ABSTRACT
A queer reading of the four Lepcha folktales has been directed towards exposing the gradual eradication of the queer tribalscape by the colonial and the postcolonial/neocolonial heteropatriarchal state. The chapter reveals how an Indigenous gay space has been narrowed down by the structuring of closets by colonisers, only to force the tribal people to internalise the colonial model of a compulsory heteronormativity, thereby paving the way for the expurgation of homoerotic Indigeneity. The popular misconception of queerness understood as an import into India seems to derive from propaganda aimed to wipe out Indigenous sexual dissidents. The recurrent discrimination against queers in India is the extension of the European classification of a ‘normative’ sexuality that, as a means of regulating the diverse Indigenous sexuality, produces and maintains governmentality.
