The Courtesans in India

Lead Article Mizoram University Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (A Bi-Annual Refereed Journal) Vol IV Issue 2, December 2018 ISSN: 2395-7352 eISSN:2581-6780 Writing the history of women in the margins: The Courtesans in India Rekha Pande* Abstract The history writing project always involves silences, selectivity and homogeneity and as a result major section of the people in the margins, especially courtesans, prostitutes, temple women get left out and are never the part of the main stream discourse. The present paper focuses on one such category of women, the Courtesans and traces the history of these women from being the epitome of culture and having a high status to becoming a fallen woman. Courtesans are known also as tawaifs .These women were financially independent, and there were many who had high status within society due to their beauty and talents. Courtesans were also considered carriers of culture because besides dancing, they had to be proficient in other skills such as painting and singing. Unfortunately, a lot of the information available on courtesans are through other perspectives, such as men of high status and colonialists. In the Deccan too, the tawaifs held very respectable position in Nizams society and they were looked up as artists therefore it was compulsory for tawaifs to sing in the marriage functions and after the nikah a group photo was taken for the sake of remembrance and in the group tawaif is also given place.Tawaifs were an integral part of various festivities—marriage celebrations, Bismillah ceremonies and Urs (death anniversaries of Sufi saints).With the coming of the colonial order and the accompanying changes in the economic set-up: with the loss of their patronage these women do not have too many options available to earn their livelihood and many of them are reduced to working as full time sex workers or vying for space in the upcoming film and sound recording industry.With the coming of this new women, the courtesans were marginalised and seen only as fallen women who indulged in sex for money. Key words: Courtesans, Tawaifs, marginalized, patriarchy, Baijis, courtly norms, dancers. History writing has never been an in- people in the margins, especially courte- nocent enterprise. The project always in- sans, prostitutes, temple women get left volves silences, selectivity and homoge- out and are never the part of the main neity and as a result major section of the stream discourse. By and large history * Head, Centre for Women’s Studies, Professor, Department of History, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad, P.O. Central University, Hyderabad- 500 046, Telangana. 1 Rekha Pande does not study women. If as historians written after a reexamination of the sourc- we are hopefully working towards recre- es to discover the contributions and role ating a total picture, moving away from of women.The first women’s history of- the hitherto male and elite perspective, and ten reclaimed for history of women who then unless the history of women is stud- had done what men had done but been left ied and researched the picture of the past out. The second approach, gendered his- shall continue to be a partial one. The fem- tory, draws on feminist perspectives to inist movement of the 1960’s and the con- rethink historiography and make gender sequent development of Women’s studies differences a key to the analysis of social have drawn attention to the fact that, relations.There was an effort to focus on though women like men have been actors women as women — histories of wom- and agents in history, their experiences and en’s childbearing, their embroidery and actions are not recorded. Traditional his- needlework, cooking, the stories women toriography has always focused on areas told — to balance off histories that men of human activities in which the males are had created. A third approach, contribu- dominant, ie. War, diplomacy, politics or tory history, privileges female agency commerce, as worthy of studying and while recognizing how patriarchy impedes women’s participation in agriculture, ani- women’s actions (Forbes, 1998:2). The mal husbandry, family ritual, folk art are current emphasis on gender looks at how regarded as unimportant and outside the constructions of masculinity and feminin- realms of study of history and always in ity have affected historical events but pre- the margins. viously gone unrecorded. Women’s History: A big lacuna in most of the works re- By and large we have ignored wom- lated to Women’s history are that they are en’s history.Men’s history has been pre- based in European context, and there are sented as universally human. The frame- very few works which have attempted to work, concepts and priorities of these uni- look at women within the historical con- versal histories reflect male interests, con- cerns and experiences (Mathew, 1985). text in ancient and medieval period of In- Activities which are mainly female like dia. Again, here when we look at women, child bearing, cooking, women’s work in we study them through the prism of patri- agriculture, husbandry, magic, folk art and archy and focus on elite women or com- traditions have been generally regarded as mon women and leave out the other wom- unimportant and unworthy of study and en. The problem is more with the sources as such outside the purview of the aca- available for the reconstruction of wom- demic discipline of history (Pande, Rekha en’s history for these are often male bi- and kameshwari, 1985: 172). ased and elitist sources. In order to write a new history worthy of its name we will The earliest of women’s histories have to recognize that no single method- were additive history, which is history ological and conceptual framework can fit 2 Writing the history of women in the margins: The Courtesans in India the complexities of historical experienc- and women. By studying the history of es of all women( Lerner, 1979). In order men and assuming that this would cover to construct a new women’s history we the women also we cannot find out the have to relook at the existing material, realities of women’s lives during any giv- chronicles, literature and archival infor- en period. Gender like any group, class or mation and to read between the lines and race has always been a very powerful fac- ask for each and every aspect, “what about tor in history. It is therefore necessary to the women”. Here it may be pointed out view the development of women’s histo- that there are certain facts and figures which ry from the feminist perspective of wom- cannot be generalized. Therefore the his- en as a distinct sociological group which tory we read ignores this and becomes a experiences both overt and covert controls master discourse or a meta narrative which through legal, political and social restric- explains why different people at different tions ( Pande, 1999: 48). times and places have used generalization Marginality, sexuality and seeing reality: without emphasizing these facts. Therefore Many postcolonial writers and theo- the history that has been handed down to rists have challenged the representative us becomes a series of accepted generali- claims to marginality of the elite or dom- zations( Bentley, 2002: 868). inant classes in postcolonial cultures and As a result of the efforts of a large societies. For example, drawing on the number of academicians though we do Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci’s focus on women’s history now but by and idea of the subaltern – elaborated in his large women in the margins get left out of prison notebooks, written during his in- carceration under Mussolini’s fascist re- the general discourse. It is necessary to gime in the 1930s – the South Asian his- study these women and bring them into torians known as the Subaltern Studies main stream history writing. Women like collective have sought to recover the his- courtesans, prostitutes, temple dancing tories of insurgency and resistance in girls, serving women were never given im- South Asia from the perspective of sub- portance in history writing. Traditional ordinate social classes. As Ranajit Guha historiography has thus either ignored the puts it in ‘On Some Aspects of the Histo- positive role of these women or portrayed riography of Colonial India’, which forms it as insignificant. We have looked at these the introductory essay to the first volume women through the lens of patriarchy as of the series, Subaltern Studies, the elit- immoral women. Sexual divisions have ism of Indian history, whether colonialist been one of the most basic distinctions or bourgeois nationalist, has excluded the within the society encouraging one group ‘subaltern classes and groups constituting to view its interests differently from an- the mass of the labouring population and other. Just like class or race, sex has been the intermediate strata in town and coun- used to create a separate identity for men try – that is, the people (Guha, 1982:4). 3 Rekha Pande What Guha means by subaltern, therefore, (Foucault, 2003: 316). Truth in this sense is not only the labouring population but is sustained by Power, and in turn plays a ‘the general attribute of subordination in role in the functioning of Power. It is im- South Asian society whether this is ex- portant to understand that for Foucault pressed in terms of class, caste, age, gen- Power is all pervasive but at the same time der and office or in any other way’( Guha, not simply coercive/oppressive—”…it 1982, 4). Gramsci notes that the history doesn’t only weigh on us as force that says of subaltern social groups is always inter- no, it also traverses and produces things; twined with the history of States and it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, and groups of states, and as such it is neces- produces discourse.

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