office of the boss and offered refreshments.

"We initially try and convince them to return their dues. If it doesn't work even after frequent visits, we have to adopt more drastic measures," said Radhika, who as is customary among eunuchs has no surname.

20 years for one bad-debt case

Radhika, a high-school graduate who is so much in demand that she always carries a pager, says most visits she and her colleagues undertake are successful. Some debtors are so much in a hurry to get them off their premises that they pay up on the spot and in cash. "We have a 60 percent success ratio," said Radhika.

India set up special Debt Recovery Tribunals in 1998 after ordinary Indian courts got so backed up it was taking as much as 10 to 20 years to dispose of a single bad-debt case. Even these tribunals are now clogged up.

"There are over 75,000 cases pending with these courts," said K. Kameshwar Rao, chief general manager with Industrial Development Bank of India, the country's biggest lender to companies. "The number of cases will go up to 100,000 by the year end."