By Aniruddha Dutta, 2012
This article will study the historicity of hijra and kothi as prominent vernacular categories of Indic gender/sexual difference with reference to broader debates on identity, (post)colonialism and modernity in postcolonial and South Asian historiography.16 I will suggest that the apparent contrast between the historical continuity of the hijra and the contemporary institutional construction of the kothi masks deeper similarities in how both identities have emerged through collusions between subcultural processes of community formation and governmental power
