Authors:

Tashafee Masood

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Women have been major actors in the social and political history of colonial India. Yet their experiences have been erased from the archive. Kashmir, a princely state in colonial India, presents an interesting case of women's labour history. It was the only state in colonial India where prostitution was legal. In fact, under the monarchical rule of the Dogras, heavy taxation was levied on sex workers. Historians have viewed the presence of prostitution in a Muslim majority state through the lens of misgovernance. Some scholars have praised the British intervention to curb the "moral ill, while others viewed Dogra policies on prostitution a means to derive revenue While the extractive policies of the Dogras cannot be excused. The role of British colonial officials and Christian missionaries in changing the moral perception of sex workers is often overlooked. Sex workers in Kashmir were not merely women offering sex in exchange of money, they were singers, court dancers and performers. Present research has failed to look at sex workers in Kashmir through the lens of labour history. | use colonial, missionary and Dogra records to understand the lives of Kashmiri prostitutes, exploring their agency in a setting where being Kashmiri meant being exploited by both the Dogras and British. | explore the changes in their societal acceptance of prostitution as British morality seeps in and nationalist movement against the Dogras mobilises in the 1920s. The research concludes that the British discourse on prostitution in Kashmir was not only a way to morally police, women but also became a political tool to intervene and interfere with the Dogra court. The rise in Kashmiri campaigning against prostitutes in the 1920s also emerged from the spread of British moral understanding through British educational and medical missions.

Source:

Chicago Area Undergraduate Research Symposium

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Co-authors:

Tashafee Masood