Chaitanya Lakkimsetti - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Chaitanya Lakkimsetti
This dissertation compares the political struggles around decriminalization of homosexuality and ... more This dissertation compares the political struggles around decriminalization of homosexuality and sex work in contemporary India. Since the mid-1990s the Indian state and national and international NGOs have been mobilizing sex workers and gay populations for HIV/AIDS prevention ...
Feminist Formations, 2021
Feminist Formations, 2021
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
“Empowered Criminals” compares the mobilization of sex workers and MSM and gay groups around two ... more “Empowered Criminals” compares the mobilization of sex workers and MSM and gay groups around two separate legal campaigns: the campaign to decriminalize adult consensual same-sex sex (Section 377 activism) and the campaign to stop new amendments to ITPA. Through advocacy and sustained campaigning, sex worker and MSM/kothi groups were able to not only mobilize against these laws but also use their roles in the HIV/AIDS prevention programs to argue that these laws undermined the state’s health mandate. Through protests and lobbying, they were able to gain the crucial support of HIV/AIDS groups as well as the federal Ministry of Health (which is primarily responsible for implementing HIV/AIDS policy). Furthermore, sex workers successfully stalled ITPA amendments in 2007, and LGBTKQHI groups had brief success with the reform of Section 377 in 2009. I argue that despite these successes, sex workers and LGBTKQHI groups still remained “empowered criminals.” They were empowered to make claims on the state based on their shared responsibility in preventing HIV/AIDS, and yet they were still classified as criminals because the laws that criminalize sex acts remain intact.
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
This final chapter focuses on the relationship between rights-based struggles and social transfor... more This final chapter focuses on the relationship between rights-based struggles and social transformation goals of sexual minorities. In September 2018, the Supreme Court of India reversed the Koushal judgment and declared Section 377 unconstitutional. This was a huge success for sexual minorities who rallied against the law for almost two decades and saw it as a symbol of state-sponsored homophobia. The two decades of sexual minority politics in India have not only foregrounded sexual orientation and gender identity as important constitutional rights but also strengthened the idea of constitutional morality. Constitutional morality, defined as respecting diversity and difference and protecting the most marginalized sections of the society, has helped sexual minorities to fight a growing populist morality that quintessentially defines India as Hindu and heteronormative. These successes also indicate that biopolitical mandates can be strategically used to fight popular morality and norms. In addition, by articulating sexual rights as interconnected with other social justice goals, sexual minorities in India also showcase the importance of intersectional struggles. The conclusion also touches upon challenges and opportunities for alliance building across sexual minority groups.
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
This chapter provides an overview of HIV/AIDS policies as well as how sexually marginalized group... more This chapter provides an overview of HIV/AIDS policies as well as how sexually marginalized groups are drawn into biopower programs as “high-risk” groups. In 1983, when HIV/AIDS was first detected among sex workers in India, the state’s initial response was to blame the sex workers themselves as well as to forcefully test them and confine them in prison. However, it proved impossible to incarcerate every sex worker and to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Instead, I argue, ultimately a consensus formed that supported giving marginalized groups a leadership role in tackling the epidemic. Drawing on ethnographic observations and the HIV/AIDS policy of the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), this chapter also highlights how these biopower projects deepened the involvement of high-risk groups as they moved from simple prevention to behavioral change. Ultimately, communities became extensions of biopower projects as they implemented these programs at the day-to-day level.
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
This chapter comparatively focuses on rights struggles of gay groups and transgender/hijra groups... more This chapter comparatively focuses on rights struggles of gay groups and transgender/hijra groups by focusing on two seemingly contradictory judgments of the Indian Supreme Court—the Koushal judgment of 2013, which declared Section 377 constitutional, and the same court’s 2014 NALSA decision, which granted rights to transgender groups—in order to discuss the impact of these legal decisions on the rights and recognition of LGBTKQHI groups. While the NALSA judgment made nonnormative gender identities legal, the Koushal judgment retained Section 377 and therefore upheld the idea that sexual acts considered to be against the “order of nature” were criminal. The chapter illustrates that while years of social activism have led to the tolerance of identities (today LGBTKQHI groups regularly organize pride marches and rally their political identities in public), nonnormative sexual acts remained criminal until 2018. The legal dichotomization of acts and identities has very important implications for the rights of sexually marginalized groups.
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
Based on twenty months of ethnographic research, the book looks at the relationship between the H... more Based on twenty months of ethnographic research, the book looks at the relationship between the HIV/AIDS epidemic and rights-based struggles of sexual minorities in contemporary India. Sex workers, gay men, and transgender people in India have become visible in the Indian public sphere since the mid-1980s, when AIDS became an issue in India. Whereas sexual minorities were previously stigmatized and criminalized because of the threat of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Indian state started to fold these groups into national HIV/AIDS policies as “high-risk” groups for an effective response to the epidemic. The book argues that HIV/AIDS transformed the relationship between sexual minorities and the state from one focused on juridical exclusion to one focused on inclusion through biopower. The new relationship between the state and sexual minorities brought about by HIV/AIDS and the shared power communities felt with the state enabled them to demand rights and citizenship from the Indian state. In addition to paying attention to these transformations, the book also comparatively captures the rights-based struggles of sexual minorities in India who have successfully mobilized against a colonial era anti-sodomy law, successfully petitioned in the courts for recognition of gender identity, and stalled attempts to criminalize sexual labor. This book uniquely brings together the struggles of sex workers and transgender and gay groups that are often studied separately.
Sexualities, Nov 21, 2016
This article examines the controversy surrounding women's sexual labor of dancing in the city of ... more This article examines the controversy surrounding women's sexual labor of dancing in the city of Mumbai in the western state of Maharashtra, India. Whereas much of the debate around the dance bars focuses on bar dancers' livelihood and right to work, I turn the discussion to the realm of desire and consumption to show how intimate labor is connected to class aspirations. Using legal, media and cultural sources, I suggest that the intimate labor in dance bars produces new aspirations for bar dancers. These aspirations are made possible by the specific labor and exchange conditions and relational possibilities that are specific to the bars, illustrating what I call the aspirational politics of sex, where sexual labor acts as a site for individual existential pursuits such as social mobility and a sense of well-being. Dance bars offer young women from marginalized communities the opportunity for livelihood and social mobility as well as access to middle-class lifestyles through involvement in new consumer cultures but without the corresponding status or protection of being middle class. Additionally, by analyzing the politics around the ban on dancing in Mumbai, the article reveals the cultural conflicts inherent in sexual labor and illuminates an important arena where women can mobilize hegemonic discourses to serve their own interests and stretch the limits of their subordination.
Legalizing Sex
“We want employment, we want jobs, we want welfare.” This was a main slogan at a daylong dharna (... more “We want employment, we want jobs, we want welfare.” This was a main slogan at a daylong dharna (protest) organized by a South India–based transgender and hijra group one humid summer afternoon in the city of Hyderabad in July 2015. The main goal of the dharna was to demand that the state government recognize transgender rights as recommended by India’s Supreme Court (SC). In 2014, for the first time in India’s history as an independent nation, the SC had recognized nonnormative gender identities as legal. It had also recommended that the government implement corresponding affirmative action policies in employment and education. There was a significant media presence and great interest in the dharna, whose organizers had mobilized a surprisingly large number of progressive groups to support their cause. It had been previously unthinkable that one of the most marginalized and stigmatized groups in the country could make demands of the state. When the day was over, the gathering had been a huge success that increased the visibility of the community while also showcasing its newfound political power....
Legalizing Sex
“Empowered Criminals” compares the mobilization of sex workers and MSM and gay groups around two ... more “Empowered Criminals” compares the mobilization of sex workers and MSM and gay groups around two separate legal campaigns: the campaign to decriminalize adult consensual same-sex sex (Section 377 activism) and the campaign to stop new amendments to ITPA. Through advocacy and sustained campaigning, sex worker and MSM/kothi groups were able to not only mobilize against these laws but also use their roles in the HIV/AIDS prevention programs to argue that these laws undermined the state’s health mandate. Through protests and lobbying, they were able to gain the crucial support of HIV/AIDS groups as well as the federal Ministry of Health (which is primarily responsible for implementing HIV/AIDS policy). Furthermore, sex workers successfully stalled ITPA amendments in 2007, and LGBTKQHI groups had brief success with the reform of Section 377 in 2009. I argue that despite these successes, sex workers and LGBTKQHI groups still remained “empowered criminals.” They were empowered to make claims on the state based on their shared responsibility in preventing HIV/AIDS, and yet they were still classified as criminals because the laws that criminalize sex acts remain intact.
Legalizing Sex
This chapter provides an overview of HIV/AIDS policies as well as how sexually marginalized group... more This chapter provides an overview of HIV/AIDS policies as well as how sexually marginalized groups are drawn into biopower programs as “high-risk” groups. In 1983, when HIV/AIDS was first detected among sex workers in India, the state’s initial response was to blame the sex workers themselves as well as to forcefully test them and confine them in prison. However, it proved impossible to incarcerate every sex worker and to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Instead, I argue, ultimately a consensus formed that supported giving marginalized groups a leadership role in tackling the epidemic. Drawing on ethnographic observations and the HIV/AIDS policy of the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), this chapter also highlights how these biopower projects deepened the involvement of high-risk groups as they moved from simple prevention to behavioral change. Ultimately, communities became extensions of biopower projects as they implemented these programs at the day-to-day level.
Legalizing Sex, 2020
This chapter draws on Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “bare life” to show how prior to HIV/AIDS, sex... more This chapter draws on Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “bare life” to show how prior to HIV/AIDS, sexual minorities experienced the state only through “raw power,” where rampant violence and abuse were the norm and the state freely consigned individuals to death by depriving them of resources. The management of “risk” in the light of the HIV/AIDS epidemic brought attention to the violence faced by sexual minorities, especially arbitrary police violence supported by criminal laws. During the earlier phases of the epidemic, peer educators and outreach workers—who were drawn from “high-risk” groups themselves—faced challenges and even violence in reaching out to their peers. Even carrying condoms for outreach purposes was seen as evidence of “criminal” sexual activity. This tension between peer educators and police reveals internal contradictions in the state; peer educators, who are at the cusp of state juridical and biopower, bring this contradiction in the state to the foreground.
Legalizing Sex, 2020
This final chapter focuses on the relationship between rights-based struggles and social transfor... more This final chapter focuses on the relationship between rights-based struggles and social transformation goals of sexual minorities. In September 2018, the Supreme Court of India reversed the Koushal judgment and declared Section 377 unconstitutional. This was a huge success for sexual minorities who rallied against the law for almost two decades and saw it as a symbol of state-sponsored homophobia. The two decades of sexual minority politics in India have not only foregrounded sexual orientation and gender identity as important constitutional rights but also strengthened the idea of constitutional morality. Constitutional morality, defined as respecting diversity and difference and protecting the most marginalized sections of the society, has helped sexual minorities to fight a growing populist morality that quintessentially defines India as Hindu and heteronormative. These successes also indicate that biopolitical mandates can be strategically used to fight popular morality and nor...
Feminist Formations, 2021
Feminist Formations, 2021
By examining discursive struggles around sexuality in contemporary India, I show how and when the... more By examining discursive struggles around sexuality in contemporary India, I show how and when the legal status of sexuality becomes used by individuals and communities to make political claims about their relations in and to the post-colonial nation-state. The ‘modern’ legal system introduced by British colonial rule installed state regulation of homosexuality and sex work in India. I look at when and how homosexuals and sex workers challenge these regulatory discourses and practices, considering these as post-colonial contestations over the legal and cultural meanings of “tradition” and “modernity.” I ask two primary questions: First, how do the legal and political challenges of these two groups become articulated in the face of local needs and practices and in the context of globalization and transnational concern about HIV/AIDS; and second, what do these challenges reveal in general about state power over how human bodies are used (biopower) in a postcolonial context and in speci...
Based on twenty months of ethnographic research, the book looks at the relationship between the H... more Based on twenty months of ethnographic research, the book looks at the relationship between the HIV/AIDS epidemic and rights-based struggles of sexual minorities in contemporary India. Sex workers, gay men, and transgender people in India have become visible in the Indian public sphere since the mid-1980s, when AIDS became an issue in India. Whereas sexual minorities were previously stigmatized and criminalized because of the threat of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Indian state started to fold these groups into national HIV/AIDS policies as “high-risk” groups for an effective response to the epidemic. The book argues that HIV/AIDS transformed the relationship between sexual minorities and the state from one focused on juridical exclusion to one focused on inclusion through biopower. The new relationship between the state and sexual minorities brought about by HIV/AIDS and the shared power communities felt with the state enabled them to demand rights and citizenship from the Indian stat...
This dissertation compares the political struggles around decriminalization of homosexuality and ... more This dissertation compares the political struggles around decriminalization of homosexuality and sex work in contemporary India. Since the mid-1990s the Indian state and national and international NGOs have been mobilizing sex workers and gay populations for HIV/AIDS prevention ...
Feminist Formations, 2021
Feminist Formations, 2021
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
“Empowered Criminals” compares the mobilization of sex workers and MSM and gay groups around two ... more “Empowered Criminals” compares the mobilization of sex workers and MSM and gay groups around two separate legal campaigns: the campaign to decriminalize adult consensual same-sex sex (Section 377 activism) and the campaign to stop new amendments to ITPA. Through advocacy and sustained campaigning, sex worker and MSM/kothi groups were able to not only mobilize against these laws but also use their roles in the HIV/AIDS prevention programs to argue that these laws undermined the state’s health mandate. Through protests and lobbying, they were able to gain the crucial support of HIV/AIDS groups as well as the federal Ministry of Health (which is primarily responsible for implementing HIV/AIDS policy). Furthermore, sex workers successfully stalled ITPA amendments in 2007, and LGBTKQHI groups had brief success with the reform of Section 377 in 2009. I argue that despite these successes, sex workers and LGBTKQHI groups still remained “empowered criminals.” They were empowered to make claims on the state based on their shared responsibility in preventing HIV/AIDS, and yet they were still classified as criminals because the laws that criminalize sex acts remain intact.
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
This final chapter focuses on the relationship between rights-based struggles and social transfor... more This final chapter focuses on the relationship between rights-based struggles and social transformation goals of sexual minorities. In September 2018, the Supreme Court of India reversed the Koushal judgment and declared Section 377 unconstitutional. This was a huge success for sexual minorities who rallied against the law for almost two decades and saw it as a symbol of state-sponsored homophobia. The two decades of sexual minority politics in India have not only foregrounded sexual orientation and gender identity as important constitutional rights but also strengthened the idea of constitutional morality. Constitutional morality, defined as respecting diversity and difference and protecting the most marginalized sections of the society, has helped sexual minorities to fight a growing populist morality that quintessentially defines India as Hindu and heteronormative. These successes also indicate that biopolitical mandates can be strategically used to fight popular morality and norms. In addition, by articulating sexual rights as interconnected with other social justice goals, sexual minorities in India also showcase the importance of intersectional struggles. The conclusion also touches upon challenges and opportunities for alliance building across sexual minority groups.
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
This chapter provides an overview of HIV/AIDS policies as well as how sexually marginalized group... more This chapter provides an overview of HIV/AIDS policies as well as how sexually marginalized groups are drawn into biopower programs as “high-risk” groups. In 1983, when HIV/AIDS was first detected among sex workers in India, the state’s initial response was to blame the sex workers themselves as well as to forcefully test them and confine them in prison. However, it proved impossible to incarcerate every sex worker and to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Instead, I argue, ultimately a consensus formed that supported giving marginalized groups a leadership role in tackling the epidemic. Drawing on ethnographic observations and the HIV/AIDS policy of the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), this chapter also highlights how these biopower projects deepened the involvement of high-risk groups as they moved from simple prevention to behavioral change. Ultimately, communities became extensions of biopower projects as they implemented these programs at the day-to-day level.
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
This chapter comparatively focuses on rights struggles of gay groups and transgender/hijra groups... more This chapter comparatively focuses on rights struggles of gay groups and transgender/hijra groups by focusing on two seemingly contradictory judgments of the Indian Supreme Court—the Koushal judgment of 2013, which declared Section 377 constitutional, and the same court’s 2014 NALSA decision, which granted rights to transgender groups—in order to discuss the impact of these legal decisions on the rights and recognition of LGBTKQHI groups. While the NALSA judgment made nonnormative gender identities legal, the Koushal judgment retained Section 377 and therefore upheld the idea that sexual acts considered to be against the “order of nature” were criminal. The chapter illustrates that while years of social activism have led to the tolerance of identities (today LGBTKQHI groups regularly organize pride marches and rally their political identities in public), nonnormative sexual acts remained criminal until 2018. The legal dichotomization of acts and identities has very important implications for the rights of sexually marginalized groups.
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
New York University Press eBooks, Jan 14, 2020
Based on twenty months of ethnographic research, the book looks at the relationship between the H... more Based on twenty months of ethnographic research, the book looks at the relationship between the HIV/AIDS epidemic and rights-based struggles of sexual minorities in contemporary India. Sex workers, gay men, and transgender people in India have become visible in the Indian public sphere since the mid-1980s, when AIDS became an issue in India. Whereas sexual minorities were previously stigmatized and criminalized because of the threat of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Indian state started to fold these groups into national HIV/AIDS policies as “high-risk” groups for an effective response to the epidemic. The book argues that HIV/AIDS transformed the relationship between sexual minorities and the state from one focused on juridical exclusion to one focused on inclusion through biopower. The new relationship between the state and sexual minorities brought about by HIV/AIDS and the shared power communities felt with the state enabled them to demand rights and citizenship from the Indian state. In addition to paying attention to these transformations, the book also comparatively captures the rights-based struggles of sexual minorities in India who have successfully mobilized against a colonial era anti-sodomy law, successfully petitioned in the courts for recognition of gender identity, and stalled attempts to criminalize sexual labor. This book uniquely brings together the struggles of sex workers and transgender and gay groups that are often studied separately.
Sexualities, Nov 21, 2016
This article examines the controversy surrounding women's sexual labor of dancing in the city of ... more This article examines the controversy surrounding women's sexual labor of dancing in the city of Mumbai in the western state of Maharashtra, India. Whereas much of the debate around the dance bars focuses on bar dancers' livelihood and right to work, I turn the discussion to the realm of desire and consumption to show how intimate labor is connected to class aspirations. Using legal, media and cultural sources, I suggest that the intimate labor in dance bars produces new aspirations for bar dancers. These aspirations are made possible by the specific labor and exchange conditions and relational possibilities that are specific to the bars, illustrating what I call the aspirational politics of sex, where sexual labor acts as a site for individual existential pursuits such as social mobility and a sense of well-being. Dance bars offer young women from marginalized communities the opportunity for livelihood and social mobility as well as access to middle-class lifestyles through involvement in new consumer cultures but without the corresponding status or protection of being middle class. Additionally, by analyzing the politics around the ban on dancing in Mumbai, the article reveals the cultural conflicts inherent in sexual labor and illuminates an important arena where women can mobilize hegemonic discourses to serve their own interests and stretch the limits of their subordination.
Legalizing Sex
“We want employment, we want jobs, we want welfare.” This was a main slogan at a daylong dharna (... more “We want employment, we want jobs, we want welfare.” This was a main slogan at a daylong dharna (protest) organized by a South India–based transgender and hijra group one humid summer afternoon in the city of Hyderabad in July 2015. The main goal of the dharna was to demand that the state government recognize transgender rights as recommended by India’s Supreme Court (SC). In 2014, for the first time in India’s history as an independent nation, the SC had recognized nonnormative gender identities as legal. It had also recommended that the government implement corresponding affirmative action policies in employment and education. There was a significant media presence and great interest in the dharna, whose organizers had mobilized a surprisingly large number of progressive groups to support their cause. It had been previously unthinkable that one of the most marginalized and stigmatized groups in the country could make demands of the state. When the day was over, the gathering had been a huge success that increased the visibility of the community while also showcasing its newfound political power....
Legalizing Sex
“Empowered Criminals” compares the mobilization of sex workers and MSM and gay groups around two ... more “Empowered Criminals” compares the mobilization of sex workers and MSM and gay groups around two separate legal campaigns: the campaign to decriminalize adult consensual same-sex sex (Section 377 activism) and the campaign to stop new amendments to ITPA. Through advocacy and sustained campaigning, sex worker and MSM/kothi groups were able to not only mobilize against these laws but also use their roles in the HIV/AIDS prevention programs to argue that these laws undermined the state’s health mandate. Through protests and lobbying, they were able to gain the crucial support of HIV/AIDS groups as well as the federal Ministry of Health (which is primarily responsible for implementing HIV/AIDS policy). Furthermore, sex workers successfully stalled ITPA amendments in 2007, and LGBTKQHI groups had brief success with the reform of Section 377 in 2009. I argue that despite these successes, sex workers and LGBTKQHI groups still remained “empowered criminals.” They were empowered to make claims on the state based on their shared responsibility in preventing HIV/AIDS, and yet they were still classified as criminals because the laws that criminalize sex acts remain intact.
Legalizing Sex
This chapter provides an overview of HIV/AIDS policies as well as how sexually marginalized group... more This chapter provides an overview of HIV/AIDS policies as well as how sexually marginalized groups are drawn into biopower programs as “high-risk” groups. In 1983, when HIV/AIDS was first detected among sex workers in India, the state’s initial response was to blame the sex workers themselves as well as to forcefully test them and confine them in prison. However, it proved impossible to incarcerate every sex worker and to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Instead, I argue, ultimately a consensus formed that supported giving marginalized groups a leadership role in tackling the epidemic. Drawing on ethnographic observations and the HIV/AIDS policy of the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), this chapter also highlights how these biopower projects deepened the involvement of high-risk groups as they moved from simple prevention to behavioral change. Ultimately, communities became extensions of biopower projects as they implemented these programs at the day-to-day level.
Legalizing Sex, 2020
This chapter draws on Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “bare life” to show how prior to HIV/AIDS, sex... more This chapter draws on Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “bare life” to show how prior to HIV/AIDS, sexual minorities experienced the state only through “raw power,” where rampant violence and abuse were the norm and the state freely consigned individuals to death by depriving them of resources. The management of “risk” in the light of the HIV/AIDS epidemic brought attention to the violence faced by sexual minorities, especially arbitrary police violence supported by criminal laws. During the earlier phases of the epidemic, peer educators and outreach workers—who were drawn from “high-risk” groups themselves—faced challenges and even violence in reaching out to their peers. Even carrying condoms for outreach purposes was seen as evidence of “criminal” sexual activity. This tension between peer educators and police reveals internal contradictions in the state; peer educators, who are at the cusp of state juridical and biopower, bring this contradiction in the state to the foreground.
Legalizing Sex, 2020
This final chapter focuses on the relationship between rights-based struggles and social transfor... more This final chapter focuses on the relationship between rights-based struggles and social transformation goals of sexual minorities. In September 2018, the Supreme Court of India reversed the Koushal judgment and declared Section 377 unconstitutional. This was a huge success for sexual minorities who rallied against the law for almost two decades and saw it as a symbol of state-sponsored homophobia. The two decades of sexual minority politics in India have not only foregrounded sexual orientation and gender identity as important constitutional rights but also strengthened the idea of constitutional morality. Constitutional morality, defined as respecting diversity and difference and protecting the most marginalized sections of the society, has helped sexual minorities to fight a growing populist morality that quintessentially defines India as Hindu and heteronormative. These successes also indicate that biopolitical mandates can be strategically used to fight popular morality and nor...
Feminist Formations, 2021
Feminist Formations, 2021
By examining discursive struggles around sexuality in contemporary India, I show how and when the... more By examining discursive struggles around sexuality in contemporary India, I show how and when the legal status of sexuality becomes used by individuals and communities to make political claims about their relations in and to the post-colonial nation-state. The ‘modern’ legal system introduced by British colonial rule installed state regulation of homosexuality and sex work in India. I look at when and how homosexuals and sex workers challenge these regulatory discourses and practices, considering these as post-colonial contestations over the legal and cultural meanings of “tradition” and “modernity.” I ask two primary questions: First, how do the legal and political challenges of these two groups become articulated in the face of local needs and practices and in the context of globalization and transnational concern about HIV/AIDS; and second, what do these challenges reveal in general about state power over how human bodies are used (biopower) in a postcolonial context and in speci...
Based on twenty months of ethnographic research, the book looks at the relationship between the H... more Based on twenty months of ethnographic research, the book looks at the relationship between the HIV/AIDS epidemic and rights-based struggles of sexual minorities in contemporary India. Sex workers, gay men, and transgender people in India have become visible in the Indian public sphere since the mid-1980s, when AIDS became an issue in India. Whereas sexual minorities were previously stigmatized and criminalized because of the threat of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the Indian state started to fold these groups into national HIV/AIDS policies as “high-risk” groups for an effective response to the epidemic. The book argues that HIV/AIDS transformed the relationship between sexual minorities and the state from one focused on juridical exclusion to one focused on inclusion through biopower. The new relationship between the state and sexual minorities brought about by HIV/AIDS and the shared power communities felt with the state enabled them to demand rights and citizenship from the Indian stat...