Queer phobias

An academic studies tribal folktales through a queer lens to highlight how they speak out against colonial-era moral policing that, ironically, still prevails in contemporary India

Queering Tribal Folktales from East and Northeast India

Author: Kaustav Chakraborty

Publisher: Routledge

Pages: 208

Price: Rs 995

Earlier this month, India observed the third anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling that read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. 

This colonial-era law known for criminalising “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” was devastating for people in same-sex relationships because it put incest, bestiality and child sexual abuse in the same category as consensual oral and anal sex. Has legal reform changed societal attitudes towards queer desire? No.

Kaustav Chakraborty, author of Queering Tribal Folktales from East and Northeast India writes, “Despite the historic judgement