Early Life

Dr Piyush Saxena was born to Justice (Retd) K Narayan and late Shanta Saxena in 1958 in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh. As his father was in judiciary, a transferable job, his family was always on the move. He did his schooling from Sultanpur, Rae Bareilly, Kanpur, Jaunpur and Bahraich districts of the State. He did his graduation (B.Sc. in Physics) and post-graduation (M.A. in Modern History) from Allahabad University; aspiring to join the Civil Services, similar to majority of the Kayastha clan boys to which he belongs. However, destiny had something else in mind. He failed to fulfil the then affluent class dream of becoming a civil servant, and joined Bank of India as a Probationary Officer where he worked from 1981 to 1995. In 1995 he left his secured Public Sector job and home State UP and moved to Mumbai in search of greener pastures and joined Reliance Industries Limited in leadership position, where he works till date.

The year 2002 proved to be a turning point in Dr Piyush Saxena’s life. He lost his youngest brother to Chronic Renal Failure. He was shattered and was emotionally unable to cope up with the sad loss. This resulted in the deterioration of his own health. He was despondent and fed up of his life. He developed extremely poor digestion, allergy from several food and non-food items. At this stage of his life, he remained least interested in his own life.

At the suggestion of a holistic healer, he did a liver cleanse and according to him, it changed his life. Liver Cleanse, a popular western healing technique, based on grandma’s recipes was almost unknown to Indians. He immensely benefitted from it. Encouraged by its results, he convinced his family members and friends to do it and his activism started.

He started consolidating commonly used grandma’s recipes from all over the world, successfully tested on himself. The consolidation is known as Cleansing Therapy. He published a book ‘Cure Yourself’ based on it.

In the larger interest of human kind, he tried hard to convince the media about the curing of all diseases through internal cleansing. His “doctrine” failed to impress them as it lacked published research and data. However, the Editor of “Health & Nutrition”, Mr Santosh Pyasi agreed to publish an article on liver cleanse only on the condition that it provides some benefit to him. The unexpected happened and this widely circulated Hindi language magazine of the Magna Publishing Company published his articles on Cleansing Therapy and other topics for more than five years continuously one every month.

Cleansing Therapist

Dr Piyush Saxena agrees that Cleansing Therapy is a terminology used by him, and he did not discover these cures by himself. It is a mere consolidation of traditionally used “Grandma’s” and other remedies.

These remedies have helped mankind to live a healthier life since hundreds of years but had lost their sheen in capitalist economy. Dr Saxena has modified them to suit the Indian lifestyle, living conditions and availability of ingredients. Apart from Liver Cleanse, Cleansing Therapy is a consolidation of several cleanses like Kidney cleanse, Acidity Cleanse, Parasite cleanse, Joint cleanse, Fat Cleanse and 22 more cleanses.

Many people doubt the effectiveness of the Cleansing Therapy and call it “a quacks” formula. However, all the people who had done any or more of these cleanses vouch for its effectiveness and Dr Saxena’s integrity as he “doesn’t charge any fees for his consultancy or endorse products of any company; nor he seeks donations from anybody, individual or institutional”. His book “Cure Yourself”; based on Cleansing Therapy too, is available for free download on his website www.drpiyushsaxena.com.

Bollywood actress, politician and social worker Kunickaa Sadanand admits that she has benefited immensely from liver cleanse and has been without any anti-allergic medication since last 7 years. To popularise this therapy for the larger interest of human kind, she has produced a talk show in Hindi ‘Apna Ilaaj Apne Haath” without any monetary considerations and the same is available for free viewing on YouTube. Danseuse and Bollywood “Item girl” Sambhavna Seth also owes her career and health to Dr Saxena’s Cleansing Therapy. Bollywood actor and writer Rajendra Gupta says, “this therapy will be used by a larger population by word of mouth only as it is effective in number of ailments”.

Reaching the non-reachable

Dr Saxena has written three books on three different subjects. His first book “Everything Men Know About Women” has been a concept on men’s understanding of women. ‘Cure Yourself’ was his second book. During the release of this book, a director from well-known publishing company told him “Why don’t he write something on eunuchs or Hijras? As very little is known to the common people about this secretive community.” It was not an easy task to do. Eunuchs in India live under a Guru-Chela hierarchy system and they are not supposed to speak anything about their community to outsiders (people not from their community). However, Dr Saxena, after a lot of effort was able to establish a link and reach a Guru Saira Dadi (Saira Bano Sheikh) of Virar, a distant suburb of Thane District (Now Palghar) and her Chelas. The “Mercidezian” Dr Saxena stayed at Saira Dadi’s shanty at Virar as many as for 10 days on a number of occasions to know more about them. He was shocked to see the inhuman conditions in which eunuchs live, torture meted out to chela eunuchs by gurus and Nayaks. So moved was he with their plight, he along with some associates started working for them such as organizing free medical check-up camps, providing assistance for their sustenance, helping them in getting government documents such as ration card, voter I-card, PAN card, and opening of bank accounts etc. This culminated in formation of a non-Govt. organisation (NGO) ‘Salvation of Oppressed Eunuchs’; with a aim to bring the eunuchs to the main stream of society, to end hatred of common people towards them, to end their exploitation by Gurus and help them break the bonded labour system prevalent in the community. It was a path full of thorns as Gurus themselves opposed his activities; as it was hurting their vested interest.

A 540 pages book ‘Life of a Eunuch’ was published by the organization, researched and written by Dr Piyush Saxena. He had also produced and directed a documentary “…Aur Neha Nahin Bik Payee” to highlight the prevalence of bonded labour in eunuchs, their lives of servitude and serfdom.

His moves were vehemently opposed, an exhibition of his documentary “…Aur Neha Nahin Bik Payee” was abruptly stopped by hostile gurus at Ajmer during the ‘Urs’ festival in 2011.Gauri Sawant, of the NGO “Sakhi Chaar Chaughi” has vocally opposed his moves and disrupted his press conference held at Press Club Mumbai on 6 th February 2012, after Dr Saxena filed a PIL in the High Court of Bombay, seeking various basic rights for eunuchs . In response to SOOE filed PIL, various ministries made specific notification with regard to community, such as –

a) Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment notified that in case of exploitation by a Guru, a chela eunuch can directly approach ministry authorised officer to resolve their grievances.

b) Ministry of Health and Family Welfare directed government hospitals to form a Standing Committee of doctors to look after the GRS/SRS cases related to the eunuchs.

c) Election Commission of India specified that eunuchs (and few other categories) can write their Guru’s name instead of their father’s name while enrolling their names in electoral forms.

d) Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment formed an “Expert Committee of Transgender” to discuss the issues related to the eunuchs/transsexuals/third gender etc.

However, there are many naysayers to Dr Saxena’s efforts. Third gender activist like Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, Gauri Sawant and Jatin Mummy have denied the very existence of slavery (bonded labour) in Guru-chela hierarchy. However, Pakistan borne activist Sharmeen Obaidi’s film on Hijras, ‘Transgenders: Pakistan’s Open Secret’ also puts light on the sale and purchase of eunuchs, thus inadvertently supporting Dr Saxena’s claim. Laxmi Narayan Tripathi of NGO “Astitva” in a meeting of Expert Committee of transgender, formed by Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had violently opposed Dr Saxena’s organization(SOOE) for calling them eunuchs as she finds the term ‘Eunuch’ offensive.

Future plans

Dr Saxena through his charity organization SOOE wants to empower the eunuchs by making them self-reliant through self-help groups (SHG’s) and by providing them vocational training. Similarly, therapist Dr Saxena through his another NGO, Temple of Healing wants to promote the Cleansing Therapy for the benefit of a large population of India