GAIL OMVEDT

Devdasi Custom And The Fight Against It

government supervision and regulation, through , though it remained so as to check the spread of venereal strongest in the south. Young girls were disease. Others, for largely moralistic usually dedicated to the goddess, or reasons, demand that it should be occasionally to gods, very often after abolished, or should, at least, be kept the appearance of matted hair called out of sight, out of their jath which is taken to be a sign of the neighbourhoods. Others call for call of the goddess. The dedicated girl prostitutes to organise themselves in was forbidden to marry. When such girls something like trade unions, so as to came of age, they would perform dances win some economic gains, medical rights in the temple, perform various services and other facilities. to the gods and goddesses, and take part About compulsory prostitution, in various rituals and religious however, there can be and are no ceremonies. They were considered to from Banhi differences of opinion. Forcing women be married to the god or goddess, and into the flesh trade can be called one of were sexually available to any man who RECENTLY, a young teacher in an the most heinous crimes, yet it is came to the temple. Devdasis were Urdu school in Bijapur was forcibly widespread in many third world invariably from the lowest, usually the abducted by a government official. She countries. untouchable castes, and were was told that she must become a In August 1983, I undertook a brief considered lower than other classes of devdasi. She was threatened with the research project sponsored by the courtesans, or other classes of dancers vengeance of the goddess Yellamma, Shahu Central Institute Of Business and singers in the temple. and also with being sold to a brothel in Education And Research, in the course During the feudal period, devdasis Bombay. On June 29, she managed to of which I visited Bangalore, , became bound to the service of feudal escape but her complaint has so far , and interviewed activists lords, from rajas and maharajas down been ignored by the court and the involved in the campaign against the to the village overlords. Even today, they government. devdasi system. The following is a brief continue to be enslaved to such masters. Thousands of young girls from low report of my findings. Rich merchants, landlords, big farmers, caste poor families in Belgaum, Bijapur Origins Of The System pay the Rs 600 to 800 required for the and parts of Kolhapur districts, are The devdasi system is an old one, dedication ceremony of a girl, and thus unable to escape the fate with which and apparently pre-Aryan. There is no buy the right to have the first sexual this teacher was threatened. It is mention of it in Vedic Sanskrit literature, relation with her. They continue to have estimated that 200 girls are yearly but Tamil Sangam literature, which special privileges after that, even though dedicated to Yellamma, and are then sold dates back to 200-300 BC, describes a she remains available to other men as in the Bombay prostitution market. class of dancing women called well. However, the more prevalent According to a rough estimate, they parattaiyar. They were courtesans who system today is that the pimps from the constitute about 40 percent of prostitutes performed some ritual function, lived in Bombay prostitution industry pay for in Bombay. a separate part of the city, and eventually the dedication ceremony, and often pay There are differences of opinion came to be associated with temples. Later, something to the girl’s parents, in order about prostitution. Some people wish it in the post Vedic and post Buddhist age, to directly recruit the girl for a commercial to be legalised as an industry under the system seems to have spread brothel in Bombay. 16 MANUSHI Special Status who live a miserable life in the brothels heir, in order that land and property may The devdasi’s life was unique, not and slums of the city.” be inherited by her, and may stay in the only because of her sexual function or But can any special section of women family. because she was supposed to be sacred be free of patriarchy in a patriarchal Thus, while the devdasi’s life was to and often possessed by the goddess. society ? Though devdasis traditionally apparently the opposite of the life of the Her whole way of life was far removed were not slaves of a single husband, yet married woman, it remained bound within from the life of ordinary women, was in any man could claim sexual rights over the same patriarchal and exploitative fact almost a reversal of their life. She them, and they were often enslaved to framework. In addition, the system was was free to wander anywhere, in or out particular feudal lords. Though devdasis a caste based one. One function of the of the village, free to work at any had the social and religious rights that system was to allow so called high caste profession or occupation, and earn an males had, the advantage of these rights men free and religiously sanctioned income. According to traditional law, she was most often taken by men. Parents sexual access to the best looking dalit was treated as a male, having inheritance and brothers lived off the devdasi’}s caste women. rights similar to those of a son, and also earnings from prostitution or other Caste Exploitation having the right to perform religious professions. Often, a particularly It is overwhelmingly dalit girls who rituals, such as the shradh for her father, beautiful little girl was, and still is, become devdasis. Occasionally, even which no woman is normally permitted deliberately dedicated to the goddess, today, brahman girls get the jath or mat to perform. Her children took her so that her parents could benefit from in their hair, are dedicated to the goddess, surname, and not that of any man, her earnings. Girls are also sometimes and continue all their life to perform the regardless of how longstanding a dedicated when people have no male puja of Yellamma, without marrying. But relationship she had with their father. She was thus absolutely free from the bondage of pativrata and the stricture of Manu that a woman must always be dependent on father, husband or son. For this reason, many see remnants not only of matrilineal but also of matriarchal traditions in the devdasi’s situation, and feel that the life of a devdasi was not particularly worse than and in some respects was better than that of the ordinary, patriarchally oppressed woman. In what way is being sexually open to all men worse than being bound to the life long service of a single man, with the prospect of being a dishonoured widow or of dying on his funeral pyre after his death ? Thus Maria Mies, in her study, Indian Women And Patriarchy, speaks of the greater freedom and high social and religious prestige of the devdasis. She quotes a Bombay prostitute as saying : “I would not like to be bossed over by the man called husband. So this life is all right for me. After all, I have not missed anything a married woman enjoys except perhaps the husband’s beatings,” Mies argues that the struggle against the devdasi system arises out of a falsely progressive “puritan morality” and has only resulted in depriving the devdasis

of their traditional prestige, thus Bahni -from turning them into “ordinary prostitutes Devdasis in a village temple NUMBER NINETEEN, 1983 17 they never become devdasis or How Struggle Started beatings by devotees of the goddess. prostitutes. A survey of Pune prostitutes Babasaheb Ambedkar was the One result of such efforts was the by Vilas Wagh showed that more than leader whose actions had the most passage of the Devdasi Abolition Act in 60 percent of them were dalits, and of decisive impact. There are records of 1934 by the Bombay provincial the devdasi prostitutes 90 percent were several meetings held by him, including government. In the 1960s, dalit youth in dalits. His survey did not find a single one in Nipani in 1925 and one in the Soundatti area campaigned against prostitute from the brahman, maratha, jain Bombay in 1929, at which the marriages and socially boycotted families who or lingayat castes. Of course girls from of a large number of devdasis were dedicated girls. They succeeded in so called high castes, and from the arranged. stopping many dedications. As a result, middle or even upper middle class, do Ambedkar gave a call to women to the percentage of devdasis even today practise prostitution, but instead of protect the family and not to dishonour remains relatively low in Soundatti itself. becoming brothel bound prostitutes, their caste, yet his influence had a liberal However, outside the mahar they act as independent call girls, often and antifeudal impact. Today, the Buddhists, and outside of Maharashtra, with their own apartments. As one dalit custom is practically non existent the movement has more or less stopped. student told Wagh : “These women may among the Buddhists, previously According to Achyut Mane, Virappa’s get four rupees while those women get mahars, of Maharashtra, though son, one reason is that after the 1930s, 400. Even here, caste and class can be previously it had been rampant under dalit social activists “fell prey to politics” found.” the name of the murli system, and mahar and the movement was then taken up Today, the devdasi system is no families of Sangli and Kolhapur district by caste Hindu leadership. He believes longer a feudal one. The traditional form remains, but Yellamma, like any number of Indian social traditions, has been pressed into the service of a voracious capitalism. The towns and villages of Bijapur, Belgaum and other districts around Yellamma’s temple at Soundatti, are today the hunting ground of pimps from the brothels of Bombay. Instead of providing their services to the temples or to feudal lords, girls from impoverished dalit families sell their bodies on the open market The devdasi system enslaves women and oppresses dalits in the name of religion. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was from within the dalit movement that it was first attacked.

Around 1910, S. J. Kamble of Pune Bahni -from published an analysis and attack on the Retired jogtis outside a temple system in his,magazine Somvanshiya Mitra. In 1912, in Hyderabad, Andhra’s had provided hundreds of girls to that only a fighting leadership from dalit leader Bhagyareddy Varma, formed Yellamma, the feudal lords, and the young dalit men and women can be his first organisation, the Manya budding capitalists. really effective. Women in particular Sangam, which took up abolition of the This change came about not simply must now come forward. custom as one of its planks, Such through the leadership, lobbying or Kaka Karkhanis, an old Gandhian internal reform efforts managed to stop rallies of a few individuals, but as a leader, tried for decades to combat the many dedications of girls, and later an result of attempts that roused many low custom. He took a rehabilitative Hindu Murli Nivaran Mandal was caste toilers to fight for & new life. In approach, establishing schools and formed especially to oppose the system. taluk in the 1930s, for instance hostels for harijan boys and girls. In As of now, little information is available a young dalit school teacher, Virappa 1972, his institutions were forced to about the impact and extent of these Mane, and his friends organised a jalsa close down for lack of funds, without a efforts among dalits in various parts of and wandered through the villages to noticeable impact on the system. “The India. This may reflect our low state of propagandise against the system. They government is apathetic”, he says knowledge about anticaste movements. kept up their efforts even in the face of bitterly. It would be more accurate to say 18 MANUSHI that the government has, and certainly provides for stricter penalisation. campaigning, from 1975 to the present, large numbers of government officials However, the bill fails to provide for any contrasts with the early period, not only have, an immense stake in the system, government supervision of the temples in that its leadership is primarily caste and that ‘’change of heart” methods can and priests, or any special punishment Hindu and middle class, but also in that accomplish nothing unless they for the priests, brothel agents or its style has mostly involved lobbying, represent a change of consciousness capitalists who extract profit from the rallies, seminars and conferences among dalit toilers fighting for their system. without much ongoing follow up. It own rights. Very recently, a new effort has begun does not seem to have been very Current Phase Of Protest with small teams taking up jath removal effective. An occasional individual like In 1975, a devdasi rehabilitation or haircutting campaigns in the towns of the Bijapur school teacher may fight conference was held at Gudhinglaz, Kolhapur, Gargoti and Nipani. So far, back, but Yellamma still has thousands district Kolhapur, under the sponsorship about 50 women in several towns and of devotees . The desire to throw off of Mahatma Phule Samta Pratisthan of villages have been officially released traditional forms of religion endorsed Pune. About 500 women attended it, and from their state as devdasis, and several patriarchal and casteist enslavement has almost as many came to a second have been married. Many of the activists not yet taken hold of the masses of low conference held at Nipani in 1980. The plan to continue these campaigns by caste workers, agricultural labourers and presence of many militant women linking propaganda against the devdasi poor peasants in the border areas tobacco workers helped to provide an system with propaganda for the need between Karnataka and Maharashtra. atmosphere of struggle. As a result of for united struggle by dalits and other Until it does, the system will undoubtedly studies, press conferences and toilers against all the injustices that beset continue. At present, all we can say is lobbying by some organisations and their lives. that the efforts of the last eight years individuals, the Karnataka government It remains true, however, that the represent the beginnings of a fight passed the Devdasi Abolition Act, which current phase of anti devdasi against the devdasi system. ˆ

when the bill was passed, and this was asked if it would be possible for her to New Rape Bill Passed the average attendance throughout the go out of Delhi on a posting. He also THE Criminal Law Amendment Bill afternoon while the bill was being asked if her parents would mind. was passed by the Lok Sabha on discussed. Also, quite a few members “Certainly, sir”, was her response to December 1, 1983. The bill amends the who had tabled amendments were both questions. When her father retired, rape law contained in the Indian Penal absent when the amendments were to and her two young brothers were still Code, the Criminal Procedure Code and be taken up. studying, it was Mary who supported the Indian Evidence Act. The main the family. features of the bill are : —Sydney Rebeiro 1. shifting of the burden of proof A Pioneer with regard to the woman’s consent, On November 2, 1983, Mary Isaacs onto the accused in cases of custodial Rebeiro, one of India’s first rape, that is, rape by policemen, public postmistresses and perhaps the first servants and managers of women’s woman in independent India to hold homes or hospitals who commit rape on independent charge of a post office, women in their custody; passed away. She was in her eightieth 2. a minimum punishment of seven year. At a time when women were a bare years’ or ten years’ imprisonment for 1.6 per cent of the urban workforce in different varieties of custodial rape; the country, and constituted less than 3. restrictions on press publicity with one percent of the male bastion called regard to rape cases. The identity of a the post and telegraph department, she rape victim can be made known only accepted an outstation assignment in with her consent. Violation of this law Kasauli, against much family opposition, shall be a punishable offence. Some of and soon became assistant postmistress, these proposed changes were discussed heading an all male staff of five at Mori in Manushi No. 16. Gate post office, Delhi. At the time of her The Statesman reported that only 15 retirement, she headed an all male staff members—six in the opposition benches of 30 at the general post office, Delhi. and nine in the government benches— She used to tell us, her children, how the besides the home minister, were present postmaster general once called her, and NUMBER NINETEEN, 1983 19