Courtesan Culture: Complexities and Negotiations
Contents |
Courtesans: Origin
Courtesan women are not a group that has emerged in the recent times. Courtesans were women, who had in the past once consorted with kings and courtiers and enjoyed a fabulously rich life style and had been the custodians of culture and fashion and enjoyed a lot of respect in society. These were talented women with a lot of property. Amrapāli, was a nagarvadhu (royal courtesan) of the republic of Vaishali in ancient India around 500 BC. She is mentioned in the old Pali texts and Buddhist traditions. The courtesan was an accomplished woman, very good looking and proficient in music and dance. She was under the patronage of the King or the nobility and would provide sexual favours only to them. The courtesan women are considered to be different from sex workers whose only function is to provide sexual favours, until the two categories collapse into each other in the colonial period. Sukumari Bhattacharjee in her essay Prostitution in Ancient India talks about timeless situations where women turn to prostitution: old maids, early widows, unsatisfied wives, women who were violated/abducted/raped, women who would have been given away as gifts in religious or secular events. Also, prostitutes are mentioned in texts like Manusamhita, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Kamasutra. Bhattacharjee also talks about how these women eventually get ostracized, due to various social and economic developments and are eventually pushed out of ‘respectable’ social spaces—this is the rise of brothels and red light districts. Upper class courtesans often entertain upper class men with refined aesthetic sensibilities and intellectual ability: hence they were obliged to provide adequate entertainment to them. They were trained in various arts including literature. “Their bodies, accomplishments, gifts and charity were enjoyed by a community which otherwise treated them as untouchables and showered curses on the profession itself, as if prostitutes alone could make prostitution a viable profession.” Most texts which pass moral judgments on courtesan women ignore the fact that courtesans are not born but made, in most cases. They can exist only so long as there is a demand for them. Also apart from the half-hearted penalties, the male clients go morally scot-free. Also, Bhattacharjee points out that, these women do not get any significant protection by the state.
Mughal Rule to Colonial India
During the Mughal period a number of courtesan women live under the patronage of a king/nawab and are relatively independent. They devote most of their time in pursuit of various arts and are usually skilled musicians, dancers, painters or poets. But all that changes with the coming of the colonial order and change in the economic set-up: with the loss of their patronage these women do not have to 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. It is also important to note that professions like these are considered to be more ‘respectable’ than prostitution. Veena Oldenberg in her essay, Lifestyle as Resistance: the Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow, India talks about how inspite of ostracization from social and civic life courtesans under the colonial rule wielded significant power and owned large amount of property and paradoxically to colonial designs commanded considerable ‘respect’ in social circles. “In the tax ledgers from 1858-77…they were classes under ‘singing and dancing girls’, and as if it was not a surprise enough to find women in tax records, it was remarkable that they were under the highest tax bracket, with the largest individual income of any in the city…they were also in lists of property and…the value of this part of this booty from war (spoils seized from ‘female apartments’) was estimated to be worth 4 million rupees.” [1] Besides tax ledgers the courtesans also appear in the medical records. “The battle of reduce European mortality rates was to be joined at the hygienic front…it became imperative that courtesans and prostitutes of Lucknow…be regulated, inspected and controlled.” [2] Kenneth Ballhatchet in his book Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics 1973-1905, rightly points out that “British soldiers seemed to need protection from the dangers of mercenary love.” [3] and before the end of the eigthteenth century, the Governor-General in council and authorized the building of ‘hospitals from the reception of diseased women’ at Behrampur, Kanpur, Dinapur and Fatehnagar. Prostitutes admitted to these institutions were not allowed to leave till they has been ‘certified’ as cured. One would question why, if the courtesan/prostitutes posed such a threat were there establishments not shut down? Ballhatchet points out, “In satisfying the soldiers masculine needs, prostitutes are seen as playing a positive role, helping their clients to remain manly” [4] As a result, there is “no condemnation of prostitutes on moral grounds nor is there any attempt to persuade them to change their occupation…prostitutes were not denounced as sinners, but society permitted them no alternate occupation. Rehabilitation was precluded both by Indian realities and by British necessities.” [5] Colonial discourse thus constituted the courtesan subject by reconstituting courtesan culture through the re-organization of the state’s revenue relations, the expansion of a discourse of disease and moral rehabilitation, and the reorganization of urban space. Oldenberg points that “it became official practice to select beautiful and healthy specimens from among the kotha women and arbitrarily relocate them in the cantonment for the convenience of the European soldiers…It made sex cheap and easy for the men and exposed the women to venereal infection from the soldiers.” [6] The situation then was a kind of a vicious circle where the courtesan subjects were continuously repressed. But the site of power is not comprised of simplistic relationships of oppression. Oldenberg also talks about the struggle of the courtesans against an intrusive civic authority that taxed their incomes and inspected their bodies. To circumvent the various intrusions by the colonial authorities the courtesans devised ingenious ways like keeping two sets of books of their incomes or bribing the local nurse to avoid health inspections etc. “The tactics were new, but the spirit behind them was veteran. These methods were imaginative extensions of the ancient and subtle ways the courtesans had cultivated to contest male authority…and added to a spirited defense of their rights against colonial rule.” [7] With the establishment of the colonial government the courtesans lost the support of the patrons of the yester years, who were dethroned or whose property was confiscated by the Empire. Within the altered political economy of colonial rule, the multi-faceted life of the courtesan was reduced to the existence of a commercial sex worker [“(the new social structures) dehumanized the profession (of the courtesans), stripping it of its cultural function” [8]]. Colonial discourse thus attempted to constitute the courtesan woman within a changed discursive formation, constituted on their exclusion from the domain of “culture”.
The Courtesan Woman Subject
The nationalist movement in its Gandhian phase was geared towards involving women into the freedom struggle. Interestingly, while it seems that colonial discourse situates the courtesan outside the domain of culture, the constitution of the woman subject in nationalist discourse seems to simultaneously constitute the woman subject around cultural markers, repeatedly. The depictions of womanhood in this period are many, in poetry, prose and journals. An editorial published in Chaand, a popular women’s journal defined the ideal woman as “…she should be free from the present ignorance, bad influences and ill feelings…she should not observe purdah, but this does not mean that she should go out laden with jewels, unnecessarily attracting men’s attention…she should know how to fight oppression and to defend herself with her own hands, singing and keeping merry are her ornaments, but only songs that become a respectable woman, she should be as virtuous as a heroic wife and as courageous as a mother of lions and bear sons who will free India from servitude” [9]. Partha Chatterjee in his essay, The Nation and its Women, has argued that the inner (domestic) domain of women became invested with the urgency of preserving the sanctity of national culture. At the same time the nationalist discourse was trying to purify itself of bad influences like the courtesan women. The nationalist movement found its early expressions in the form of social reform programmes, such as the anti-natch campaigns, through which the richly diverse and stratified group of courtesan women was reduced into a homogenous group which was a threat to the well being of the society. The clarion call for an abolishment of the natch was first given in Madras in around 1892-93. The government also came up with an official decree whereby all natch girls were branded as mere prostitutes. This branding also extended to the devadasis. This also led to the rise of efforts to sanitize the themes and forms of various performing arts to make them accessible to the general public and at the same time giving them a new, modern base. People like Rabindranath Tagore, Madame Menaka, Rukmini Devi Arundale, Pandit Vishnu Bhatkhande all played a major role in this project. David Lelyveld in his essay Upon the Subdominant talks about the role All India Radio played in “integrating Indian Culture and raising ‘standards’.” One of Patel’s first acts as minister of information and broadcasting in the interim government of 1946 was to bar singers and musicians from the “courtesan” culture—anyone whose private life was a public scandal.” [10]. Thus to an extent the nationalist discourse seems to replicate certain logics of exclusion, like in the case of courtesan women, that are to be found in colonial discourse, which thus undermines the nationalism of a higher political community created around the idea of a national culture.
But like the colonial discourse which could not simply do away with the courtesan women, the place of the courtesan in nationalist discourse was not premised on simple inclusions/exclusions. Gandhi himself approached Gauhar Jan and requested her to organize a concert and help raise money for the freedom movement in 1920. Notwithstanding this, when courtesan women organised themselves into groups and wanted to be a part of Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement in 1921, the proposal was rejected as being morally objectionable. While Gandhi seems to exclude courtesans of one kind, he is willing to associate with another aspect of courtesan culture, in a different place and context. Thus, we can see how the figure of the courtesan becomes an important site in contestations around the constitution of the modern woman subject, in and between colonial and nationalist discourse; where positions are constantly negotiated. A deeper study of the reconstitution of the object of courtesan culture, thus reveals to us, the many ways in which the processes of constituting the modern subject of ‘woman’ is being resisted/rendered ineffective/redirected in ways that hold new possibilities for imagining the relation between ‘woman’ and ‘culture’.
See Also
References
- ↑ Veena Oldenberg, "Lifestyle as Resistance: the Case of the Courtesan of Lucknow, p 259
- ↑ Veena Oldenberg, "Lifestyle as Resistance: the Case of the Courtesan of Lucknow, p 260
- ↑ Kenneth Ballhatchet, Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics 1973-1905, p 10
- ↑ Kenneth Ballhatchet, Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics 1973-1905, p 20
- ↑ Kenneth Ballhatchet, Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics 1973-1905, p 20
- ↑ Veena Oldenberg, "Lifestyle as Resistance: the Case of the Courtesan of Lucknow, p 266
- ↑ Veena Oldenberg, "Lifestyle as Resistance: the Case of the Courtesan of Lucknow, p 261
- ↑ Veena Oldenberg, "Lifestyle as Resistance: the Case of the Courtesan of Lucknow, p 266
- ↑ Francesca Orsini, Hindi Public Sphere (1920-40): Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism. Public Sphere (1920-40): Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism, p 303
- ↑ David Lelyveld, Upon the Subdominant: Administering Music on All India Radio, p 57
Bibliography
- Ballhatchet, Kenneth, Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics 1973-1905. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980
- Bhattacharjee, Sukumar. “Prostitution in Ancient India,” Social Scientist, Social Scientist, Vol. 15, No. 2, 32-61. Feb., 1987
- Burton, Antoinette. Dwelling in the Archive. Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2003.
- Chatterjee, Partha. Nation and its Fragments. Princeton University Press: New Jersey, 1993.
- Gupta, Charu. Sexuality, Obscenity, Community: Women, Muslim and the Hindu Public in Colonial India. Permanent Black: New York, 2001.
- Lelyveld, David. Upon the Subdominant: Administering Music on All India Radio, Consuming Modernity and Public Culture in a South Asian World, ed. Carol A. Breckenridge. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 1995.
- Oldernberg, Veena Talwar. “Lifestyle as Resistance: The Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow, India”. Feminist Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2, Speaking for Others/Speaking for Self: Women of Color. (Summer, 1990), pp. 259-287.
- Orsini, Francesca. Hindi Public Sphere (1920-40): Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism. Oxford University Express: New Delhi, 2009.
- Pollock, Sheldon. A Historical Sourcebook in Indian Aesthetics. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 2004.
