Sanjula Rajat, Doctoral Student, Philosophy, “The Colonial Politics of Impurity: Anti-Trans Politics in India and the Consolidation of a Hindu Nation-State.” 

Description: "I explore the ways in which purity emerges in different but necessarily linked formations as purity of blood, purity of values (regarding sexuality and gender), and purity of the nation-state, aiming to show that the regulation of impurity underlies Indian projects of state-formation. I demonstrate that the colonial and contemporary targeting of queer and trans communities is justified based on these interlinked threads of purity. By focusing on purity, I clarify the continuities between colonial-racial and Brahminical-patriarchal regulations of gender non-conformity that shape contemporary trans politics in India."