Tawaifnama by Saba Dewan

Author:Saba Dewan [Dewan, Saba]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

In the age of Gandhian non-cooperation, tawaifs were increasingly finding themselves at the receiving end of their urban patrons’ growing moral rectitude. As values of thrift, sobriety and abstinence became inextricably linked with national interest, aristocratic patrons of tawaifs in Banaras, who had earlier resisted moralists’ attempts to police private musical soirees, now began to discontinue the practice of their own accord.

In addition, one major temple after another shut its doors to courtesan singers and dancers in 1921. The shrinking minority of important temples that continued to provide space for tawaifs’ performance faced harsh criticism. ‘A correspondent reports that prostitutes sang and danced on the nauvmi (ninth night) celebration of Navratras at Siddh Mata temple. In present times, when people are reforming themselves, why can’t the organisers at this particular temple put an end to this vile tradition? Such performances distract the attention of devotees away from the goddess to the dancing prostitutes. Children too are adversely affected. We hope that in the future the organisers will heed this appeal and reform the celebration of festivals in their temple.’ (Aaj, 20 April 1921)

While all sections of the courtesan community suffered adversely under these morality drives, elite tawaifs were decidedly the worst hit. Their art practice of thumri, dadra, tappa and kathak had defined the ‘high’ culture of Banaras, associated closely with the aristocracy. With merchant princes and religious establishments taking the lead in shunning them, elite tawaifs were now forced to become more dependent on their other traditional source of patronage, rulers of princely states and zamindars and taluqdars controlling the rural countryside.

Relatively less influenced by the prevailing moral rhetoric, various rajas and nawabs continued to invite tawaifs to perform at public celebrations and in private mehfils. Patronage from the landholding rural elite, however, became less assured. This was especially so in areas of the United Provinces and Bihar where large sections of the peasantry were getting politicised under the influence of Kisan Sabhas, anti-feudal peasants’ groups advocating farmers’ rights.

News coming in from Pratapgarh, Rae Bareilly, Sultanpur and Faizabad districts in the Awadh region spoke of a massive, grassroots agrarian movement led by Kisan Sabhas against arbitrary cesses, begar (forced, unpaid labour) and forcible evictions of tenants by oppressive taluqdars who had long enjoyed the support of the colonial government. Along with other symbols of feudal oppression, tawaifs too began to be targeted by the peasantry as markers of exploitative, repressive and debauched taluqdari excesses. The leaders of this peasants’ movement in Awadh were little-known sanyasis, or mendicants, like Baba Janki Das and Baba Ram Chandra, a former indentured labourer in Fiji who, on his return home, began propagating the scriptures. Their discourse was marked with appeals for kisan solidarity, combined with the use of symbolism from the Ramayana and other religious texts. Moral righteousness was upheld in the same measure as demands for economic and social justice.

The movement reached a flashpoint in January 1921 when the taluqdars hit back at the protesting peasants with large-scale violence. The immediate catalyst

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