Skip to content

The Tawaif, the Anti–Nautch Movement, and the Development of North Indian Classical Music

by David Courtney working tools
nautch

ABSTRACT
The tawaifs were an In­dian equi­val­ent of the Japan­ese Geisha.  Their heyday was in the 18th and the early 19th cen­tury.  They were very impor­tant in the development and propagation of a num­ber of North In­dian styles of music and dance, most es­pec­ially the kathak form of dance, and the thumree, ghazal, and dadra forms of sing­ing.  How­ever, after the Bri­tish con­so­li­dated their con­trol over India in the last half of the 19th cen­tury, the tawaifs were branded as pros­ti­tutes, and subsequently marginalised in so­ciety.  This marginalisation might have proved disastrous for their arts, had it not been for the inter­ven­tion of the In­dian bour­geoi­sie at the turn of the 20th cen­tury.  The “rescue” of the tawaif’s arts was remarkable, but was accompanied by an extensive degree of recontextualisation in order to fit them into the emerging cul­ture of Post-Independence India.
CONTENTS
1) Introduction
2) The Tawaifs: An Overview
3) A Few Famous Tawaifs
4) Evolution of the Will to End the Tawaifs
5) Evolution of the Means to End the Tawaifs
6) Why did Britain Do This?
7) The Oil of the Machine
8) The Anti-Nautch Movement
9) Passing of the Torch
10) The Rescuers
11) Effects of the Anti-Nautch Movement on North Indian Music
12) The Tawaif’s Arts
13) The Tawaif’s Accompanists
14) Hindu Appropriation of the Arts
15) The Tawaif Today
16) Epilogue
17) End Notes
18) Works Cited
19) Other Sites of Interest

Part 1 – Introduction

The anti-nautch move­ment was a move­ment in the late 19th cen­tury and early 20th cen­tury to abolish the trad­itional In­dian danc­ing girls.  This move­ment was star­ted by the Bri­tish, but car­ried out with the assistance of nu­mer­ous In­dians and In­dian organ­isa­tions.  The consequence of this move­ment had profound im­pact on the well be­ing of In­dian dan­cers, music­ians, and singers throughout the sub­con­ti­nent.  Although a num­ber of ar­tis­tic trad­itions were im­pacted by the anti-nautch move­ment, it is the north In­dian tawaif, along with their accompanying music­ians, which will be the major focus of this webpage.

The tawaif was a member of a courtesan class. Kamal’s Oxford Advanced Illustrated Dictionary defines tawaif (तवायफ़) as “prostitute, harlot” (Kapoor, undated). This definition reflects common misconceptions and usage, but it is very far from the complex historical reality. They were somewhat analogous to the Geisha tradition of Japan.

What Will be Discussed Here – It is appropriate for us to discussed what will and will not be coverted in this article.

We will be look­ing at seve­ral topics in this arti­cle.  We will briefly look at the tawaif trad­ition.  We will concentrate on the po­li­ti­cal and so­cial ev­ents leading up to the anti-nautch move­ment.  We will look at the move­ment in full bloom; and also briefly look at how this move­ment, along with the ge­ne­ral cul­tural renaissance of the period, influenced the development of north In­dian classical music.

But the specifics of the tawaif trad­ition it­self will only briefly be touched upon.  There will be a brief dis­cus­sion of their arts, and a small dis­cus­sion of a few fa­mous tawaifs.  This will be dis­cus­sed only to the degree neces­sary to have good grasp of the topic.  But the rise of the ins­titu­tion of the tawaif, the dif­fer­ent classes of tawaifs, and their so­cial struc­tures, are be­yond the scope of this arti­cle.

We will also spend very little time on the devdasi (देवदासी). There were major differences bet­ween the devdasi trad­ition of South and East India, and the tawaif trad­ition of the North and North-West.   The devdasi is cer­tainly a very worthy topic for study, but it too, is be­yond the scope of this modest web page.

We will try and main­tain a focus on the tawaif, but at times this is dif­fi­cult.  The anti-nautch move­ment ran willy-nilly through India’s comp­lex so­cial fabric, ef­fecting com­mon dance girls (nachwali – नॉचवाली), dev­dasis (temple girls), com­mon pros­ti­tutes, and a tawaifs alike.  We will continually be pulled outside of the focus of this arti­cle in our attempts to track this move­ment.  Your under­stand­ing and in­dul­gence in this mat­ter is solicited.

It is very impor­tant to re­mem­ber two points.  In order for the Bri­tish to carry out the anti-nautch move­ment there were two things.  First, there had to be a will to carry out this move­ment; and se­cond, the Bri­tish had to have con­so­li­dated their con­trol over the In­dian sub­con­ti­nent to the degree that they could ac­tually carry it out.  There­fore, a sub­stan­tial amount of time will be de­voted to these points.

Now that we have a roadmap as to the topics that we will be dis­cussing, we can proceed.

Delhi Tawaifs circa 1830

Delhi tawaifs prepairing for a dance (circa 1830)

A Few Terms -There are a few impor­tant terms that must be under­stood.  In par­ti­cu­lar we must be fami­liar with the terms “tawaif”, “nautch”, “kotha”, and “devdasi”.

The word “tawaif” is a word rich with emotional con­nota­tions.  The term “tawaif” is the plural form of the Arabic “Taifa”, and as such meant “group”.  Today the term has be­come synon­ymous with a pros­titute.  Unfor­tunately, this is an ext­reme cor­rup­tion of the word, and not at all a ref­lec­tion of this once noble ins­titu­tion.

Kashmeri tawaifs with hookah

Kashmeri tawaifs with a hookah. (circa 1854)

The tawaifs were female enter­tainers.  They were in many ways si­mi­lar to the geishas of Japan.  They excel­led in the arts of poetry, music, danc­ing, sing­ing, and were often con­si­dered to be the autho­rity on eti­quette.  By the 18th cen­tury they had be­come a cen­tral element in po­lite, refined north In­dian cul­ture.  How­ever, their sphere of enter­tain­ment also in­clu­ded enter­tain­ment of the more erotic variety; it was the lat­ter acti­vity that con­tribu­ted to their downfall.

“Nautch” is an­other term that needs to be dis­cus­sed.  Nautch (नॉच) is an angli­cised form of the Urdu/ Hindi “nach” (नाच), which is der­ived from the term “nachna” (नाचना) which means “to dance”.  How­ever, since the 19th cen­tury, the term “nautch-girl”, “nach-wali”, or “nautch-wali”, has been indiscriminately applied to tawaifs and dev­dasis.  Please also note that for these arti­cles we will be using the Vic­tor­ian Eng­lish cor­rup­tion “nautch” instead of the more cur­rent and academ­ically accept­able “nach”.  This is done to main­tain the Vic­tor­ian feel.

The con­fusion of “tawaif” with “nautch-wali” is due to a mix­ture of ignor­ance and half-truths.  It is cor­rect that dance was a major por­tion of the tawaif’s accomp­lish­ments; but every tawaif was not nec­es­sarily an expert in dance, nor was every danc­ing girl nec­es­sarily a tawaif.  Still from the stand­point of the zea­lots who were engaged in the anti-nautch move­ment, the terms all rep­resen­ted a pros­titute.

Nautch girl with music­ians

Picture post­card depicting a “nautch-wali” along with tabla and sarangi (circa 1900)

Another term to concern ourselves with is the “devdasi”.  The term “devdasi” literally means “a female servant of God”.  The dev­dasis were girls who were at­ta­ched to the temples.  It is impor­tant to re­mem­ber that there was vir­tually no con­nec­tion bet­ween the dev­dasis and the tawaifs.

Finally the term “kotha” काठा should be exam­ined.  The word kotha implies a multi-storied house or mansion, speci­fically one which is built with bricks or stone inhabited by the tawaifs.  The impli­cation was that it was the place where the tawaifs lived.  How­ever, it assu­med a dif­fer­ent sig­nifi­cance.  One some­times encoun­ters the phrase “kotha cul­ture”, which encompas­ses the en­tire cul­ture of the tawaif; this in­cludes the en­tire circle of pat­rons, poets, music­ians, and art­ists.  The word “kotha” is linguis­tically linked to the word kothari (literally a small kotha or a cottage), and kothi (a mansion).  It is also inter­est­ing to note that from an archi­tect­ural stand­point, “kotha” and “kothi” mean the same thing; how­ever the word “kothi” often invokes the con­nota­tion of a bank or a royal dwel­ling, and seems to have no con­nec­tion with the tawaifs.

an old kotha (kothi)

Architectural example of an old kotha / kothi

The kotha was not just a building, but an institution. The cultural importance is well known. However, it was of great economic importance as well. Wherever a kotha was established, markets would spontaneously spring up around them (Arfeen, 2016)



Part 2 – The Tawaifs – An Overview

Kashmiri Dance Girl

The Tawaifs at their Height – The tawaifs became very prosperous and influential during the Moghul period, but continued to enjoy wealth and political power even after the Moghul empire devolved into a number of autonomous principalities. (1)

The zenith of the tawaif stretched from the 18th cen­tury to begin­ning of the 19th cen­tury. It is difficult to put an exact date on this, but it is safe to say that their heyday started at the end of the reign of the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb (Majumdar, 1972), and ended with the suppresion of the Uprising of 1857.

The tawaifs depended upon royal patronage for their support; in this regard there are numerous examples. The tawaif Lal Kunwar was the queen and wife of the Moghul emperor Jahandar Shah (1661 – 1713) (Nevile 1996). The Moghul emperor Mohamad Shah Rangila (1702-1748) also married the tawaif Uttam Bai (later known as Qudsia Begum)(Nevile 1996).

Even the decline of the Moghul empire did not adversely affect thepatronage of the tawaif. One of the most famous examples of lavish patronage was the court Wajid Ali Khan in Lucknow (Nevile 1996). Another example is the Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) of Punjab who maintained a bevy of 150 dancing girls selected from across northern India.

Activities – The tawaif was inextricably linked to the aristocracy of Northern India.  In return for finan­cial sup­port, the tawaifs main­tained the art and cul­ture of the area.  They special­ised in sing­ing, danc­ing, poetry, and the erotic arts.  Fur­ther­more, they were con­si­dered to be the abso­lute author­ities on eti­quette, and the so­cial graces.  Since they were freed from many of the mundane duties of ordi­nary wo­men, they were able to ele­vate these ar­tis­tic ac­tivi­ties to levels that most men could never attain.  It was normal for nobil­ity to send their chil­dren to the tawaifs to be instruc­ted in the arts and let­ters.

The tawaifs were con­si­dered to be the origin­ators, or at least the pop­ular­isers, of seve­ral art-forms.  For insta­nce, the vocal forms of the dadra (दाद्रा), ghazal (ग़ज़ल), and thumree (ठुमरी) were their spec­iality.  In particular, the kathak (कत्थक) form of dance is in­ext­ric­ably linked to the tawaif. This highly rhyt­hmic, and at times abs­tract form of dance, has been pop­ular in nor­thern In­dian for centu­ries.

There were also areas that they gen­erally did not delve in.  Ob­viously menial work was out of the ques­tion.  But it is inter­est­ing to note the mus­ical fields in which they sel­dom indulged.  Although they would oc­casion­ally play mus­ical in­stru­ments, be­ing an ac­com­panist was be­neath their dig­nity.  They would us­ually hire men to play the ac­com­pany­ing in­stru­ments such as tabla and sarangi; the status of these music­ians was defin­itely that of “hired help”.  (Please note that we do not make any men­tion of the harmonium.  This was not in­ven­ted un­til the se­cond quar­ter of the 19th cen­tury, so we will dis­cuss this later.)

The dig­nity of the tawaif may have pre­ven­ted her from stoop­ing to lowly pro­fes­sions such as play­ing a mus­ical in­stru­ments, but their dig­nity em­powered them at times to ac­quire mas­sive wealth, po­li­ti­cal power, and even mili­tary might.  This will be il­lus­tra­ted as we take a brief look at some fa­mous tawaifs.



Part 3 – A Few Famous Tawaifs

The accomp­lish­ments of many of the tawaifs would be the sub­ject of a whole book.  Ob­viously we are un­able to give a full treat­ment to the sub­ject here, how­ever a cur­sory over­view of some fa­mous tawaifs will give an in­di­ca­tion of the great heights to which many of them at­tained. Aside from the previously mentioned dancing girls, here are a few tawaifs who gained great political power.

Begum Samru (circa 1753 – 1836) – Begum Samru was a tawaif, who arose to be­come the ruler of the prin­ci­pal­ity of Sardhana.  As a very young girl, she came to live with a Eu­ro­pean ex­pat­riate by the name of Walter Reinhardt Sombre.  He was leader of an mer­cen­ary army com­prised of both nat­ive as well as Eu­ro­pean sol­diers.  Upon his death, she assu­med com­mand of this army, and by means of her extra­ordin­ary po­li­ti­cal, and mili­tary ab­il­ities, be­came the ruler of Sardhana.  She en­joyed this posi­tion un­til her death in 1836.

Begum Samru

Begum Samru

Moran Sarkar – Moran Sarakar was a tawaif who rose to be­come Queen.  She be­came the wife of the Maha­raja Ranjit Singh (a.k.a. “The Lion of Punjab”)(1780-1839) in 1802.  She was con­si­dered to be very learned in the arts and let­ters, and was re­spec­ted for her phil­anth­ropy.  It is inter­est­ing to note that even though Maha­raja Ranjit Singh never minted a coin with his own image, he did mint coins with her image.

Moran Sarkra

Moran Sarkar

Umrao Jaan – It is im­pos­sible to dis­cuss the tawaifs with­out men­tion­ing Umrao Jaan of Lucknow.  Unfor­tunately the var­ious films and novels have taken such ar­tis­tic liber­ties with her life, that she exists more as a legend than an ac­tual per­son.  We know for sure that a tawaif by the name of Umrao Jaan existed, but that is about all that we can be cer­tain of.  The only de­tails of her life come through the “Umra-o-Jaan-e-Ada”; this was a novel writ­ten in 1905 by Mirza Mohammed Hadi Ruswa.  Undoubtedly ar­tis­tic liber­ties were taken in the book, with the re­sult that we are just un­able to tell fact from fic­tion.  There­fore it is prob­ably better if we ex­clude her from our dis­cus­sions here.

Umrao Jaasn

Rekha in 1981 film ad­apta­tion of Umrao Jaan

Final Overview of the Tawaif – When every­thing is con­si­dered about the tawaif, an inter­est­ing pic­ture emerges.  The tawaifs had op­tions open to them that were gen­erally de­nied wo­men of a more do­mes­tic nature.  If they had pro­fes­sional as­pira­tions, es­pec­ially in the ar­tis­tic fields, they had a vir­tual mono­poly.  If they de­sired to settle down, mar­riage was al­ways an op­tion.  From what we know of his­tory, when this op­tion was taken it was often with only the wealth­iest and most well placed men.  Remember their mas­tery of eti­quette and the so­cial graces made the tawaifs a “prize catch”, for al­most any man.  If they de­sired an in­de­pen­dent life­style, this too was an op­tion which the tawaif could exer­cise that was de­nied most wo­men of the period.  This is born out by an ex­ami­nation of tax rolls that tend to show only tawaifs as female pro­perty owners and tax payers.  The tawaifs were often poets and authors, in a period when the ma­jor­ity of wo­men were illiterate.  When every­thing was con­si­dered, the tawaifs had, edu­cation, in­depen­dence, money, power, and self-deter­mina­tion, in a period when many wo­men were lit­tle more than cattle.



Part 4 – Evolution of the Will to End the Tawaifs

social pur­ity

For the var­ious groups to er­adi­cate the tawaifs, it is very ob­vious that there had to be two con­di­tions met.  First, there had to be a will to er­adi­cate the tawaifs.  Se­condly, there had to be the ca­pa­city ac­tually do so.  The “will” to er­adi­cate the tawaif sprang from nu­mer­ous sour­ces.  These in­clu­ded po­li­ti­cal, cul­tural, Chris­tian evan­gel­ical, and per­sonal rea­sons. How­ever, the major motiva­tion came from the rise of the So­cial Pur­ity move­ment and its trans­plan­ta­tion into the In­dian sub­con­ti­nent.  This will be the major topic of dis­cus­sion for this section.

Rise of Evangelicalism – The 19th cen­tury was a time of rising Chris­tian evan­gel­icalism in Great Bri­tain.  The com­bi­na­tion of evan­gelism, evan­gel­icalism, and im­pe­rial­ism would have dire so­cial, po­li­ti­cal, and eco­nomic con­se­quen­ces for much of the world.  There were two per­iods of re­li­gious re­vi­val­ism that share re­spon­si­bility for the anti-nautch move­ment.  These two move­ment are often re­fer­red to as the “The Se­cond Great Awa­ken­ing” (1790- 1840’s) and the “Third Great Awa­ken­ing” (1880-1900).

The “Second Great Awa­ken­ing” swept Great Bri­tain du­ring the early part of the 19th cen­tury.  This was re­spon­sible for creat­ing the struc­ture that would be used for the anti-nautch move­ment.  Most not­ably it was the pres­sure of the evan­gel­ical Chris­tians upon the Bri­tish Par­lia­ment that that crea­ted the Mis­sion­ary Clause in the 1813 re­newal of the East India Com­pany’s char­ter.  This clause opened up India to mis­sion­ary ac­tivi­ties.  It was the in­crea­sed pre­sence of these mis­sion­aries that would prove cru­cial to the exe­cu­tion of the anti-nautch move­ment seve­ral de­cades later.

There was an­other wave of re­li­gious re­vi­val­ism that spread through Great Bri­tain from about the 1880s through the first de­cade of the 20th cen­tury.  Some refer to this as the “Third Great Awa­ken­ing” but there is not a great agree­ment as to this term; Some sug­gest that this is merely an ex­ten­sion of the “Second Great Awa­ken­ing”.  Re­gard­less of what we wish to call it, this was the wave that was ac­tually re­spon­sible for the anti-nautch move­ment.  By the time this re­vi­val­ism set in, the pre­sence of Chris­tian mis­sion­aries was well es­tab­lished in India.  Fur­ther­more, the con­trol over the In­dian sub­con­ti­nent was sub­stan­tial.  There­fore, when these mis­sion­aries some­how de­cided that watch­ing In­dian dance would bring des­truc­tion to the moral fabric of India (Nevile 1996), they were well placed to carry out their per­se­cu­tion.

Social Purity Movement – The anti-nautch move­ment in India is in­ext­ric­ably linked to the rise of the so­cial pur­ity move­ment in Great Bri­tain.  There­fore, it is neces­sary to have some under­stand­ing of this move­ment in order to gain a per­spec­tive on the anti-nautch move­ment.

As is typical of most so­cial pheno­mena, the so­cial pur­ity move­ment rep­resen­ted the out­come of a num­ber of dif­fer­ent con­cepts, theo­ries, con­ceptions, and mis­con­cep­tions of the era.  In other words, it was in­ext­ric­ably linked to the zeit­geist of the 19th cen­tury.  In this case, we will see that it was a logi­cal out­growth of a growing Chris­tian puri­tani­cal move­ment, sup­ported in part by scien­ti­fic hypo­theses which have since been dis­counted.

The “scientific” basis of so­cial pur­ity was sum­med up by Max Nordau’s (1849-1923) con­cept of “de­genera­tion”.  Ac­cor­ding to this theory, a pre­occu­pa­tion with gamb­ling, al­cohol, sex, and the other vices as de­fined by the Chris­tian chur­ches, led to a decay of the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem.  Such decay in turn led to fur­ther in­dul­gence and licen­tious be­hav­iour, which again leads to fur­ther neuro­logi­cal decay.  Ac­cor­ding to the La­marc­kian theory of evolu­tion that was pop­ular at the time, such “de­gener­ate” char­acter­is­tics would be trans­mit­ted to the next ge­nera­tion.  The cas­cad­ing nature of de­ge­nera­tion would in­evit­ably lead to a break­down of all civil so­ciety.  It was clear that in order to save so­ciety from this dire fate, it was essen­tial that such vices be elimi­nated.  Among the myriad of vices that so­ciety was prone to, the sex­ual vices were con­si­dered the most ser­ious.

In the 19th cen­tury, a num­ber of so­cial pur­ity organ­isa­tions arose in great Bri­tain.  These were the Nat­ional Vi­gil­ance As­socia­tion, the White Cross Army, The Sal­va­tion Army, The Church of Eng­land Pur­ity So­ciety of the White Cross League (CEPS), and a host of others.  These groups would roam the streets and har­ass, at­tack, or cause the ar­rest of any man or wo­men that was en­gag­ing in ac­tivi­ties that they deemed to be im­moral.  The pur­suit of pros­ti­tutes, and men pat­ron­ising pros­ti­tutes, seemed to be their main ac­tivi­ties.

Women of the Sal­va­tion Army

Women of the Sal­va­tion Army

Today, it is easy to dis­miss the de­ge­nera­tion theory and the so­cial pur­ity organ­isa­tions.  How­ever, we must re­mem­ber that the peo­ple who lived in the 19th cen­tury were not stu­pid; they just lived with a dif­fer­ent set of con­di­tions and world views.  The scourge of neuro­syphilis and ter­tiary syphilis were pain­fully clear to them, as were the ef­fects of al­coho­lism, and opium ad­dic­tion.  The near ab­sence of safe, ef­fec­tive treat­ments, meant that Vic­tor­ian Eu­ro­peans were left with no al­ter­na­tive other than the so­cial, pre­ven­tive ones.  This par­tially explains the sup­port that the so­cial pur­ity move­ment was re­ceiving even from peo­ple who were not re­li­gious zea­lots.

tertiary_syphilis

Tertiary ef­fects of syphilis

We have seen how the so­cial pur­ity move­ment pro­vided the major im­petus for the anti-nautch move­ment.  But this was not the only fac­tor.

Political Considerations – For many peo­ple, the elimi­na­tion of the tawaif had po­li­ti­cal con­si­dera­tions.  Just as the Masonic lodges ac­quired the re­pu­ta­tion for be­ing cen­tres of se­di­tion in the Ameri­can Re­vo­lu­tion­ary war, and coffee houses ac­quired the re­pu­ta­tion for be­ing the places where the Rus­sian re­vo­lu­tion was hatched, in a si­mi­lar man­ner, the kothas of the tawaifs had the re­pu­ta­tion of be­ing be­hind the Up­ris­ing of 1857.

uprising of 1857

Uprising of 1857

This up­rising was defin­itely a not­ably event in both In­dian his­tory as well as Bri­tish History.  This event is var­iously re­fer­red to as the “Indian Re­bel­lion of 1857”, the “First War of In­de­pen­dence”, the “Great Re­bel­lion”, the “Se­poy Mu­tiny”, and a host of other names to suit your par­ti­cu­lar po­li­ti­cal per­sua­sion.  Years of Bri­tish pre­sence and med­dling in the lo­cal po­li­ti­cal af­fairs, re­sulted in a great deal of re­sent­ment among the lo­cal popu­la­tion.  After the an­nexa­tion of Awadh (Oudh) in 1856, ten­sions were run­ning es­pec­ially high.  Nort­hern India broke out in re­bel­lion in 1857.  This up­rising was sup­pres­sed in 1858.

The con­nec­tion bet­ween the kothas of the tawaifs and the up­rising is well known.  From the ear­liest days, the close so­cial inter­action bet­ween the tawaifs and the feudal lords, meant that tawaifs were no stran­gers to court in­tri­gues.  It was only natu­ral that in the 1850’s, these same kothas should be cen­tres of po­li­ti­cal de­bate, some of which re­sulted in the Up­ris­ing.

After the Up­ris­ing, the Bri­tish re­ta­lia­ted ag­ainst the tawaifs.  Many had their pro­perty seized.  Many zon­ing laws were enac­ted that ad­ver­sely ef­fec­ted them.  When the anti-nautch move­ment star­ted in the late 1800s, this not so dis­tant piece of his­tory could not have been for­got­ten.

Other Motivations for the Elimination of the Tawaif – There are fur­ther rea­sons which may have pro­vided some motiva­tion for the elimi­na­tion of the tawaif.  These in­clude cul­tural chau­vin­ism, and simple jea­lousy on the part of Bri­tish wo­men.  Although the so­cial pur­ity move­ment ap­pears to be the strongest motiva­tion for the elimi­na­tion of the tawaif, with po­li­ti­cal con­si­dera­tions a dis­tant se­cond, we must not discount these other forces.

Cultural chau­vin­ism must be con­si­dered when we search for other motiva­tions to elimi­nate the tawaif.  The Bri­tish who lived in India at the end of the 19th cen­tury were con­vin­ced that Eu­ro­pean cul­ture, es­pec­ially Eng­lish cul­ture, was the abso­lute pin­na­cle, and that any other cul­ture was auto­matic­ally in­fer­ior.  The tawaifs rep­resen­ted a major re­ser­voir of In­dian cul­ture.  There­fore in the Bri­tish mind, the tawaif re­pre­sent a form of cul­tural “de­ge­nera­tion” that, like the more physi­cal forms, must be elimi­nated.

One other rea­son which cer­tainly must have been con­si­dered by some Bri­tish, es­pec­ially the Bri­tish wo­men liv­ing in India, was the po­ten­tial threat posed by the tawaifs.  Toward the later part of the 19th cen­tury, im­prove­ments in trans­por­ta­tion, coup­led with im­prove­ments in pub­lic health (at least in the Bri­tish can­ton­ment areas), made India much less hazar­dous.  The re­sult was that there was a sub­stan­tial rise in the num­ber of Bri­tish wo­men liv­ing in India.  The pre­sence of the tawaif could not help but be viewed as a com­pe­ti­tion for the amor­ous at­ten­tions of their men folk.  After all, the pre­sence of the Anglo-Indian com­mu­nity stood as a si­lent tes­ta­ment to this sort of thing.

British memsahib in India

British memsahib in India

We have al­ready said that in order for the anti-nautch move­ment to be suc­cess­ful, there had to be both the de­sire to elimi­nate the tawaif as well as the the ab­ility to do so.  We have dis­cus­sed at great length many of the rea­sons which crea­ted the de­sire to elimi­nate them.  Now we must look at many of the ev­ents which lead to the ab­ility to elimi­nate the tawaif.  In the next sec­tion we will look into many of the ev­ents which em­powered the Bri­tish to elimi­nate the tawaif.


Part 5 – Evolution of the Means to End the Tawaifs

Queen victoria

It is clear that in order for there to be a func­tion­ing Bri­tish lead anti-nautch move­ment in India, there had to be a sig­ni­fi­cant Bri­tish pre­sence in India.  By sig­ni­fi­cant, we really mean two things.  First the num­ber of Bri­tish in India needed to be suf­fi­cien­tly high that they could affect this sort of thing.  Se­condly, they had to have a mili­tary, so­cial, and ad­mi­ni­stra­tive frame­work with the ca­pa­city to do so.

The Bri­tish pre­sence at the end of the 19th cen­tury was very dif­fer­ent from what it had been a cen­tury ear­lier.  It is clear that a cen­tury ear­lier, the Bri­tish could not have ex­ecu­ted an anti-nautch move­ment.  So what were the ev­ents which al­tered this pre­sence in India.  It turns out that there was a fun­da­men­tal shift in ad­mi­ni­stra­tive phi­lo­sophy.  This change in the Bri­tish ap­proach to­wards India, coup­led with ge­ne­ral im­prove­ments in tech­no­logy and trans­por­ta­tion, gave Bri­tain the where-with-all to con­so­li­date its con­trol over India.  This section will chro­ni­cle Great Bri­tain’s ever tigh­ten­ing con­trol over India in the 19th cen­tury.

Orientalist / Anglicist Debate – There was a major de­bate in the 19th cen­tury as to how the Bri­tish were going to ad­mi­ni­ster the In­dian sub­con­ti­nent.  There were ba­si­cally two fac­tions.  One group was the “or­ien­tal­ists”; this group main­tained that lo­cal trad­itions, lan­gua­ges, and po­li­ti­cal struc­tures should be used and mani­pula­ted as much as pos­sible for an ef­fec­tive con­trol of the sub­con­ti­nent.  The other group were the “ang­li­cists”; this group held that India should be ad­mi­ni­stered along a stric­tly Eng­lish model.  Ac­cor­ding to the ang­li­cists, India should be moul­ded and chan­ged to ref­lect Bri­tish stan­dards and mores.  In the begin­ning of the 19th cen­tury, India was ad­mi­ni­stered by an orien­ta­list ap­proach; how­ever by the end of this cen­tury, the ap­proach was solidly ang­li­cist.  Let us look at the var­ious ev­ents which brought such a fun­da­men­tal change in ad­mi­ni­stra­tive phi­lo­sophy.

Orientalism – In the early days of the East India Com­pany, the pre­do­mi­nate phi­lo­sophy was orientalism.  Their ap­proach was to quietly in­si­nu­ate them­sel­ves into In­dian so­ciety.  Once there, the Bri­tish mani­pula­ted the sub­con­ti­nent by a comp­lex sys­tem of trea­ties and agree­ments.  They fre­quen­tly set one prin­ci­pal­ity ag­ainst an­other, thus weaken­ing both par­ties in the pro­cess, and then ex­trac­ted what­ever lands, rights, or trea­ties that they de­sired.  In short, the Bri­tish gen­erally re­lied upon sub­ter­fuge and stealth to ob­tain their de­sired ob­jec­tives.  They only re­sor­ted to mili­tary inter­ven­tion when other meth­ods failed.  The orien­ta­list ap­proach was deemed to be very suc­cess­ful be­cause it al­lowed a very small num­ber of Bri­tish to ef­fec­tively con­trol the en­tire In­dian sub­con­ti­nent.

East India Com­pany Official

Orientalist of­fic­ial of the East India Com­pany (circa 1760)

Seeds of Anglicism – The first sign that things might change came in the late 18th cen­tury.  This was when many in Great Bri­tain were ques­tion­ing the East India Com­pany’s of­fic­ial re­sis­tance to mis­sion­ary ac­tivi­ties.  Great Bri­tain was in the grips of a great re­li­gious wave of fun­da­men­tal­ism that has come to be known as the “Se­cond Great Awa­ken­ing”.  Many in Great Bri­tain viewed India as be­ing a heat­hen land, and that merely making a pro­fit was not enough.  They con­si­dered it their “Chris­tian duty” to add evan­gel­ism to the list of ac­tivi­ties to which the East India Com­pany should be in­vol­ved.  Although the more prag­ma­tic mem­bers of the com­pany stron­gly reject this pro­po­si­tion, the power of the evan­gel­icals in­crea­sed.  1813 was a tur­ning point in this re­gard, for it was in this year that Par­lia­ment re­newed the char­ter of East India Com­pany, but at­ta­ched to this was a clause guar­an­tee­ing Chris­tian mis­sion­aries ac­cess and freedom to work in India.

For a num­ber of years the East India Com­pany con­tin­ued its op­era­tions.  As a mat­ter of prac­ti­cal­ity, the orien­ta­list ap­proach was still the the pre­vail­ing phi­lo­sophy.  But the seeds of ang­licism had al­ready been sewn.

Ascendency of Anglicism – The Ang­li­cists did not stay in the back­ground very long.  Events came to pass that sud­denly thrust the them to the fore, and re­le­ga­ted the orien­ta­lists to his­tory.

Orientalism was called into ques­tion by the the Up­ris­ing of 1857.  This up­rising was viewed in Great Bri­tain as a sign of fail­ure of Or­iental­ism; they claimed that a to­tally dif­fer­ent ap­proach was neces­sary, and that a more hands-on ap­proach was neces­sary.  The East India com­pany’s hold­ings came di­rec­tly under the crown in 1858, at which point the East India Com­pany ef­fec­tively ceased to be any re­lev­ance in In­dian af­fairs.

Now that the ang­li­cists had con­trol of the sub­con­ti­nent, they em­bar­ked upon one of the most am­bi­tious pro­jects of so­cial en­gi­neer­ing the world had ever seen.  Led by Lord Macaulay and a host of Ang­li­cist min­ions, they set about to re­make India along the lines of Great Bri­tain. (2)

Lord Macaulay

Lord Macaulay

The churches and other entities duti­fully took over the major job of set­ting up schools where bright young In­dian lads were ed­uca­ted.  The education in these school re­vol­ved around aca­demic sub­jects that were all ac­cor­ding to Bri­tish stan­dards.(3)  Their gra­du­ates were duly taken up and given em­ploy­ment in the var­ious Bri­tish es­tab­lish­ments, thus creat­ing a whole new “babu” class.

The mind­set of this In­dian bour­geoi­sie was comp­lex and not at all homo­gen­ous.  We must re­mem­ber that it was from this class that the in­depen­dence move­ment em­er­ged.  But in the 19th cen­tury, the ma­jor­ity embraced the Vic­tor­ian at­ti­tudes of the day.  As we will see, this would have dire con­se­quen­ces for the tawaifs, for they would join with their im­perial mas­ters in the coming anti-nautch move­ment.


Part 6 – Why Did Bri­tain Do This?

It is clear that such a mas­sive under­taking re­quired a tre­men­dous amount of re­sour­ces.  One would natu­rally ques­tion why Eng­land would be wil­ling to in­vest these re­sour­ces in an area on the op­po­site side of the globe.  The an­swer to this very fun­da­men­tal ques­tion was that Great Bri­tain did not have a choice.  It had be­come an abso­lute im­pera­tive due to a comp­lex series of ev­ents oc­cur­ring in a to­tally dif­fer­ent part of the world.  These ev­ents cas­ca­ded like do­min­oes from a de­ci­sion made by a man by the name of Pierre Gustave Toutant Beau­regard.

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beau­regard

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beau­regard, leader of Con­fe­der­ate troops in Charles­ton

This chain of ev­ents worked like this.  Beau­regard was a Bri­ga­dier Gen­eral in the Con­fe­der­ate States of Ame­rica, in con­trol of sol­diers in the City of Charles­ton, South Caro­lina.  In Charles­ton harbour, was Fort Sump­ter, which was oc­cu­pied by the Uni­ted States.  On April 10, 1861, Ge­ne­ral Beau­regard or­dered the Ameri­can forces to sur­ren­der the fort.  On April 12, when they re­fused, Beau­regard or­dered the Con­fe­der­ate forces to open fire.  This of­fic­ially star­ted the War Bet­ween the States.  The es­ca­la­tion of the US Civil War pro­cee­ded in a fash­ion that is well known to many peo­ple today.  How­ever of par­ti­cu­lar sig­nifi­cance to this arti­cle, was the bloc­kade of southern ports by Ameri­can navel ships.  This began on April 19th, just a few days after the fall of Fort Sump­ter.  Although this bloc­kade had only a limi­ted ef­fect ini­tia­lly, it grew un­til the Con­fe­der­ate States of Ame­rica were to­tally cut off from Great Bri­tain.

At this point you are no doubt won­der­ing what the Ameri­can Civil war had to do with India and tawaifs.  As it tur­ned out, it had every­thing to do with it.  We will see that this was one of the major rea­sons why India be­came so impor­tant to great Bri­tain’s economy.  It be­came so impor­tant, that Great Bri­tain really had no choice but to in­vest con­si­der­able re­sour­ces to con­so­li­date its con­trol over the In­dian sub­con­ti­nent.  This en­tire si­tua­tion, comp­lete with its im­pe­rial­is­tic impli­cations, can be sum­med up in a sin­gle word – cot­ton!

By the mid­dle of the 19th cen­tury Great Bri­tain was pro­duc­ing half of the world’s cot­ton tex­ti­les.  A sin­gle Bri­tish mill known as the Quarry Bank Mill in Che­shire ac­coun­ted for 0.6 percent of the en­tire world’s pro­duc­tion alone!  Yet Bri­tain pro­du­ced abso­lutely no cot­ton ag­ri­cul­tur­ally.  There­fore, Bri­tain was comp­letely at the mercy of for­eign markets for its sup­ply of raw cot­ton.  In par­ti­cu­lar it was de­pen­dent upon three coun­tries, the US (Con­fe­der­ate States of Ame­rica), Egypt, and India.

English Textile Mill

English Textile Mill

The Ameri­can Civil war was having a de­vas­tat­ing ef­fect upon Great Bri­tain’s tex­tile in­dus­try.  The dis­rup­tion in the sup­ply of cot­ton, meant that Great Bri­tain’s tex­tile mills were only func­tion­ing at a frac­tion of their normal ca­pa­city.

There were only two other coun­tries that were left to sup­ply cot­ton to Great Bri­tain.  One of these was Egypt and the other was India.  Egypt was not under Bri­tish con­trol, so it was im­me­di­ately re­cog­nised that Bri­tain should not be­come de­pen­dent upon it.  India had just re­cen­tly come under the crown, so there really was not much de­bate in the mat­ter.  India had to be con­so­li­dated into the em­pire, even if for no other rea­son than to keep Bri­tain’s tex­tile in­dus­try viable.  A major finan­cial in­vestment in India was not merely an op­tion; the Bri­tish tex­tile in­dus­try abso­lutely de­man­ded it.  The Bri­tish em­pire func­tioned like one giant im­pe­rial­is­tic ma­chine; and India was a major compo­nent of this giant ma­chine.


Part 7 – The Oil of the Machine

We invoked the meta­phor of a great im­pe­rial­is­tic ma­chine to des­cribe India’s posi­tion in the Bri­tish em­pire.  If we push this meta­phor a bit fur­ther, there were a num­ber of de­ve­lop­ments which may be view as the “oil” of the ma­chine.  These were a num­ber of, in­ven­tions, and ev­ents, which made the ma­chine possible.  At first some of these points may seem un­im­port­ant, but just as a mighty ma­chine can be brought to a grind­ing halt by an ab­sence of oil, it is en­tirely pos­sible that if any one of these ev­ents had not hap­pened, the Bri­tish con­so­li­da­tion of India might not have oc­cur­red.

Cinchona, Quinine, and Malaria – In the early days of the East India Com­pany, re­la­ti­vely few Bri­tish came to India.  The large num­ber of dis­eases en­de­mic to the sub­con­ti­nent took a major toll.  Of all the dis­eases en­de­mic to the India, mal­aria had a special sig­nifi­cance.  Deaths fre­quen­tly oc­cur­red from a sort of “one-two-punch.”  In this scenario, one would contract mal­aria.  Although death from mal­aria it­self was not very com­mon, it was a very de­bi­li­ta­ting dis­ease.  There­fore, once a per­son was weak­ened by mal­aria, an­other dis­ease could come along, and the re­sult was often fatal.  It was clear that if mal­aria could be kept under con­trol, mor­tal­ity could be greatly re­duced.

The bark of the cinchona tree

A mat­ter of life or death – the bark of the cinchona tree

By the lat­ter part of the 18th cen­tury it was well known that the bark of the cin­chona plant was very ef­fec­tive in re­du­cing the de­bi­li­ta­ting ef­fects of mal­aria.  Cinchona is a tro­pi­cal shrub or small tree nat­ive to South Ame­rica.  The bark of the plant con­tains qui­nine and a num­ber of other drugs which are very ef­fec­tive at treat­ing mal­aria.

Unfortunately the cin­chona re­si­sted cul­ti­va­tion for a very long time.  This chan­ged in 1860 when cin­chona seed­lings were brought from South Ame­rica.  Plantations were es­tab­lished in Ceylon (pres­ent day Sri Lanka), the Nil­giri Hills (in the pres­ent day Tamil Nadu), and other parts of India.  By the lat­ter por­tion of the 19th cen­tury, cin­chona bark and its de­ri­va­tives (e.g., qui­nine) were re­la­ti­vely cheap and easily ob­tainable.  The re­sult­ing drop in mor­tal­ity in the Eu­ro­pean popu­la­tion made India a con­si­der­ably less harsh en­vi­ron­ment.

The Suez Canal – The op­en­ing of the Suez canal in 1869 had a major im­pact upon India’s posi­tion in the em­pire.  It made it much easier to ship goods bet­ween India and Great Bri­tain.  By 1882 it is es­ti­ma­ted that Bri­tish commerce ac­coun­ted for more than 80% of the vol­ume of traf­fic through the canal.

The Suez Canal greatly im­proved trans­por­ta­tion bet­ween India and Great Bri­tain

The Suez Canal greatly im­proved trans­por­ta­tion bet­ween India and Great Bri­tain

Improvements In ship­ping tech­no­logy – Improvements in ship­ping also con­tribu­ted greatly to­wards in­crea­sed Bri­tish pre­sence in India.  The early 19th cen­tury saw a sharp rise in the avai­la­bi­lity of the clip­per ship.  These sail­ing vessels were manu­fac­tured in the Uni­ted States, Great Bri­tain, and to a les­ser ex­tent, in France.  They were much fas­ter than previous ships and made trans­por­ta­tion much easier.  How­ever, ship­ping tech­no­logy was im­pro­ving so fast that by the mid­dle of the 19th cen­tury, the clip­pers were al­ready on the de­cline.  One rea­son for their de­cline was the rising pop­ular­ity of steam ships.

Improvements in ship­ping tech­no­lo­gies reduce travel time bet­ween Bri­tain and India

Improvements in ship­ping tech­no­lo­gies reduce travel time bet­ween Bri­tain and India

Other Considerations – It is im­pos­sible to cata­logue all of the in­no­va­tions which made it easier for Bri­tain to con­so­li­date its con­trol over India.  Rail­roads, tele­graphs, im­proved roads, the list is al­most un­fa­thom­able.  How­ever at this point, I think that you get the pic­ture.

This comp­letes our dis­cus­sion of the con­so­li­da­tion of India into the Bri­tish em­pire.  We have shown in some de­tail how it came about, as well as the eco­nomic rea­sons that made it im­pera­tive.  This con­so­li­da­tion of India into the Bri­tish em­pire made a num­ber of so­cial pheno­mena pos­sible.  One of these was the the anti-Nautch move­ment.


Part 8 – The Anti-Nautch Move­ment

Tawaifs

We have shown at great lengths the mus­ter­ing of both the will to exe­cute an anti-nautch move­ment, as well as the ev­ents which gave Bri­tain suf­fi­cient re­sour­ces and con­trol over the sub­con­ti­nent to ac­tually carry it out.  In this next sec­tion, we will see how var­ious so­cial forces and im­perial ma­chinery fell into place for the exe­cu­tion of the anti-nautch move­ment.  We will get a glimpse as to how it was car­ried out.  We will also exam­ine the dis­so­lu­tion of the tawaif trad­ition.

Conditions in India Leading to the Anti-Nautch Movement – By the late 19th cen­tury, many things had chan­ged in re­gards to Bri­tish liv­ing in India.  Whereas a cen­tury ear­lier, so­cial inter­course bet­ween In­dians and Bri­tish ex­pat­riates had been ex­ten­sive, in the Vic­tor­ian era, this ten­ded to be frowned upon (Nevile 1996).  Earlier ge­nera­tions of Bri­tish freely mar­ried In­dian wo­men and merged with the lo­cal popu­la­tion.  But in Vic­tor­ian India, inter­actions were care­fully pro­scribed by eti­quette.  Any Bri­tisher who went be­yond the neces­sary inter­actions might be ac­cused of “going nat­ive”.  This was of course a great so­cial sin and caused the of­fen­der to be sub­jected to ext­reme os­tra­cism.  While ear­lier ge­nera­tions of Bri­tish knew very well that they were eco­nomically and technologically no better than their In­dian counterparts, later Bri­tish were comp­letely con­vin­ced that Bri­tish cul­ture was su­per­ior to In­dian cul­ture in every re­gard.  This mind­set crea­ted a wides­pread dis­dain for the lo­cal cul­ture and trad­itions.

Such dis­dain for the lo­cal cul­ture was easily demon­stra­ted in the deter­iorat­ing re­la­tions bet­ween the Bri­tish and tawaifs.  In the early days of the East India com­pany, it was very normal for Bri­tish to hire nautch-girls (many of whom were tawaifs) to dance at their so­cial func­tions (Singh, 2000).  How­ever by the later part of the 19th cen­tury, so­cial func­tions ten­ded to be more of the ball­room danc­ing that one might find in Eng­land.  In­dian danc­ing star­ted to be frowned upon.

Official func­tion with trad­itional nautch

Official func­tion with trad­itional nautch

The rising un­ac­cept­abil­ity of In­dian dance and its prac­ti­tion­ers is il­lus­tra­ted by an in­ci­dent that oc­cur­red in 1890.  Prince Albert vi­si­ted India and was enter­tained to a trad­itional In­dian dance.  Visiting dig­ni­tar­ies had been enter­tained to trad­itional In­dian dance for as long as any­one was aware; how­ever this time things were lit­tle dif­fer­ent.  There were pro­tests from many quar­ters, es­pec­ially from a Chris­tian mis­sion­ary by the name of Rever­end J. Murdoch (Nevile 1996).  He prin­ted a num­ber of pub­li­ca­tions stron­gly con­dem­ning these “nautch par­ties” and called for all Bri­tish to re­frain from at­tend­ing them.

The per­se­cu­tions of In­dian dan­cers by Rever­end Murdoch was just a small in­di­ca­tion of a so­cial phe­no­menon that was em­erg­ing.  This was the spread of the So­cial Pur­ity move­ment from Great Bri­tain to India.  As it tur­ned out, once the So­cial Pur­ity Move­ment spread to India, it would as­sume a cha­rac­ter that in some ways was dif­fer­ent from its ori­gi­nal Bri­tish form.

The large num­ber of mis­sion­ary based pub­lish­ing houses was one rea­son for the rise of the anti-nautch move­ment.  The Chris­tian mis­sion­aries con­trolled a very sig­ni­fi­cant por­tion of the pub­lish­ing houses in the sub­con­ti­nent.  Initially this pub­lish­ing in­fra­struc­ture was de­voted to the pub­lication of bibles in the var­ious in­di­ge­nous lan­gua­ges.  How­ever as the ca­pa­city of these pub­lish­ing houses in­crea­sed, they very quic­kly branched off into other di­rec­tions as mo­ti­va­ted by is­sues of the day.  By the lat­ter part of the 19th cen­tury, In­dian dance was con­si­dered to be one such issue.  One of the early agi­ta­tors ag­ainst In­dian dance was the “Mad­ras Chris­tian Liter­ature So­ciety”; they prin­ted a fair amount of anti-nautch liter­ature.

The views of many of these Chris­tian mis­sion­aries were at times ext­reme.  Many Chris­tian pub­li­ca­tions went so far as to say that sim­ply look­ing at an In­dian dance was suf­fi­cient to arouse un­-Chris­tian feel­ings.  But it was not just Bri­tish and In­dian Chris­tian con­verts that were be­hind the Anti-Nautch moment, the In­dian bour­geoi­sie was also in­vol­ved.

Anti-Nautch Movement in Full Force – It is dif­fi­cult to as­cribe the birth of a move­ment to a par­ti­cu­lar date, but for the pur­pose of this arti­cle we will con­sider 1892 to be the birth of the anti-nautch move­ment.  This was the year that an an ap­peal was put forth by the “Hindu So­cial Re­forms As­socia­tions” si­mul­ta­neously to the Go­ver­nor Ge­ne­ral of India and the Go­ver­nor of Mad­ras.  The of­fic­ial rep­lies from both the Vice­roy and the Go­ver­nor of Mad­ras were po­lite, but clearly de­nied any con­nec­tion bet­ween dev­dasis, dance girls, and pros­ti­tu­tion.

However, re­li­gious zea­lots have never been ones to allow facts to inter­fere with their think­ing.  They were re­so­lute in their ef­forts.  Since they were un­able to get any of­fic­ial ac­tion on this mat­ter, they star­ted to di­rec­tly tar­get individuals who hired dan­cers to entertain at their so­cial func­tions.  They called for the Bri­tish to boycott dance girls and func­tions where “nautch-walis” were hired.

The anti-nautch move­ment very quic­kly spread from the dev­dasis of the South, to the tawaifs in the North (Neuman 1980).  As so­cial pur­ity organ­isa­tions were es­tab­lished in Nort­hern India, the tawaif be­came the tar­get there.  In the next few de­cades, organ­isa­tions such as the “Punjab Pur­ity As­socia­tion” (Lahore), the “Social Service League” (Bombay), and a host of others were es­tab­lished.  One pub­lication from the “Punjab Pur­ity As­socia­tion” quotes the so­cial reformer Keshub Chandra Sen as saying that the nautch-girl was a “hideous woman…hell in her eyes.  In her breast is a vast ocean of poison.  Round her comely waist dwell the furies of hell.  Her hands are brandishing unseen daggers ever ready to strike unwary or wilful victims that fall in her way.  Her blandishments are India’s ruin.  Alas! her smile is India’s death.”

Salvation Army in India

Salvation Army in India

Another example of the ext­reme zeal of many who pursued the anti-nautch moment may be seen in the case of miss Helen Tennant.  She truly believed that it was her assignment from God to abolish dance girls.  She came all the way from Eng­land to India for this pur­pose.

The ef­forts of the anti-nautch activists con­tin­ued unabated for years.  It spread out of the circles of mis­sion­aries and so­cial pur­ity reformers, and into the mainstream.  It finally reached a point where in 1905, contrary to trad­ition, it was de­cided not to have an In­dian dance at the reception for the Prince of Wales in Mad­ras.

At this time, the si­tua­tion of the tawaif was very bad.  The so­cial expectations crea­ted by the anti-nautch move­ment had be­come a self fulfilling prophesy.  Decades of per­se­cu­tion and a boycott of their arts, crea­ted an en­vi­ron­ment of desperation for the tawaifs.  They were un­able to pursue their arts due to so­cial pres­sures; therefore there be­came lit­tle incentive to main­tain ar­tis­tic stan­dards.  In such desperate circumstances, the tawaifs had no recourse for survival other than the com­mon pros­ti­tu­tion for which they had been ac­cused.

In this en­vi­ron­ment, there were ser­ious con­cerns whether their art-forms would survive.  The kathak dance, the thumree, the gazal, and dadra, were all under ser­ious pres­sure.  But as we will see, there was a curious and comp­lex chain of ev­ents which transpired which rescued the art-forms, even though the tawaif trad­ition it­self was be­yond be­ing saved.

The nature of dance and dancers was also evolving under pressure from the anti-nautch movement. The custom of using young boys to dress as women and perform the female roles rose in popularity. (Rosenthal, 1928)


Part 9 – Passing of the Torch

Dancer with Sitar

The arts of the tawaifs did not die with them, but were instead passed on to a new ge­nera­tions of performers who were unconnected with the tawaif trad­ition.  This meta­phoric “passing of the torch” was part of a comp­lex series of ev­ents.  This sec­tion will deal with so­cial and historical pro­cesses be­hind this transfer of these arts.  We will also look at a small sampling of peo­ple who were in­vol­ved in this pro­cess.

New Social Dynamics – At the height of the anti-nautch moment, a curious chain of ev­ents transpired in India.  The tawaif, the freedom move­ment, and an em­erg­ing cul­tural renaissance in India, were all thrown in together with inter­est­ing re­sults.  In a nutshell, we can say that many peo­ple worked to forge a new India, saved the arts of the tawaif, but at the same time destroyed the tawaif trad­ition.

From the stand­point of the tawaifs, the so­cial dynamics were changing fast.  This was a transitional period in In­dian his­tory, and at times things were quite complicated.  How­ever for the pur­pose of this modest arti­cle, we will look at these things ac­cor­ding to a simple model.

Model for our dis­cus­sions

Model for our dis­cus­sions

In this model there are six things that we need to fami­liarise our­selves with.  They are:

  1. The Tawaifs
  2. The Cultural Renaissance
  3. The Freedom Struggle
  4. The Relationship Between the Freedom Struggle and the Cultural Renaissance
  5. The Relationship Between the Tawaifs and the Freedom Struggle
  6. The Relationship Between the Tawaifs and the Cultural Renaissance

It is inter­est­ing to note how the Bri­tish have fallen out of this pic­ture.  They were still a force to be reckoned with in the early 20th cen­tury, but as far as the tawaifs were con­cerned, they were becoming irrelevant.

Tawaifs – Let us review the state of the tawaifs at the turn of the 20th cen­tury.  The trad­ition had been under pres­sure for more than half a cen­tury.  The dis­so­lu­tion of many of the princely states that had been their pat­ron­age, placed them in a precarious eco­nomic si­tua­tion (Singh, 2000).  Two de­cades of per­se­cu­tion by Bri­tish, as well as lo­cal so­cial pur­ity organ­isa­tions, re­duced both their eco­nomic status as well as their so­cial standing.  The dif­fi­culty in getting bright young girls who could handle the years of rigorous training was re­du­cing the quality of the tawaifs.  The boycott of their performances made the tawaifs disinclined to put in the ef­forts to main­tain ar­tis­tic stan­dards.  All of these ev­ents conspired to push the tawaifs into the very pros­ti­tu­tion that the so­cial pur­ity activists had long ac­cused them.  But the biggest problem was a lack of so­cial re­lev­ance.  It was clear that that the tawaifs were a dying breed.

Cultural Renaissance – The early part of the 20th cen­tury saw India in the midst of a cul­tural renaissance.  Decades of Eng­lish medium, convent edu­cation, had a inter­est­ing im­pact upon In­dian so­ciety.  It had the de­sired re­sults (at least from the Bri­tish stand­point), of pro­duc­ing an army of capable “babus” who duti­fully car­ried out the administration of India for the benefit of their Bri­tish mas­ters.  Unfor­tunately, it crea­ted a peculiar, al­most slave mentality among this class.  There were deep rooted feel­ings of inadequacy bordering on self-loathing.  Just as in the physi­cal world where every ac­tion has its reaction, so too we find si­mi­lar reactions manifest in the so­cial arena.  In many quar­ters, the mid­dle class begins to deeply reject the mind­set of self-loathing and inadequacy and begins to take pride in their In­dian self-identity.

But the ob­vious ques­tion was “What is this self-identity?”  This thirst for a sense of In­dian self-identity fuelled a very powerful cul­tural renaissance.  Across the sub­con­ti­nent, peo­ple star­ted to take note of vir­tually every piece of folk art, classical art, music, dance that they could find.  People were actively engaged in discovering, and at times even fabricating a self-identity.

Freedom Move­ment – It is ironic that it was the Bri­tish that crea­ted the basic frame­work for both the In­dian freedom move­ment as well as a united and free India.  From Kanya Kumari to the Himalayas, the Bri­tish had es­tab­lished Eng­lish medium schools where In­dians be­came fami­liar with Eu­ro­pean con­cepts (including the Eu­ro­pean con­cept of nationalism).  This bour­geoi­sie, had the ab­ility to move from North to South and East to West and meet with other In­dians who had compatible world views.  The Bri­tish had unwittingly united a sub­con­ti­nent that had been divided for ages by po­li­ti­cal, linguistic, and cul­tural differences.  In this en­vi­ron­ment, the formation of a in­depen­dence move­ment was inevitable.

Such pan-ethnicism of the In­dian bour­geoi­sie may have been very convenient in the early days of the freedom struggle, but it was neither suf­fi­cient, nor an appropriate a vehicle to build a sense of national identity.  It was clear there had to be an In­dian sense of self-identity if the struggle for freedom were to be suc­cess­ful.

The freedom move­ment was by no means homo­gen­ous, for there were many ap­proaches and ideas.  Some espoused largely non-violent, eco­nomic means (e.g., Gandhi, Nehru).  Some advocated a mili­tary ap­proach (e.g., Chandra Bose).  Some advocated for grass roots guerrilla ac­tivi­ties (e.g., Bhagat Singh).  Re­gard­less of which ap­proach a freedom fighter was adhering to, they could not forget past failings.

Relationship Between the Freedom Struggle and the Cultural Renaissance – The fail­ure of the Up­ris­ing of 1857 was not lost to this new ge­nera­tion of freedom fighters.  It was re­cog­nised that one of the rea­sons that the Up­ris­ing failed, was that after initial mili­tary successes, there was a sense of “now what”.  The con­cept of a unified “Azad-e-Hind” (Independent India), was missing.  The Up­ris­ing of 1857 was com­prised of disparate In­dian elements who had legitimate grievances, but no clear plan as to what to do after the Bri­tish were defeated.  This lack of a clear goal al­lowed the Crown to mobilise her mili­tary strength and suppress the insurrection.  The In­dian intelligentsia were determined that this would not happen again.

British retaliation ag­ainst Up­ris­ing

British retaliation ag­ainst Up­ris­ing

The intelligentsia of the freedom move­ment were very aware of the problem.  They realised that the only way to avoid the fragmentation and lack of direction, was to create and main­tain a unified sense of self-identity.  This was in no way a simple task; historically the South Asian sense of self-identity was determined by communal identifications.

Many dif­fer­ent ap­proaches were used.  Not all of which had the same level of ef­fec­tiveness.  Some ac­tually tur­ned out to be counter productive.

Many invoked invoke the mythical con­cept of Bharat Varsha (भारतवर्ष), as a tool to help the com­mon man grasp the con­cept of nationalism.  The image of Bharat Varsha as promulgated by many freedom fighters, was that of a period when all of South Asia (according some, the en­tire world) was governed by Hindu dharma.  This may have been a convenient introduction to the con­cept of nationalism for many com­moners, but unfortunately it would have uncomfortable repercussion by alienating large por­tions of the Muslim popu­la­tions of South Asia.

The All India Muslim League was es­tab­lished in 1906, but gained pop­ular­ity in the 1930s; it began to push a very dif­fer­ent agenda.  Their sup­porters ten­ded to push Islam, along with the Urdu Language, as their means of establishing a sense of self-identity.

All India Muslim League 1936

All India Muslim League 1936

The In­dian Nat­ional Congress was attempting to avoid a partition of India.  It was clear that the Hindu oriented Bharat Varsha ap­proach would only fur­ther alienate the Muslim minorities.  How­ever concentrating on trad­itional arts seemed a very safe way to create a national identity with­out causing any problems.  There­fore, the sup­port of the arts be­came a compo­nent of the freedom struggle.  Even after in­depen­dence it was still pursued.  Although the objective of attaining in­depen­dence was achieved, there was still the issue of national integration.

Indian Nat­ional Congress hunts for a way to create a national identity

Indian Nat­ional Congress hunts for a way to create a national identity

Of course this is all his­tory now.  The All India Muslim League and the In­dian Nat­ional Congress con­tin­ued pursuing very dif­fer­ent agendas, and using very dif­fer­ent ap­proaches; and India and Pakistan were separated in 1947.

Relationship Between the Tawaifs and the Freedom Struggle – The tawaifs and their place within the freedom struggle was problematic from the very begin­ning.  On one hand, the Bri­tish made it very clear that they would never sup­port the tawaifs; therefore any sig­ni­fi­cant sup­port for the Bri­tish Raj by the tawaifs was not really a con­sideration.  But it was also clear that there was not going to be much sup­port from the freedom move­ment as well.  Founding mem­bers of both the In­dian Nat­ional congress as well as the All India Muslim league were products of an Eng­lish Vic­tor­ian school sys­tem.  There­fore, they had a strong tendency to reject the tawaifs outright as mere pros­ti­tutes.

That is not to say that there were not inter­actions bet­ween freedom fighters and the tawaifs; but this did not re­pre­sent an endorsement of the tawaifs.  Individual tawaifs were known on occasion to sup­port the In­dian Nat­ional Congress with finan­cial con­tri­butions; but there was really no reciprocation of sup­port by the in­depen­dence move­ment.  It was clear that as a mat­ter of policy, the In­dian Nat­ional Congress con­si­dered the tawaifs to be a so­cial evil; one, like sati (self immolation of widows upon husband’s funeral pyre), child mar­riages, and restrictions on widow remarriage, needed to be elimi­nated.

Relationship Between the Tawaifs and the Cultural Renaissance – The role of the tawaif in the cul­tural renaissance was ext­remely complicated and at times troublesome.  Many in the mid­dle class admired and re­spec­ted the arts of the tawaifs, but they could not relate to the cul­ture of the tawaif.  The tawaifs still tried to main­tain 18th cen­tury world views, while the mid­dle class were firmly embracing the 20th cen­tury.

Simply put, the arts of the tawaifs were taken from them and given to the mid­dle class.  This pro­cess has at times assu­med very dif­fer­ent value judgements.  Those sympathetic to the tawaifs, tend to view their arts as be­ing stolen from them.  Others who are more sympathetic with the mid­dle class nature of the renaissance, look upon it as a form of democratisation of the art-forms.  They point out that in the old feudal sys­tem, the only peo­ple who could enjoy theses arts were the ext­remely wealthy ruling classes.  They look at the passing of the arts from the tawaif to the populace as a cul­tural “redistribution of wealth”.  If I may interject my own feel­ings, I look upon it as a “rescue” of the arts.  It was clear that the tawaifs were disappearing and it was neces­sary to find a new home for their arts, otherwise they may have disappeared.


Part 10 – The Rescuers

The passing of the tawaif’s arts to the mid­dle class was not an easy job.  It could not have been done with­out the sacrifice, and hard work, of many peo­ple.  This in­clu­ded tawaifs as well as mem­bers of the mid­dle class.  This pro­cess re­quired the mid­dle class to submerge them­sel­ves into the kotha cul­ture of music­ians, poets, and tawaifs; take their arts; and then use modern ap­proaches to preserve and propagate them.  Such endeavours in­vol­ved com­bi­na­tions of modern musicology, gramophone recordings, pub­lication of books, and a wide range of ac­tivi­ties.  Although we con­sider such ac­tivi­ties normal today, they were unknown to many of the tawaifs, and con­si­dered to be re­vo­lu­tionary at the time.

A Few Famous Tawaifs of the Time – Many peo­ple need to be thanked for the rescue of these arts.  These were tawaifs who broke with trad­ition in very impor­tant ways.  We must re­mem­ber that the pro­fes­sional cul­ture of the kothas was cha­rac­terised by ext­reme pro­fes­sional secrecy.  Tabla players fre­quen­tly used to refuse to perform cer­tain material in the pre­sence of other tabla players.  I am told that there was a sarangi player who used to play with his fingers be­hind a veil so that no one could see his technique.  Tawaifs used to perform their arts only before ext­remely select viewers.  When we re­mem­ber this al­most paranoid obsession with pro­fes­sional secrets, it is very remarkable that these tawaifs were wil­ling to perform before large pub­lic audiences.  The fact that they would be wil­ling to have their songs recorded on disk was it­self remarkable.  The fact that they would accept as dance students peo­ple who were not speci­fically chosen to carry on the trad­ition in the kothas was amazing.  All of these things point to a degree of forward-thinking that was rare in that cul­ture.  For such forward-thinking, we owe them an amazing debt of gratitude.

Let us look at a few of these remarkable tawaifs:

Jaddanbai (1892-1949) – Jaddanbai was a tawaif who by all accounts was an ext­remely remarkable woman.  She is mostly re­mem­bered as the mother of the Bollywood film star Nargis, and grandmother to Sanjay Dutt.  How­ever in her time, she was a master music composer, singer, actress, and even film maker.  It is inter­est­ing to note that there is a persistent rumour that Jaddanbai was the illegitimate daughter of Motilal Nehru by way of her mother, the fa­mous tawaif Daleepabai of Allahabad.

Jaddanbai (extreme right) with Dilip Kumar, Nargis, and Mehboob

Jaddanbai (extreme right) with Dilip Kumar, Nargis, and Mehboob.

Gauhar Jan (1873-1930) – Gauhar Jan was a tawaif whose birth name was Angelina Yeoward, when her mother converted to Islam, Angelina took the name Gauhar.  She was very gifted in both sing­ing and kathak dance; she was only 15 when she gave her first performance.  She was very fa­mous in Calcutta in the early part of the 20th cen­tury.  Her fame was as much for her lavish lifestyle as it was for her art (Misra, 1990). We are fortunate that she has left us with over nu­mer­ous recordings made du­ring her lifetime.

Gauhar Jan with Gramaphone

Gauhar Jan with Gramophone.

Begum Akhtar (1914 – 1974) – Finally we must also not forget the late Begum Akhtar.  She may be con­si­dered one of the last of the tawaifs.  She gave her first pub­lic performance at the age of 15; we are fortunate that she lived re­cen­tly enough that a large num­ber of her gazals, dadras and thumris could be preserved in recordings.  She was considered to be a cultural icon who represented India as part of cultural delegations (Misra, 1992). Her influence over the mus­ical world cannot be overstated.

Begum Akhtar

Begum Akhtar.

A Few Famous Non-Tawaifs of the Time – Our gratitude must also be extended to non-tawaifs as well.  As the tawaif trad­ition was declining, there had to be non-tawaifs ready to receive the arts and carry them on.  The hardships endured by the non-tawaifs in this pro­cess was no less than their tawaif sisters.  Although they were products of a dif­fer­ent cul­tures and dif­fer­ent times, they still had to endure con­si­der­able amount of os­tra­cism.

But the dif­fi­culties of the non-tawaifs extended be­yond mere so­cial pres­sures.  The pro­cess of propagating theses arts in a new en­vi­ron­ment re­quired an extra­ordin­ary degree of innovation.  We must not underestimate the enormity of the task of translating an art-form from one time to an­other, from one place to an­other, and from one cul­ture to an­other.  Never forget that a 19th cen­tury kotha was a very dif­fer­ent place from a 20th cen­tury auditorium.  The music business in the 20th cen­tury re­quired con­si­der­ably more flexibility than the sys­tem of royal pat­ron­age of the 19th cen­tury.  In all, the job of be­ing recipients of this art-form was a very challenging task.

Men played an es­pec­ially impor­tant role in the perpetuation of these art-forms.  During the height of the anti-nautch per­se­cu­tions, only men could perform with­out fear of be­ing ac­cused of being pros­ti­tutes.  There­fore, one should not be surprised to find a fair num­ber of men among the peo­ple we must thank.

Sukhdev Maharaj & Sitara Devi – Two very impor­tant non-tawaifs were Sukhdev Maharaj (1888-?) and his daughter Sitara Devi (circa 1920 -2014).  Although the name Sukhdev Maharaj is vir­tually unknown, Sitara Devi is re­mem­bered as a very fa­mous kathak dancer.

Sukhdev Maharaj was a Brahmin from Varanasi (Benares) who was a well known Sanskrit scholar of the Vaishnava trad­ition.  He was inspired to take up Kathak by Maharaj Bindadin (Misra, 1992). Sukhdev Maharaj became a very accomplished kathak dancer, and earned his liv­ing performing and teaching.  He taught the art of kathak to both his sons as well as his daughters.  He even had a school in Benares where he taught many peo­ple.  For this, he suffered a tre­men­dous degree of os­tra­cism, but he persevered.

It was Sukhdev Maharaj’s daughter Sitara Devi (born early 1920’s), who really be­came fa­mous.  Her birth name was Dhanalaksmi, but she was nicknamed “Dhano”.  She ini­tia­lly had informal training under her father, but when it be­came clear that she had talent, her training was then entrusted to her older sister, Tara (Tara was the mother of the fa­mous dancer Gopi Krishna).  It was about that time that she assu­med her stage name “Sitara Devi” (lit. “Star Goddess”).  When she was still a young girl, her family moved to Bombay.  There she con­tin­ued to perfect her art.  Very early on, she was danc­ing in the films.  How­ever, she gave this up, feeling that the film world was ill suited to her trad­itionalist tastes in dance.  She con­tin­ued to dance for many de­cades and won a great many honours.

Sitara Devi

Sitara Devi

Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872-1931) – One other per­son that we are indebted to is Vishnu Digambar Paluskar.  He es­tab­lished the first modern school of music: this was the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya which was es­tab­lished in Lahore in 1901 (Deodhar, 1993).  This school was open to all, and was struc­tured along the lines of the nu­mer­ous Eng­lish medium schools which had been set up in India in the later half of the 19th cen­tury.  This model is still used for the var­ious government and private schools, spread across India today.

Vishnu Digambar Paluskar

Vishnu Digambar Paluskar

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860-1936) – It is inter­est­ing that one of the non-tawaifs that we are indebted to was ac­tually a lawyer; this was Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande.  We are indebted to him for documenting a vast corpus of rags and compositions, and codifying the north In­dian sys­tem of music.  Fur­ther­more, it is his sys­tem of notation which is the most widely accepted in Nort­hern India.  At the turn of the 20th cen­tury, he published his four vol­ume magnum opus entitled Hindustani Sangeet Paddhati.  Even today, it is con­si­dered to be the standard reference work on the sub­ject.

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande

Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) – Perhaps the name which is most associated with the cul­tural renaissance was Rabindranath Tagore.  He was active in a num­ber of endeavours including music, poetry, liter­ature, and religion.  He be­came the first In­dian to win the Nobel prize when in 1913, he won the Nobel Prize for liter­ature.  He composed a vast num­ber of songs, based upon trad­itional and classical music; today these are known as Rabindra Sangeet.  His con­tri­butions to the development of the ar­tis­tic scene of the late 19th and early 20th cen­tury cannot be overstated.  It was al­most as if he per­sonally epitomised the cul­tural renaissance of India.

One project which is closely associaed with Tagore is Shantiniketan (Rosenthal, 1928). During the freedom movement, it was a school where students from all over India could come and be instructed in an Indo-centric environment. Shantiniketan was started by Rabindranath Tagore’s father, Debindranath Tagore, but greatly expanded by Rabindranath. Among the subjects taught were music and dance forms which previously were the specialties of the tawaifs.

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

It is pointless to give any more than these few samples of music­ians, dan­cers, and scholars who were re­spon­sible for saving these art-forms du­ring an ext­remely trying period of In­dian his­tory.  We can only mention great artists such as Gopi Krishan, Uday Shankar, Rukmini Devi Arundale, Ram Gopal, and a host of others. We hope that these few examples will, at least illustrate the hardships that both the tawaifs as well as the non-tawaifs had to endure, so that we can enjoy classical music and dance today.


Part 11 – Effects of the Anti-Nautch Move­ment on North In­dian Music

performance

This sec­tion will exam­ine the var­ious mus­ical genres, dance forms, as well as the instrumental accompanists that were associated with the tawaif.  We will see how they suffered.  We will also look at how the music chan­ged as it was taken out of the 18th cen­tury tawaif cul­ture and passed onto the 20th cen­tury mid­dle class cul­ture.  We will see how the pro­cess of changing the cul­ture in which these arts existed had profound affects upon them.  In par­ti­cu­lar, we exam­ine the de­cline in the Muslim tawaifs and their ac­com­panists with the subsequent transfer of their arts to a largely Hindu mid­dle class.

Cultural Recontextualisation – Music and dance are in­ext­ric­ably linked to the cul­tures in which they are placed.  When a mus­ical form is transferred from one cul­tural context to an­other, this is an example of cul­tural recontextualisation.  To a cer­tain degree this is a normal pro­cess.  Times change and the cul­tural en­vi­ron­ment changes with the time, therefore mus­ical styles are constantly undergoing some slight degree of recontextualisation, otherwise they pass out of fash­ion.  But oc­casion­ally there are major examples of cul­tural recontextualisation.  These are rare, but when they do occur, there are profound changes in both the performance as well as the consumption of music.

One example of a major recontextualisation of music may be seen in jazz.  In the space of less than a hundred years it chan­ged from be­ing a southern Afro-American art-form, into an international, urbane art-form; one in which the ma­jor­ity of its prac­ti­tion­ers are white.  In the pro­cess of be­ing recontextualised, the music underwent drastic changes.  It is useful to keep this jazz analogy in mind as we look at the recontextualisation of the tawaif’s arts.

The change in cul­tural context of the tawaifs art-forms may be exam­ined very sim­ply.  We look at the cul­ture from which the arts came, and we look at the cul­ture into which the arts have come to occupy today.

Let us first review the cul­ture in which these arts developed.  With the exception of the area around Benares, Jaipur, and a few other small principalities, the tawaifs were largely Muslim.  Their ac­com­pany­ing music­ians too, were largely Muslim, and came from var­ious classes of hereditary music­ians.  Although the tawaifs were gen­erally known for their ext­remely high level of formal edu­cation, their circle of accompanists were often illiterate and oc­cu­pied a lower strata of so­ciety.  They subsisted on royal pat­ron­age, so they were ever mindful of the po­li­ti­cal si­tua­tions in their kingdom; but they were not above be­ing active participants in these po­li­ti­cal machinations.

But the cul­tural en­vi­ron­ment in which these arts came to reside was very dif­fer­ent.  Kathak dan­cers, classical vocalists, and their ac­com­pany­ing music­ians have largely be­come Hindu.  Today their socio-economic strata is very dif­fer­ent; today it is largely a mid­dle, to upper class affair.  The days of the illiterate musician are over; today’s art­ists typically have a respectable level of formal edu­cation.  Involvement in the po­li­ti­cal arena is no longer neces­sary, so most music­ians and dan­cers today tend to have no more interest in politics than the pub­lic at large.

We will see later, that these differences have come to be ref­lected in very profound ways.  In par­ti­cu­lar, there are fun­da­men­tal differences bet­ween Hindu and Islamic world-views.  These differences, when couple with a seismic shift in the cul­ture of India du­ring the late 19th and 20th cen­tury, meant that these mus­ical forms do not have the same sig­nifi­cance.  Neither are they performed in the same way.


Part 12 – The Tawaif’s Arts

There were a num­ber of arts that had a strong association with the tawaifs.  Let us exam­ine these and see how they have fared.

Dance – Dance was the focal point of the anti-nautch move­ment.  Very ob­viously the dan­cers them­sel­ves suffered the most, and the dance it­self was under con­si­der­able pres­sure.  It is inter­est­ing to note that the ext­reme pres­sure placed upon kathak and its exponents caused this dance to bifurcate into two genres.  There is the kathak and there is the mujara (मुजरा)

A comparison bet­ween the kathak and the mujara is in order.  kathak is a very refined and formalised dance form.  It is a com­bi­na­tion of narrative elements as well as highly abs­tract “pure” dance forms.  There is a great reliance on comp­lex rhyt­hmic forms.  In contrast, the mujara is con­si­dered to be a South Asian erotic dance.  It is con­si­der­ably less formalised, and may be a hodgepodge of cabaret, belly-dance, and kathak.  Today it is often indistinguishable from the typical Bollywood dance.

Kathak dancer

Kathak dancer

Typical Bollywood Mujara

Typical Bollywood Mujara

It is inter­est­ing to note that the differences bet­ween the contemporary mujara and kathak are very great.  They are so great that even an uninitiated audience can readily discern the difference when the two are performed side by side.  Yet in spite of the clear stylistic differences, the average uninitiated audience tends to confuse mujara and kathak.  The rea­son for this con­fusion is ac­tually quite simple and may be sum­med up in a sin­gle word – Bollywood.

Bollywood has invoked “kathak” dances for many de­cades.  But what it has been passing off on the pub­lic has gen­erally not been the refined kathak, but the mujara variety.  There­fore, it should be no surprise that the average pub­lic is confused on this mat­ter.

Historically, the mujara and the kathak were one and the same; the bifurcation is a late 19th/ early 20th cen­tury phe­no­menon.  It is useful for us to step back and look at the cul­tural circumstances that lead to this bifurcation.

Kathak in the 18th and early 19th cen­tury was a very highly refined and formalised art.  The pat­rons of the tawaifs were very refined too, and no stran­gers to the arcane conventions of the art.  As mat­ter of fact, one of the greatest pat­rons of the tawaifs was the ruler of Avadh (Oudh), the Wajid Ali Shah, who himself was so versed in the arts, that he is credited with nu­mer­ous kathak pieces.  In this rarefied en­vi­ron­ment, it is no surprise that kathak was able to attain incredible levels of sophistication.

Unfortunately this rarefied and sophisticated en­vi­ron­ment did not survive.  In the mid to later part of the 19th cen­tury, large num­bers of in­de­pen­dent principalities were annexed into the Bri­tish Empire.  With the decimation of the in­de­pen­dent principalities, the tawaifs were forced to seek their pat­ron­age with the nouveau riche, who typically did not understand the subtle conventions of the art-form.  In order for the tawaifs to survive, they were forced to concentrate on ever more vulgar aspects of their repertoire, thus initiating a downward spiral in ar­tis­tic content.  The si­tua­tion for the tawaifs be­came even worse in the early de­cades of the 20th cen­tury, when they had to endure a con­si­der­able amount of pro­fes­sional com­pe­ti­tion from the non-tawaifs who were entering the dance field.  These non-tawaifs appropriated the more dignified repertoire, and left the tawaifs with no recourse other than to continually emphasise the erotic material.

The rise of the film in­dus­try fur­ther complicated the si­tua­tion.  The mujara dance was the ori­gi­nal “item num­ber“, but these films star­ted to mix var­ious folk and Western elements into the dance.  This began to be ref­lected in the repertoire of the tawaifs.  The mujara con­tin­ued its downward spiral.  It de­clined to the ex­tent that through much of the first half of the 20th cen­tury, the mujara was only to be found in the “red light” districts of In­dian cities.  Today one can still find mujara dan­cers, but their con­nec­tion with the noble kathak of the past is essen­tially severed.

But the evolu­tion of the refined Kathak pro­cee­ded down a comp­letely dif­fer­ent line.  In the later part of the 19th cen­tury, men were becoming the repositories of the kathak repertoire.  Only the men could perform with­out fear of be­ing branded as pros­ti­tutes.  During the cul­tural renaissance, the narrative aspects of the dance star­ted to be re-emphasised.  This was es­pec­ially true of stories related to Krishna and other trad­itional Hindu themes.  This was a ref­lec­tion both of the changing makeup of the art­ists, as well as the changing makeup of the audiences.

By the se­cond quar­ter of the 20th cen­tury more non-tawaif wo­men were entering the profession.  But in order to main­tain their “izzat” (dignity) they ten­ded to steer away from erotic elements that had once been a compo­nent in the repertoire.  For a long time the more classical kathak was nearly devoid of erotic content.

So we can simplify the pic­ture by saying this.  The kathak repertoire of the old tawaifs be­came bifurcated in the pro­cess of the recontextualisation of the art.  As the tawaifs descended into pros­ti­tu­tion, their emphasis on the erotic aspects of their arts intensified.  This be­came the mujara.  Conversely the new the mid­dle class art­ists developed the non-erotic elements which have come to be viewed as the pres­ent kathak.

It has not been my goal to conjecture as to the future of the kathak, but in this case think I should.  We are now witnessing a reintroduction of erotic content into the repertoire of the kathak dancer.  This really has nothing to do with the old tawaifs, but is instead a ref­lec­tion of seve­ral pheno­mena.  On one hand, we have the Bollywood film in­dus­try with its ext­remely powerful grip upon pop­ular cul­ture.  Bollywood has continually pushed the more erotic mujara as be­ing kathak.  Fur­ther­more, we have a so­ciety today which is much more tolerant of erotic content in art.  This coup­led with the fact that many concert goers are blithely unaware that there is even a difference bet­ween kathak and mujara.  And we must not forget that audience expectations is an ext­remely powerful influence on the development of any art.

The re­sult of these var­ious influences is inter­est­ing.  We are seeing more fusion of the mujara and kathak.  In the next few de­cades it is possibly that they may converge.  This is an inter­est­ing thing to watch.  If it does happen, it will be based upon very dif­fer­ent set of so­cial and cul­tural pres­sures than that which we have been examining in this arti­cle.

Vocal forms – If we look a the the influence of the anti-nautch move­ment and the recontextualisation of the vocal forms, we get a slightly dif­fer­ent pic­ture.  By the time that the anti-nautch move­ment began, most of the vocal forms were shared by tawaifs and non-tawaifs alike.  This was a major contrast to the kathak / mujara dance forms that the tawaifs had a near mono­poly on.

Since the vocal forms were shared by both tawaif and non-tawaif, the im­pact of the anti-nautch move­ment was not nearly so profound.  The only clear im­pact that the anti-nautch move­ment had was that, for a period, peo­ple ten­ded to boycott the female artist in favour of the male vocalist.

But that is not to say that there were not changes.  There was still the changes which oc­cur­red as the music was taken up by the Hindu mid­dle classes and taken from the largely Muslim hereditary music­ians.  How­ever since these changes were due to ev­ents that were only loosely connected to the anti-nautch move­ment, we will not dis­cuss it fur­ther here.


Part 13 – The Tawaif’s Accompanists

A move­ment on the order of the anti-nautch move­ment would be expected to cause a con­si­der­able amount of collateral damage.  Remember that the nautch was not merely an In­dian danc­ing girl, but rep­resen­ted a large and more comp­lex so­cial, ar­tis­tic, and eco­nomic entity.  If the tawaif suffered so­cially and eco­nomically, then her mus­ical accompanists also suffered, the tailors that special­ised in their refined expensive, yet very special­ised clothing also suffered.  Fur­ther­more, it is not just peo­ple who suffer, but en­tire mus­ical and dance genres suffer.  Let us look at how some of these other entities were affected. (4)

Sarangi vs. Harmonium – The rise of the harmonium and the de­cline in the sarangi (सारंगी) are di­rec­tly attributable to the anti-nautch move­ment.  The sarangi was closely identified with tawaif, In the past, it appears that on occasion Indian dancing girls would be accompanied by two sarangis (Rosenthal, 1928).

But the decline of the institution of the tawaif and its growing stigma adversely affected the sarangi players. that sarangi players found it ext­remely dif­fi­cult to find work (Neuman 1980).  The stigma at­ta­ched to the sarangi was so great and lasted so long, that it was only around the turn of the 21st cen­tury, that we have seen any major resurgence in interest in this instrument.

sarangi player

sarangi player

The stigmatisation of the sarangi and the sarangi players had a very ob­vious problem.  If a vocalist was wanting to “clean up their image” by avoiding the sarangi, then what was there to fill the void? This is where the harmonium enters the pic­ture.  When singers, us­ually male singers, wished to distance them­sel­ves from the tawaif, the harmonium pro­vided a convenient way to do it.  Since it was a Eu­ro­pean import, a male singer could pres­ent himself with a very dif­fer­ent image than if he had chosen a sarangi.  This image made it much easier to get performances among the rising In­dian bour­geoi­sie.

Harmonium player in old radio broadcast

Harmonium player in old radio broadcast

It should be noted that many as­cribe mus­ical rea­sons for the rise of the harmonium.  It is true that the fixed tuning of the harmonium makes it very convenient to main­tain the same key throughout a performance.  But that is hardly an advantage when its tempered scale is fun­da­men­tally out of tune with In­dian scales.  Fur­ther­more, its inability to handle cer­tain slides makes many rags al­most im­pos­sible to perform.  I think that even a cur­sory look at the mus­ical his­tory of the late 19th and early 20th centu­ries, makes it clear that it was so­cial, and not mus­ical pres­sures, that cased the sarangi to be replaced by the harmonium.

TablaTabla (तबला) is an­other instrument that, like the sarangi, be­came linked to the tawaif. (Neuman 1980) The re­sult was that du­ring the height of the anti-nautch move­ment and even for a long time afterwards, there was a tre­men­dous stigma at­ta­ched to both the tabla as well as tabla players.  The term “tabalchi” (तबलची)(i.e., one who plays the tabla), be­came synon­ymous with a drunk, a pimp, or a vulgar member of so­ciety.

Tabla player

Tabla player

One would natu­rally wonder why the tabla was not replaced with something else.  After-all, if the harmonium could be substituted for the sarangi, surly there must be some other instrument free of stigma that could replace the tabla?  Curiously the an­swer was “no”.  The dynamics of the north In­dian performance was such that a non-Indian percussion just could not fit the bill.  Other In­dian in­stru­ments such as pakhawaj (पखावज) or dholak (ढोलक) might have been pressed into service; but their “Indian-ness” still made them somewhat suspect among many of the bour­geoi­sie.  There­fore, since there was no appropriate substitute, the tabla was retained as a neces­sary evil.

In this last sec­tion we exam­ined many of the curious ef­fects of the anti-nautch move­ment upon the dance, vocal forms, and var­ious in­stru­ments.  It is not surprising that the greatest influence was exerted upon the kathak dance form, re­sult­ing in its bifurcation.  But we also saw that sarangi players and tabla players both suffered due to their close association with the tawaif.


Part 14 – Hindu Appropriation of the Arts

We have men­tioned ear­lier that north In­dian music be­came recontextualised du­ring the cul­tural renaissance of the late 19th and early 20th cen­tury.  It is inter­est­ing to note that a major aspect of this recontextualisation was a re­sult of re­li­gious differences, as art­ists, and audiences alike began to be Hindu.  This had a major im­pact both upon the arts, as well as the way that so­ciety viewed the arts.  In par­ti­cu­lar, the histories of the in­stru­ments and art-forms were comp­letely re-examined. (5)

Alterations of the Histories – One very sig­ni­fi­cant change in the arts was that they ac­quired dif­fer­ent histories.  When the Hindus in India absorbed the arts from their Islamic forebearers, it was deemed neces­sary to reinterpret them ac­cor­ding to very dif­fer­ent world views.  Fur­ther­more, the histories were rewritten in ways that downplayed the con­tri­butions of the tawaifs. (e.g., Bhavnani, 1965). Let us look at this historical revisionism as a func­tion of differences bet­ween Hindu and Islamic world views.

The old hereditary music­ians knew al­most nothing about the his­tory of their craft; it is com­mon today to deride their ignor­ance in these mat­ters.  This is often attributed to their lack of edu­cation, as well as a ref­lec­tion of their posi­tion in the lower classes.  Although these are cer­tainly valid points, it is often overlooked that there may be an­other subtle, yet more profound rea­son for this ignor­ance of his­tory.

Today we tend to look at the si­tua­tion from the stand point of the ed­uca­ted Hindu; this is only to be expected since this re­pre­sents the ma­jor­ity cul­ture.  How­ever, we must not forget that there are fun­da­men­tal differences in the way Hindus and Muslims view the passage of time, and by ex­ten­sion, his­tory.

According to Hindu world views, the passage of time is in­ext­ric­ably linked to decay.  Ac­cor­ding to the Puranic scriptures, the world is crea­ted fresh and every­thing is perfect, but decay begins to set in.  This decay continues through seve­ral aeons (i.e., Yuga – युग) un­til finally decay reaches such a level (i.e., Kaliyuga – कलियुग), that the world must be destroyed and crea­ted anew.  This view is is ref­lected in the definition of words, for insta­nce the Sanskrit word “kaal” (काल), means “death”, “black”, and “time”.  But this basic Hindu con­cept of time is fun­da­men­tally at odds with Islamic con­cepts.

Let us look more closely at the Islamic con­cept of time.  In Islam, the con­cept of time be­ing only a destroyer, is derided; and is the definition of an atheist.  Hence the Arabic word for an atheist is “dahri” which is der­ived from the expression “ad dahr” ( الدَّهْرِ), which means “time”.  The Arabic word for “atheism” is “ad dahriyyah”.  So in the Islamic world view, the Hindu degenerative quality of time is con­si­dered to be fun­da­men­tally false, evil, and corrupting.  But this is not the only in­di­ca­tion that Hindus and Muslims view time dif­fer­ently.  For example, the time before Islam is re­fer­red to as “jahiliyyah” which implies a “time of ignor­ance”.

The fact that Muslims and Hindus have very dif­fer­ent ap­proaches to time and his­tory had a profound im­pact on the recontextualisation of North In­dian classical music.  In the Islamic world view, antiquity is fun­da­men­tally suspect.  This is es­pec­ially true when it predates the arrival of Islam.  This is in sharp contrast to the Hindu belief that the older something is, the better it is, be­cause it is closer to the time when the world was perfect.  These fun­da­men­tal differences had profound repercussions.

Where the ear­lier Muslim art­ists felt no great need to con­cern them­sel­ves with the histories of their art, the Hindu inheritors felt that an antiquity to their art-forms was abso­lutely essen­tial.  They im­me­di­ately set about to do as much historical research as pos­sible.  Historical research is cer­tainly good, and we must thank the many scholars for their noble work.  But unfortunately, the benchmark for good historical research was very often who could push something back the furthest, and not how rigorous the research ac­tually was (e.g., Bandoypadhyaya, 1958).

The re­sult was inter­est­ing.  Although the historical pic­ture of many in­stru­ments and genre star­ted to crystallise, in many cases this image was like a circus hall of mirrors.  Pre-Islamic or at least non-Islamic origins of things were greatly overstated (e.g. kathak) and in some cases fabricated (e.g., sarod, sarangi, sitar).  Conversely, Islamic origins were downgraded in importance, ignored, or in some cases replaced with a fabricated Hindu origins.

It is not really any use criticising the scholarship of many of the music historians of the early 20th cen­tury.  It is not our pur­pose to point fingers or accuse any­one of deception, but rather to understand the cul­tural, and psychological rea­sons be­hind such self deceptions.  Since the Hindu world view equated antiquity with validity, they were under tre­men­dous cul­tural pres­sures to discover or fabricate such an antiquities.

There was an­other way in which the his­tory of music was rewritten.  The tawaifs were expunged from the histories of the arts.  Artists who fre­quen­tly had multiple teachers, would edit their “official” parampara in ways that ex­cluded females, and only acknowledged the male mem­bers.  When themes were chosen for kheyals, the works of non-tawaifs was con­si­dered accept­able, but the literary works of tawaifs were not. (6)

Hindu Themes – The thematic content of the ar­tis­tic material was also sub­ject to reinterpretation due to the recontextualisation of the tawaif’s arts.  For insta­nce the largely secular themes of the kathak dances began to be supplemented with more narratives from Hindu mythology; stories of Krishna were es­pec­ially pop­ular.  The more secular lyrics from the kheyals ten­ded to be replaced with lyrics from Mira and other musician saints.  The examples of this are sim­ply to nu­mer­ous to chro­ni­cle.


The Tawaif Today

Today, the community of the tawaif is virtually extinct. If we ignore the common prostitutes who attempt to assume the mantle of the tawaif in a vain attempt to retain some izzat (इज्ज़त)(prestige), their numbers are very small.

There are attempts to rehabilitate them by a small number of NGOs (non-governmental Organisations.) Such efforts generally rely upon providing performance opportunities and financial support for their artistic endeavours rather than the exchange of sexual favours. (Maciszewski, 2007)

Not all efforts to improve the standing of the existing tawaifs come from outside. In Delhi, they have oganised themself into a panchayat (पंचायत) (self-governing council) structure (Neuman 1980)

But in spite of these efforts, it is clear that the community of tawaifs is essentially gone.


Part 15 – Epilogue

epilogue

Today the tawaifs are vir­tually gone.  The word has be­come redefined so that today, it is applied to a com­mon pros­titute.  These pros­ti­tutes have nothing in com­mon with the tawaifs of old.

Fortunately, their arts did not die with them; and the way they were saved is full of irony.  By some curious twists of fate, the bour­geoi­sie who had spearheaded the des­truc­tion of the tawaifs, appropriated their arts and carry them on.  Today, dance is an upper mid­dle class phe­no­menon.  Classical vocal lessons are gen­erally just for the chil­dren of the most affluent.  Many of the great grandchildren of the mem­bers of the Punjab Pur­ity As­socia­tion are today learning with great zeal the tabla and sarangi.  Their great grand parents would never have had any so­cial inter­action with sarangi or tabla players.  The irony of this is inescapable.

But the irony extends even fur­ther.  By the time the anti-nautch move­ment arose at the end of the 19th cen­tury, the tawaifs were al­ready a dying breed (Nevile 1996).  The goal of eliminating the tawaif was al­ready fait accompli.  Just as a tree that has been cut down will retain foliage for a short time, the tawaif trad­ition had its roots severed by the time the anti-nautch move­ment began.  We must not forget that the tawaif trad­ition had its cul­tural and eco­nomic roots deeply set in the feudal so­ciety of Nort­hern India.  This was decimated by a string of an­nexa­tions by the Bri­tish in the 19th cen­tury.  The tawaifs, separated from their finan­cial sup­port and devoid of a relevant cul­tural context, could not survive.  They were doomed to extinction whether or not an anti-nautch move­ment existed.

But in a sense the tawaifs live on.  They live on in everyone who is either In­dian or has some con­nec­tion with In­dian music.  Just as a per­son is de­fined by their soul and not their body, it is the ar­tis­tic soul of the tawaif which is still strong, even though their physi­cal pre­sence is vir­tually gone.


End Notes

(1) The institution of the tawaif was completely dependent upon patronage of the aristocracy. Therefore the vagaries of royal support would reflect the personalities of the rulers. For instance, the reign of Aurangzeb (born circa 1618, ruled from 1658-1707) was marked by a great antipathy towards musicians and dancers. Motivated by religious zealotry, he made a strong, yet unsuccessful attempt to drive all musicians and dancers from his realm (Miner, 1997).

(2) Macaulay expressed his disdain of traditional Indian culture as early as 1835 (Ghosal, 1996). He therefore put forth his ideas for creating a class of Indians who were English in their world views, but Indian by blood (Murthy, 2018).

(3) The establishment of English medium schools are to a great extent due to the efforts of Lord William Bentinck. Lord Macaulay may have been responsible for pushing the overall Anglicist agenda, but it was Bentinck who was associated with the schools. In particular was his hand in the English Education Act of 1835. This act diverted funds from traditional Sanskrit and Persian programs into the creation of English medium schools. Under his direction, Universities were established in Madras, Calcutta, and Bombay in 1857 (Majumdar, 1972).

It is also interesting to note that Lord Bentinck was a social reformer in many other areas. His most famous reform was in banning the Hindu practise of sati. Sati is the emolation of widows upon their husband’s death. Furthermore, he was responsible for the elimination of thugs (Natrajan & Ramakrishnan (1981).

(4) Daniel M. Neuman in his The Life of Music in North India, states that the tawaifs had their favourite accompanists. If an aristocrat sought to bring a much sought after tawaif into their court, it was understood that their accompanists, along with their families, would come as well. This entailed a substantial financial commitment, one which often resulted in great financial hardship for the aristocrat (Neuman 1980).

(5) It is interesting to note that the Hindu appropriation of North Indian classical music was not an isolated event. It was part of a larger shift in power from traditional Muslim aristocracy to the Hindu majorities. In the emerging British bureaucracy, as well as English educational system, preferential treatment was given to Hindu applicants. (Majumdar, 1972). The reasons for this are subject to debate, but probably revolve around the greater number of Hindus in India, coupled with ideological differences in the two populations.

(6) An example of the expungment of Muslim musicians and musicologist is to be found in V.K.Agarwala’s Traditions, & Trends in Indian Music (Agarwala, 1975). There is a section of the book where the author is presenting a respectably extensive list of contemporary (of that time) musicologists. This list does not contain a single Muslim! Admitedly there is an ample representation of Muslim musicians in his histories of the gharanas (traditional schools of music and dance). But this was something that just could not be expunged.


Works Cited

Agarwala, K.V.
1975 Traditions and Trends in Indian Music. Meerut, India: Rastogi Publications.

Arfeen, Ayesha
“The Institution of Kotha: A Case Studyof Tawaif-Centered Films”, Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR), Vol-2, Issue-4, 2016 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in

Bandoypadhyaya, Shripada
1958 The Music of India. Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala Sons & Co Pvt. Ltd.

Bhavnani. Enakshi
1965 The Dance in India: The Origin and History, Foundations, the Art and Science of the Dance in India – Classical, Folk and Tribal. Bombay: D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co. Private Ltd.

Deodhar, B.R.
1993 Pillars of Hindustani Music. Translated by Ram Deshmukh. Bombay: Popular Prakashan Pvt. Ltd.

Ghosal, H.R.
1996 An Outline of the History of the Indian People. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India.

Kapoor, R.K.
no date Kamal’s Advanced Illustrated Oxford Dictionary of Hindi- Eng­lish. Delhi, India: Verma Book Depot.

Maciszewski, Amelia
2007 “Texts, Tunes, and Talking Heads: Discourses about Socially
Marginal North Indian Musicians”, Twentieth Century Music. 1, 3, pages 121-144, 2007 mar 01. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge University Press (CUP) (ISSN 1478-5722).

Majumdar, R.C.
1972 A Brief History of India. Calcutta: G. Bharadwaj & Co.

Miner, Allyn
1993 Sitar and Sarod in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.

Misra, Susheela
1990 Some Immortals of Hindustani Music. New Delhi: Harman Publishing House.
1992 Some Dancers of India. New Delhi: Harman Publishing House.

Murthy, N.S.R.
2018 “The History of English Education in India: A Brief Study”, Journal for Research Scholars and Professionals of English Language Teaching. ISSN: 2456-8104, JRSP-ELT, Issue 10, Vol. 2, 2018.

Natarajan, S & Prema Ramakrishnan
1981 Political and Cultural History of India. Hyderabad India: Printcrafts.

Neuman, Daniel M.
1980 The Life of Music in North India. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Nevile, Pran
1996 Nautch Girls of India: Dancers, Singers, Playmates. New York, Paris, New Delhi: Ravi Kumar Publisher.

Rosenthal, Ethel
1928 Story of In­dian Music and its Instruments. London: William Reeves Bookseller Ltd.

Singh, Shanta Serbjeet
2000 Indian Dance: The Ultimate Metaphor. New Delhi: Bookwise (India) Pvt. Ltd.


Other Sites of Interest

Urdu, Awadh and the Tawaif: the Islamicate roots of Hindi cinema

Making a Woman From a Tawaif - Courtesans as Heroes in Hindi Cinema

Reading the ‘Tawaif’ : A Study of Pakeezah, Umrao Jaan, Tawaif and Devdas

From Tawaif to Nautch Girl: the Transition of the Lucknow Courtesan

Queering the Tawaif : A Historical Exploration of The Tradition From Pre-Colonial India to The 21st Century

Looking Beyond a Glorified Past: Re-examining the Category of Tawa'if in 18th and 19th Century Awadh

From a Respected Tawaif to the Infamous Prostitute - Understanding Access to Justice and Navigating through Dispute Redressal Mechanisms Available to Independent Women Street Sex Workers

Chronicling Courtesans