There Will Be No Resurrection Of The Tawa'if Culture In India, Let's Make That Clear

It is easy to annoy Dr Navina Jafa. A cultural historian and a specialist on Intangible Heritage, she shares insights from her copyright research PhD study which will soon be out as a book. ¡°The debate is about women in public domain of entertainment either as performing artists or those who lived by selling their bodies they were commonly known as nautch girls and in the North part of the Subcontinent they came to be known as tawa¡¯if. Unlike Japan, where there is a clear distinction between a prostitute and a geisha (courtesan) this led to flattening the perception of all women as prostitutes. But ironically today, these marginalised women and their world are perceived as the exotic, the utopian, mystical aura of sensuality,¡± she says in an exclusive interview with Indiatimes.

The world of the tawa'if is not as simple as some believe it to be, that's precisely what annoys Dr Jafa. "It¡¯s a complex terrain of gender politics, the world of public women as entertainers until about the 1950s.¡±

Chandrakantha

"The world of the category of those tawa¡¯ifs seen as classical performing artists and therefore were repositories of traditional knowledge were organised in an empowered manner of matriarchal systems. The introduction of the Christian missionary activities defining social purity in the 19th century, along with exposure of the Indian intelligentsia to Western Education which led to the emerging host of socio-religious reform movements expanded the ambit of moral cleansing marginalising of all tawaifs including those who were performing artistes and not prostitutes."

The term tawa'if became a slang in the years that followed.

"The Indian subcontinent has always had the culture of singing and dancing girls, but this drive of social purity directed the newly emerging virtuous attitude to create examples of well-known individuals who became wastrels due to their association with tawa¡¯ifs these included the noted writer and father of Hindi Literature Bhartendu Harishchandra, who was considered to have become 'barbaad' after taking to the company of two mistresses - Malika and Madhavi," shares Dr Jafa.

Swarthmore College

In the time that followed since the moral cleansing was also the period when the tawa'if became the term associated with the common prostitute. ¡°The irony remained that the lonely British soldier still needed to either play the nabob, or have his needs satisfied, and hence tawa¡¯ifs needed to be relocated in the Lal Bazaars (Red light bazaars) and health licenses were required to prove that they are not carriers of any sexually transmitted diseases," explains Dr Jafa. "This again furthered the perception of the tawa¡¯if as a prostitute, the unclean woman as against the ¡®respectable¡¯ one."

"The neighborhoods of the tawa¡¯if were now perceived as lanes of disrepute or 'badnaam galis'."

¡°The marginalisation drove the tawa¡¯ifs to reorganise themselves, from matriarchal they transformed sociologically in patriarchal communities, supplementing to this was the draconian decision by the then information minister Sardar Patel, to prohibit tawa'ifs from performing in the All India Radio which forced many to either abandon singing and many just married and then performed. Several sought new avenues to re-position themselves of which the Bollywood was most important, these included the likes of Meena Kumari, Madhubala among many others."

"My research on tawa¡¯if was arduous, most women who belonged to the category of tawa¡¯ifs who were outstanding performers refused to speak due to social stigma."

"I remember meeting two sisters who were of a tawa¡¯if category called mirasins in Rampur (UP) several years ago who were court dancers trained by Achhan Maharaj, father of the Kathak doyen Pandit Birju Maharaj. The only ways I was able to extract information was because I myself am a trained Kathak dancer, and could, therefore, create an equation through the shared knowledge of performing arts. They were supported by local landlords. It was poignant how we together created an entire night to share our knowledge¡­they must be long gone."

"There is a lot of talk about resurrecting the culture of tawa'ifs due to the perception of the exotica, but little one realises that the story of the tawa¡¯if is a tale of inversion of empowered women through social stigma, and it also was a part of the feudal social and economic system. To resurrect the tawa¡¯if system is both unrealistic and unfair to women who have suffered from stigma and disrespectful behaviour."