State, citizenship and gender-variant communities in India

Abstract

ABSTRACT Though persons belonging to gender-variant communities (GVCs) were a part of the Indian culture for thousands of years, new modalities were introduced to outlaw them under colonial rule. Post-independence, GVCs were subjected to progressive laws in theory; yet the colonial legal framework was largely retained in practice. Despite their significant presence in the public sphere, GVCs struggled for decades to acquire cognitive visibility and citizenship rights. Even the civil society in India at large overlooked their entitlement to sexual identity until the late 1990s. This paper, based on field and documentary data, uncovers the struggles of GVCs to claim citizenship rights in India. Beginning with the tradition of ‘cultural family’ under Gharana, the trajectory relegated them first to ‘illegal’ citizens under colonial rule and subsequently to ‘captive’ citizens in post-Independent India. Their positioning as ‘stranded’ citizens even after passing the new law in 2019 also challenges their potential as ‘monitorial citizens’.