ABSTRACT
Prostitution, both as a category and an identity, has multiple social and historical constructions. Discourses on prostitution reveal neither a singular nor constant prostitution extant through time and space but, rather, a range of possible prostitutions mediated by historical and cultural placement. The prevalence of ‘lack of education and lower social awareness’ has been pinpointed, with poverty, as causative factors in the ‘flesh trade’. In line with these understandings, homogenized representations of the Badi draw on understandings of development, morality and caste. The changed political circumstances after the revolution of 1950–51 reduced patronage of the Badi communities in their home base of the hills as the traditional economic power base of the rulers of small principalities and large landowners was eroded. The accounts of others in the community at that time provide compelling corroborative evidence of the difficulties for men, especially, to earn an income.
