Courtesans in Colonial India Representations of British Power Through Understandings of Nautch-Girls, Devadasis, Tawa’Ifs, and Sex-Work, C
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Courtesans in Colonial India Representations of British Power through Understandings of Nautch-Girls, Devadasis, Tawa’ifs, and Sex-Work, c. 1750-1883 by Grace E. S. Howard A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Guelph, Ontario, Canada © Grace E. S. Howard, May, 2019 ABSTRACT COURTESANS IN COLONIAL INDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF BRITISH POWER THROUGH UNDERSTANDINGS OF NAUTCH-GIRLS, DEVADASIS, TAWA’IF, AND SEX-WORK, C. 1750-1883 Grace E. S. Howard Advisors: University of Guelph Dr. Jesse Palsetia Dr. Norman Smith Dr. Kevin James British representations of courtesans, or nautch-girls, is an emerging area of study in relation to the impact of British imperialism on constructions of Indian womanhood. The nautch was a form of dance and entertainment, performed by courtesans, that originated in early Indian civilizations and was connected to various Hindu temples. Nautch performances and courtesans were a feature of early British experiences of India and, therefore, influenced British gendered representations of Indian women. My research explores the shifts in British perceptions of Indian women, and the impact this had on imperial discourses, from the mid-eighteenth through the late nineteenth centuries. Over the course of the colonial period examined in this research, the British increasingly imported their own social values and beliefs into India. British constructions of gender, ethnicity, and class in India altered ideas and ideals concerning appropriate behaviour, sexuality, sexual availability, and sex-specific gender roles in the subcontinent. This thesis explores the production of British lifestyles and imperial culture in India and the ways in which this influenced their representation of courtesans. During the nabob period of the eighteenth century, nautch parties worked as a form of cultural interaction between Indian elites and British East India Company officials. However, over the course of the nineteenth century the nautch and nautch-girls became symbolic to the British of India’s ‘despotism’ and ‘backwardness,’ as well as representative of the supposed dangers of miscegenation and Eastern sensuality. By the mid- nineteenth century, nautch-girls were represented as commercial sex-workers and were subject to the increasing surveillance and medical intervention of the British colonial state. In addition, this representation perpetuated the belief of the British ‘saving’ Indian women as a way to justify the continuation of colonialism in India. My research explores how British conceptualizations of courtesans were fundamental to the justification of the imperial project in India, as well as representative of changing British perceptions of their own political and territorial power in the subcontinent. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the continued and varied support of numerous people, who all had a hand in the making of this work. I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my entire committee for their helpful comments and astute observations throughout the writing process. I could not have done this without their kindness and encouragement. Dr. Jesse Palsetia, thank you for your continued support throughout this process and for encouraging me to pursue a Master’s, before I had ever considered it myself. To Dr. Norman Smith, thank you for your understanding and influential classes that were so fundamental to this research. Dr. Kevin James, thank you for your constant support throughout this process and throughout my time at Guelph. Dr. Renée Worringer and Dr. Stuart McCook, thank you for the continuous support you offered me throughout this process and the encouraging hallway chats you always had at the ready. To all of the above professors, as well as others throughout my degrees at Guelph, thank you for pushing me to question my own assumptions, supporting my learning in various ways, and opening new doors of personal and scholarly interest. You have not only been seminal in shaping this thesis into what it is but have fundamentally influenced who I am as a person, and for that I cannot thank you enough. To my dear friends Kirsten, Chelsea, Mandi, Heather, Sydney, Amy, Kerin, and Kima, thank you for being there for me through it all. Thank you for listening to me no matter what, even though you had definitely heard it all before, far too many times. This process would have been far more difficult without you all, thank you for the hugs, the laughs, the study sessions, the face-time and real-time chats, funny snaps, hangouts, and all the love. You are my people and I could not be more grateful. To Mum, Dad, Emma, and Graham, often those who do and mean the most are the hardest to properly thank. I cherish everything you have done for me more than words can adequately express. Or, at least, I am not articulate enough to convey the love I have for all of you and the honour with which you have bestowed on me with your unwavering support throughout this process and so much more. A lifetime is not enough to thank you, but I will try. Lastly, Andy Ranachan, this one is for you. I cannot thank you enough for all that you have given me. Thank you for teaching me to question everything and to always look for whose voices are missing. I know the class analysis in this thesis would not have been critical or in- depth enough for you, I promise I tried, and that I will always keep trying to do better. I will always learn from what you have taught me. Rest easy friend, for you have made this world a far better place and your presence will never be forgotten. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract . ii Acknowledgements . iii Table of Contents . iv List of Figures . v Introduction . 1 Chapter 1: Courtesans in Pre-Colonial India . 17 Chapter 2: Courtesans, Nabobs, and British Power in Eighteenth-Century India . 28 Chapter 3: The Shift away from the Nabob, c. 1757-1790 . 50 Chapter 4: The Memsahib and the Courtesan, c. 1790-1857 . 79 Chapter 5: Courtesans in Cantonments, c. 1857-1883 . 133 Conclusion . 163 Bibliography . 168 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Akbar’s court dancers performing at the celebrations of the birth of Salim from the Akbarnama / 21 Figure 2.1: Possibly William Fullerton seated, surrounded by his Indian servants, smoking a huqqa / 36 Figure 2.2: Captain John Foote in ‘Oriental’ dress / 37 Figure 2.3: Major William Palmer with his second wife, the Mughal princess Bibi Faiz Bakhsh / 42 Figure 2.4: A Dancing-Girl with a Huqqa / 44 Figure 2.5: Sir David Ochterlony in Indian dress, smoking a huqqa, and watching a nautch in his house in Delhi / 46 Figure 3.1: The Bow to the Throne, alias the Begging Bowl / 63 Figure 3.2: Count Roupee, supposed to be Paul Benfield of the East India Company, in Hyde Park / 67 Figure 4.1: Mahadaji Sindhai entertaining a British naval officer and military officer with a nautch / 107 1 Introduction In spite of the disadvantages attendant upon the colour of the skin, perhaps no part of the world can present more perfect specimens of feminine beauty than are to be found in Hindostan.1 The above quotation from The Essex Standard newspaper encapsulates much of what this thesis explores around British representations of Indian women through their understandings of gender, ethnicity, and class. A fascination with the ‘Oriental’ woman, her erotic and exotic beauty and sexual availability, along with her inferiority based on her positionality within a rigidly classist, heteropatriarchal colonial society was constructed through British narratives. This thesis explores the shifts in British perceptions of Indian women, and the impact this had on imperial discourses, from the mid-eighteenth through the late nineteenth centuries. The time frame is employed to explore how British imperialism constructed representations of gender, ethnicity, and caste in the subcontinent. Over the course of the colonial period examined in this research, the British increasingly imported their own social values and beliefs into India. These British constructions of gender, ethnicity, and class in India altered ideas and ideals concerning appropriate behaviour, sexuality, sexual availability, and sex-specific gender roles in the subcontinent. This thesis explores the production of British lifestyle and imperial culture in India and the ways in which this influenced the construction of Indian women, particularly courtesans, in the colonial period. This research examines how the British represented and perceived Indian women and their sexuality from the nabob period in the eighteenth century through the late nineteenth century. ‘Nabob’ was the term that the British applied to British men who stayed in India and took on ‘Orientalized’ lifestyles and culture during the eighteenth century. Nabob culture, or nabobism, was an expression of the close cultural interaction and collaboration that occurred 1 “The Women of India,” The Essex Standard, January 15, 1836, Issue 263. 2 between British and Indian societies during the early decades of imperialism in India. At the same time, it was an expression of the unequal relationship between the British and Indians under imperialism. Nabobism reflected both the British fascination with, and apprehension of, their new imperial project in India, as well as the impact their Indian empire would have on British culture and norms. British nabobs were eventually criticized in metropolitan Britain for their perceived corruption and decadence, and the more duty-based sahib that embodied idealized notions of Britishness replaced them as a cultural ideal in the early nineteenth century. In addition, the representation of British women, or memsahibs, is examined to conceptualize the dichotomous representation of British and Indian women in a colonial context. Therefore, this thesis examines gendered and racialized representations of Indian women during the sahib period in the first half of the nineteenth century, through the Rebellion of 1857, and into the direct rule of the British Crown.