The Sexual Politics of Imperial Expansion: Eunuchs and Indirect Colonial Rule in Mid-Nineteenth-Century North India.

This article examines historical transformations in the social status and political authority of eunuch slave-nobles known as khwajasarais in Awadh, an autonomous state that was formerly part of the Mughal Empire. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the British East India Company's interventionist and expansionist policies towards Indian-ruled principalities intensified, setting the stage for Awadhi khwajasarais to become embroiled in the sexual politics of imperial expansion. Eunuchs, represented as politically 'corrupt' officials, were central figures in colonial criticism of Awadhi 'maladministration’, that equated misgovernment with gendered and sexual disorder. In 1848, the Company pressured the Awadh ruler or Padshah, Wajid Ali Shah, to make local labour regimes conform to colonial Victorian concepts of gender, politics and work. The Company sought to transform the meanings of khwajasarais’ work not by abolishing eunuch slavery, but by restricting khwajasarais to apparently ‘benign’, though menial, domestic forms of slave labour. Both the Padshah and the khwajasarais resisted colonial interventions into khwajasarai labour and political formations. Nevertheless, following the establishment of British colonial rule in Awadh, khwajasarais were transformed from slave-nobles into members of the Muslim poor of colonial Lucknow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]