‭Introduction‬

I‭ n the 18th century, in the dimly lit havelis of oriental India, a tawaif gracefully glides across the‬
‭room. Echoes of Ghungroo and the sound of her heels tapping on the carpet fill the air with woven‬
‭twirls of silk and precision. These skilled artisans, once reputed symbols of art and culture, now stand‬
‭tarnished in the narrow lanes of history.‬

‭The figure of the Tawaif‬

‭ raveling through these lanes, one finds little to no evidence of their historic prestige. It remains‬
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‭latent, peeping through the windows of their now destroyed havelis in the modern world. Tawaifs‬
‭were highly skilled artisans that catered to the nobility of the Indian subcontinent. Their name was‬
‭derived from the Arabic word ‘tauf,’ meaning ‘to circle around.’ Juxtaposing it against the word’s‬
‭current derogatory status in society really makes us wonder, ‘What changed? How did this innocent‬
‭word come to be equated with ‘whore’?’‬

I‭ f we were to travel back in time and explore these spaces, we would experience a different narrative‬
‭than the one that is dominant today. We would find custodians of culture and knowledge,‬
‭embodiments of art, and symbols of ‘tehzeeb’ all within these Tawaifs. Performing in bright‬
‭Anarkalis, these women were the highest earning participants in society back in the 18th century.‬

I‭ n her paper‬‭Lifestyle as Resistance: The Case of‬‭the Courtesans of 19th Century Lucknow,‬‭historian‬
‭Veena Oldenberg writes about the British finding out the occupations of the participants of the 1857‬
‭uprising listed as “dancing and singing girls” and “as if it was not surprising enough to find women in‬
‭the tax records, it was even more remarkable that they were in the highest tax bracket, with the largest‬
‭individual incomes of any in the city.”‬

‭ ith access to tremendous power and wealth, the tawaifs employed various men in their courts. Men‬
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‭who were musicians, teachers, clients, and even pimps were all employed under the Tawaifs. Not only‬
‭that, but they were the owners of vast lands that the British confiscated after the 1857 mutiny. As‬
‭mentioned earlier, these women held extensive knowledge about music, art, and culture, making them‬
‭ideal teachers. A multitude of nawab-to-be and respectable girls were sent to ‘women of culture’ to‬
‭instill in them tameez and tehzeeb while also making room for an artistic instinct.‬

‭ espite their seeming reputation in society, one needn’t forget that India has always been a land ruled‬
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‭by patriarchy. Tawaifs remained out of the ‘purdah,’ so to speak; they remained available to the‬
‭outside gaze of society. In a podcast hosted by Amit Varma, Saba Dewan, the author of‬‭Tawaifnama‬‭,‬
‭made a distinction between having high prestige and being respected in society, as materialized by the‬
‭Tawaifs of the pre-colonial era. It is important to note that the Tawaif Institute existed within the‬
‭patriarchy. So, while they enjoyed more freedom and privilege in terms of sexual expression and‬
‭monetary abilities, their lives still existed and were restricted within that cage. The ambiguous spaces‬
‭they occupied between “repute and disrepute” put them at the fringes of a society where women were‬
‭already oppressed.‬

‭ imply put, they occupied metaphoric and literal elite spaces surrounded by unprecedented prosperity‬
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‭and authority. Courtesans became fundamental to the ethos of the Mughal dynasty from the sixteenth‬
‭to the nineteenth centuries. However, the culture of the Tawaifs witnessed a puritanical shift with the‬
‭arrival of the British.‬
‭Transition from the ‘Woman of Culture’ to the Nautch Girl‬

‭ he settlement of the British after 1803 saw the rise of British men in India. Prior to the nineteenth‬
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‭century, the East India Company did not favor wives and children coming to India. In 1810, Captain‬
‭Thomas Williamson recorded the presence of 4000 men and 250 women in Bengal. In the evenings,‬
‭guests would arrive at the kothas in palanquins to look on as the ‘kothewali’ performed intricate dance‬
‭sequences in front of the audience.‬‭They sat on the‬‭‘gaddi’ or a raised cushion, around the perimeter‬
‭of the long, rectangular hall with Shahjahani pillars smoking a ‘hukkah,’ while the girls danced with‬
‭lamps flickering in the hallway. Their gazes followed the dancer’s twirls and the hymn of the‬
‭ghungroos. It is to be noted that India became a space of liberty for the British with ‘nautch girls,’ a‬
‭corrupted term for naach (dance), as opposed to England’s conservative society.‬

‭ hat said, things are always subject to change. Soon, India witnessed the influx of British ladies and‬
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‭wives,‬‭who were threatened to see their husbands attending‬‭to a whirlpool of skilled dancers in‬
‭Kothas. Thus began the battle of supremacy between “the ‘home-maker,’ the angelic British woman,‬
‭and the ‘home-breaker,’ the demonic nautch girl,” says author Debashish Das. The construction of the‬
‭figure of ‘the other woman’ found this to be a base on which the two fought. For the western gaze, the‬
‭‘nautch girl’ was a highly seductive enchantress with the ability to charm all men.‬

I‭ f we go back to colonial literature, India has been described as a hub of vices and prostitutes. Jemima‬
‭Kindersley recorded her travels to India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She‬
‭comments,‬‭“Their languishing glances, wanton smiles,‬‭and attitudes [are] not quite consistent with‬
‭decency.” Everything about them—their kohl-filled eyes, red painted nails, and hands full of‬
‭henna—ended up being considered provocative. The free spirit of the Tawaif of the East was directly‬
‭juxtaposed to the British ‘memsahib’ and defined as akin to the “female mutineer,” which became a‬
‭threat to the sanctity of the British empire in India.‬

‭ dward Said’s concept of ‘Orientalism’ dictates how the image of the colonizers, i.e., in the given‬
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‭context, the West, is constructed in the image of the colonized, i.e., the East. The West shouldered the‬
‭responsibility of taming, or civilizing, the big, bad ‘animals’ of the East, which were deemed‬
‭uncivilized. They became self-declared saviors of the East. Puritanical ideas started being exerted‬
‭over people across the mainland, where British morality started being replicated and became the‬
‭ultimate goal. Local Indian values and customs were frowned upon, something we still deal with in‬
‭the current century, and removed from the educational curriculum for Indian children as well. India‬
‭saw the complete erasure of their traditions, customs, and values at the hands of the British.‬

‭ he ‘anti-nautch’ movement of the late nineteenth century, started by Christian missionaries, and the‬
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‭‘Contagious Diseases Act of 1864 made the decimation of Tawaif culture more prominent and quick.‬
‭The British crown, after the introduction of these acts, managed, monitored, and controlled the income‬
‭of courtesans by considering them one with prostitutes and subjecting them to strict rules and‬
‭regulations.‬

‭ ationalism became a strand among many that contributed to the decline of Tawaifs. The ‘purity’ and‬
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‭‘sanctity’ of Indian culture had to be preserved, a product of the colonial hangover. The sanitation of‬
‭the public spaces demanded an erasure of Tawaifs from the streets to not confuse the ‘purdah-bound’‬
‭women with the nautch girls. Times changed, the cultural empire crumpled, and the unmarried tawaifs‬
‭were deemed to be prostitutes moving forward.‬
I‭ f there’s one thing we know to be true, it’s that civilization doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are larger‬
‭facts and things at play that affect us and our daily lives. I would like to believe the fact stood true for‬
‭courtesans in Mughal India and the women of the household. The figure of the courtesan had a‬
‭bearing on the woman of the household, and vice versa. There are questions that still demand answers.‬
‭What were these bearings? How did purdah-bound and purdah-free women coexist? What did the‬
‭repression and decline of courtesans mean for the women of the household? And finally, how was‬
‭Indian womanhood constructed in the aftermath of it all?‬

‭A way forward‬

‭ he erosion of the institution of Tawaif, coupled with the invention of the gramophone, led to the‬
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‭birth of new avenues within the cultural space. These women were Tawaifs no more, but harbingers of‬
‭a new realm of culture in the new era of technology. The new era saw an intersection of cinema,‬
‭music, and dance. The first ones to explore these avenues were women forced out of livelihoods and a‬
‭steady source of income, the Tawaifs.‬

‭ hey began to transform their identity from tawaif to 'gayika' in the early 1920s, focusing on their‬
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‭musical talents as vocalists and recording artists. Fearing being forced into prostitution, tawaifs‬
‭gravitated towards the phonograph industry and Parsi theater, while some of the most well-known‬
‭tawaifs relocated to Bombay and the fledgling film industry.‬

‭ ith the arrival of more ‘respectable’ women into the sphere, Tawaifs were thrown out of cinema as‬
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‭well.‬

‭ e see their prestige and lineage in the current world as well. ‘Hamari Atariya,’ the Rekha Bharadwaj‬
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‭song, takes its inspiration from Shobha Gurtu’s original Thumri rendition. Take, for example, Randi‬
‭ka Masjid in Delhi, built in the early 19th century by Mubarak Begum, a tawaif in the Mughal Court‬
‭who fell in love with‬‭David Ochterlony, India’s first‬‭British resident.‬

‭Representation‬

I‭ t is also important to note how Tawaifs are represented in cinema. Mirza Mohammad Ruswa’s‬
‭Umrao Jaan‬‭(1905) portrays Umrao as someone forced into the space of a kotha. Her work becomes a‬
‭product of her circumstances, not her will.‬

‭ common trope within Tawaif films is an attempt to rise above the ranks and be more honorable‬
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‭within their community. Take, for instance, Rani Mukherjee’s character in‬‭Laaga Chunari Mein Daag‬‭,‬
‭2007, where she finds out her partner loves her despite the work she does. The movie culminates with‬
‭a marriage between the two. The only way for a woman to escape their ‘dire’ life and ascend to being‬
‭acceptable is through a pious association with a man.‬

‭ ovies with Tawaifs as the center character ended in distress. Zohra in‬‭Muqaddar ka Sikandar‬‭(1978)‬
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‭kills herself after she’s unable to stop her paramour from entering the Kotha. In‬‭Umrao Jaan‬‭(1981),‬
‭Rekha’s character ends up alone with nothing but the support of her profession. Her character in‬
‭Kasam Suhaag Ki‬‭(1989) is kidnapped, forced into courtesanship, and ends up in her mother's arms‬
‭dead with a gunshot wound.‬
‭ hese endings stress and exemplify, in a way, a Tawaif’s desire to ascend to the socially acceptable‬
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‭class. In the end of‬‭Pakeezah‬‭(1972), Shahibjaan’s relationship with the hero’s uncle is revealed. In‬
‭Khilona‬‭(1970), Chand is only accepted by the hero’s family after her parentage comes to light.‬

‭ inema is a warped rendition of Tawaifs’ reality, often filtered through the male gaze. But that’s‬
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‭another rabbit hole. One I’ve written about previously. It seems fitting to end this article with‬
‭something Manjari Chaturvedi, the founder of the Courtesan Project, recently posted on her socials.‬

“‭ No classical singer or dancer wanted to be associated with tawaifs, while the truth is that the tawaifs‬
‭performed thumri, dadra, ghazal, khayal, and kathak. All these artforms are alive today, and yet we‬
‭refuse to take their names. Shame on us. No shame on them.”‬