Something Rotten in the State

This chapter studies the movement of the money hijras earn and collect so as to complicate traditional notions of moral-religious exchange. The intersection of poverty and sexuality embodied in the figure of the hijra has stalled what many would have liked to see become a revolution of social change. The occupations of hijras, through which they earn their livelihood and help to sustain extended networks of kin, have consisted of begging and prostitution. Efforts to understand these historically stigmatized positions—of the beggar, the prostitute, and the diseased—as pathologies of poverty that have resulted from discrimination and thus can be redressed through legal interventions have not been taken seriously on the ground.