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ACTIVISM, SEX WORK, and WOMANHOOD in NORTH INDIA By ACTIVISM, SEX WORK, AND WOMANHOOD IN NORTH INDIA by Megan Elizabeth Hamm B.A., University of Pittsburgh, 2003 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Megan Elizabeth Hamm It was defended on May 7, 2012 and approved by Nicole Constable, Professor, Department of Anthropology Gabriella Lukacs, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology Andrew N. Weintraub, Professor, Department of Music Dissertation Advisor: Joseph S. Alter, Professor, Department of Anthropology ii Copyright © by Megan E. Hamm 2012 iii ACTIVISM, SEX WORK, AND WOMANHOOD IN NORTH INDIA Megan Elizabeth Hamm, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 This dissertation is an ethnography of a sex worker activist organization in North India. The NGO Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan has been working to end brothel-based prostitution in Shivdaspur, a small red light area on the outskirts of Varanasi, since 1993. In the course of their 19-year interaction with the red light area, they have used a variety of tactics, ranging from non- violent protest of the exploitation of sex workers in Shivdaspur, to education programs, to “raid- and-rescue” tactics, settling on the latter tactic to further their cause. This dissertation describes both the NGO’s activism and its interaction with Shivdaspur, focusing on the ways in which the middle-class founders of the organization conceptualize the women they seek to aid. I argue that Guria-affiliated activists, and their middle-class supporters, view those who live and work in Shivdaspur through the lens of their own values and priorities, including a hard-lined focus on the implementation of human rights, respect for women, the importance of civil society, and the desirability of a functional, non-corrupt State. These values lead directly to the conceptualization of sex workers as living lives outside the boundaries of what is considered acceptable for women, and for human beings more generally, and ironically to activism that excludes sex workers as well as pimps and brothel keepers. Individual chapters of the dissertation describe various forms of such exclusion: “raid-and-rescue” activist tactics that draw on and contribute to an understanding of sex workers as bare life, the disavowal of sex workers’ marriages, the exclusion of Shivdaspuri sex workers from an NGO-sponsored concert meant to iv showcase the artistic talents of sex workers and other marginalized communities, and the silence and disbelief that surrounds sex workers’ narratives of their lives and working conditions. v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction: Activism, Sex Work and Womanhood in North India………………….…..…….1 2. Guria’s Children: Education and the Legitimacy of Activism in Shivdaspur……………...…..69 3. The Poetics and Politics of Rescue: Brothel Raiding and Bare Life……………………...…..111 4. Pati, Patni aur Tawa’if [Husband, Wife, and Prostitute]: Marriage and Sex Work……....….167 5. “If We Call Them Prostitutes, Then They Will Feel Bad”: The Courtesan in Sex Worker Acvitism………………………………………………………………………………………....206 6. The Triply Subaltern Sex Worker: The Problems of Silence and Voice in Guria’s Activism……………………………………………………………………………………...…..269 7.Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..…324 8. Appendix A……………………………………………………………….……………....…..336 9. Bibliography………………….……………………………………………………...….……340 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Map of Varanasi, with Inset Map of Shivdaspur ………………………………..……….……47 Figure 2: Bead Decorations made by children attending the Balwadi……………………………..72 Figure 3: The Balwadi decorated for a festival……………………………………………………………….73 Figure 4: Children beginning to line up to leave the balwadi at the end of the day… ….74 Figure 5: Children’s Diwali decorations in Shivdaspur…………………………………………………...88......... Figure 6: Children’s Diwali decorations in Shivdaspur…………………………………..……………….89 Figure 7: The Panchayat Bhavan…………………………………………………………………………………..98 Figure 8: Rescued Woman Being Led Onto a Bus…………………………………………………………117 Figure 9: Female Constable with Rescued Girl……………………………………………………………..118 Figure 10: The South Asian Marriage “Target”…………………………………………………………….196 Figure 11: The boat upon which the artists perform at the Pearls of Love concert……......237 Figure 12: A Lucknawi courtesan performing……………………………………………………………...238 Figure 13: Introduction to the performance of the nagar vadhus………………………………….246 Figure 14: One of the nagar vadhus shortly before she began her performance…………….247 Figure 15: Hindu icons representing yog and bhog outside a temple on the Panchkroshi Yatra…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..256 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: ACTIVISM, SEX WORK AND WOMANHOOD IN NORTH INDIA “Because what is inside the red light area has a repercussion with what is outside, you see – what is outside, what is the status of women outside? What is the status of law and order outside? What is the – you understand! This red light area is not out of India, you see?” -- Ajeet Singh, May 18, 2010. In 1993, Ajeet Singh went into Shivdaspur. Shivdaspur is a small village in Varanasi District, Uttar Pradesh; it also happens to be a red light area. Local lore has it that he was wearing a torn and tattered kurta (tunic), indicating at once a sort of humbleness or poverty and, perhaps, disreputability. His goal was to improve the lives of sex workers and their children. Nineteen years later, Ajeet’s organization Guria Swayam Sevi Sansthan1 is in Shivdaspur, with outreach operations also occurring in red light districts in Mao District and Allahabad (both in Uttar Pradesh), as well as a bediya2 village in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The NGO has an operating budget of close to US$100,000 funded by prominent international aid organizations, including CRY (Child Rights and You), Action AID, and the United Nations GIFT (Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking) program. Ajeet was nominated for the 2010 Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at risk, and was awarded “Man of the Year” in 2011 by Indian English-Language news magazine The Week. Shivdaspur, once a bustling red light alley lined with underage girls in miniskirts, is now a relatively 1 Literally, the name means “Doll Voluntary Aid Organization.” The name was chosen because it is a voluntary (and also sometimes paid) organization that provides aid to sex workers, who are alluded to in the metaphor “doll.” Ajeet chose this appellation because he likens sex workers to dolls, who are played with and perhaps even loved for a brief period of time, but can be cast aside and abandoned at any time. 2 The bediya are a North Indian scheduled caste whose occupation has traditionally been sex work done by sisters and daughters of the caste. See Agrawal 2007 for a historical and ethnographic account. 1 sleepy, almost pastoral village, in which most of the major brothels are boarded up, and where semi-independent sex workers solicit from a few scattered doorways. The dominant sound in Shivdaspur during the afternoons is that of children screaming out their ABCs and ka-kha-ga-ghas (the Hindi equivalent) and, later, playing rambunctiously in the Guria-operated children’s center. On days when Ajeet Singh, or more often his wife Manju, are visiting the area, individual women come to the Center to discuss what can be done about problems ranging from harassment within the community and access to potable water in the village, to individual health problems that need to be addressed. If needed, follow-up appointments are scheduled with a trusted doctor on the Benares Hindu University campus, the doctors’ fees paid by Guria if they are beyond the means of the women in question. Following an afternoon session in the Children’s Center, when the older Shivdaspuri children have returned from their days in the local public and private schools which they attend under the funding and/or tutelage of Guria, all of the children gather in the NGO’s second community building for a freshly-prepared meal of sabhji (vegetables), rice and – on special occasions – puri (fried bread). The older children then meet under the branches of a large peepul tree on a piece of government-owned land in the heart of the residential portion of the red light district, for additional tutoring and help with homework. As a result of Guria’s nineteen years of activism in Shivdaspur and on behalf of Shivdaspur, many children of sex workers attend mainstream schools without facing major social difficulty, and literacy rates among the children attending Guria’s informal educational center are observationally high. Moreover, the emotional bond that the children of Shivdaspur appear to have with Ajeet, Manju, and other, long-term teachers 2 provides stability and structure in the lives of the children of Shivdaspur that was lacking prior to the NGO’s arrival. Lest it sound that Guria’s interaction with Shivdaspur is an idyllic tale of activism and community transformation, though, it must be noted that considerable conflict and violence has attended the changes that Guria has brought about in Shivdaspur. In addition to its educational and health programs, as well as the sounding board and support system that Guria provides for many residents of Shivdaspur, the NGO has also engaged in “rescue operations,” in which they, with groups of volunteers, have raided brothels in Shivdaspur in order to remove underage girls from prostitution, resulting in a host of legal activities that have decimated the red light industry in Shivdaspur. Ajeet’s nomination for the Front Line award in 2010 came on the heels of a series of threats made against his life by Shivdaspuri men, and relayed to him through hushed cell phone calls by a Shivdaspuri resident whose name Ajeet did not reveal. Guria and the community of Shivdaspur, as represented by the village-level politicians and other residents, were engaged in a conflict over whether the organization would be allowed to continue teaching evening tutoring sessions on the piece of communally-owned land under the peepul tree in Shivaspur village.
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