Trigger Warning- Discussion of sex work and mention of sexual assault
Written by Pranati R Narain
Edited by Sunaina
Illustrated by Deepshika Banerjee
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She stood up to adjust the crisp white sari as she made her way to the podium before a hundred people. The simple cotton sari was an outfit that she had donned almost ten years ago in light of her promotion from an ordinary brothel worker to the leader of Kamathipura. From a mere lost sixteen-year-old girl to a gharwali or brothel madam, Ganga had donned the title of Gangubai Kathewali and was revered by thousands of women under her wing as the matriarch of Kamathipura in the red-light region of Mumbai.
And here she was, in the prominent venue of Azad Maiden, attending a women’s conference in support of the girl child and women empowerment. She glanced around at the murmuring spectators who met her gaze with suspicious eyes and whispered aspersions on the character of this brothel woman who was attempting to give a speech about women empowerment.
As she smoothed the wrinkles from her sari, the woman reminded herself of the rickety ladder she had climbed in her entire career. She was no longer the helpless Ganga. With a final toss of her head, Gangubai Kathiawadi clutched her speech papers and sauntered up to the stage. Little did she know that no rehearsed script would compare to the emotions that would assist her on stage to address the influential crowd.
And she began. The opening lines of her infamous Azad Maidan speech resounded through the podium.
“I am a gharwali (a brothel madam), not a ghar todnewali (home-wrecker).”
The stigma that people regarded that title with was the same stigma that protected the chastity and integrity of thousands of women, the Mumbai queen spoke up. She now had the full attention of the judgmental audience, and with each word, her voice seemed to carry more intensity.
“Most of us are forced to do this because we have families to look after. It is a shame that society looks down upon its very protectors.”
The influential brothel madam continued her address, meeting the quiet gaze of a hundred pairs of eyes with a measured, impassive countenance. This was the same crowd that revered the jawans of the country for fighting to protect the common mass. Did they not realise that the prostitutes of the country were fighting their very own battles every single day, sometimes being brutally harmed in their occupation?
She thought of the irony of the situation, where the streets of Mumbai were relatively safer today and instances of girls being assaulted on the streets were relatively uncommon. And who had played a role in facilitating this safety? A handful of women in Kamathipura were subject to sexual aggression every day and, therefore, seemed to blunt this aggression that would otherwise be taken out on the urban streets of the city. The parallel between the nation’s jawans and the country’s prostitutes hit her hard. Both were protectors in their own way, but while national honours were bestowed upon the former, the latter was subject to slander, insult, and treatment akin to criminals. Gangubai blinked as she seemed to be overpowered by a trance, the words laced with emotion pouring out in raw intensity as the silence across the podium grew deafening.
“The only solution to this question of differential treatment of brothel workers… is to treat us as equals in society. The day this is achieved is the only day I will believe that society has truly achieved ‘women empowerment’ as you put it.”
With a final glance at the crowd clad in modest white like her, the matriarch of Kamathipura made her closing statement.
“I make a humble plea to the government to allow red-light areas to co-exist in our society.”
Nobody knew who stood up first, but if the silence during her address had been deafening, the applause that followed rivalled it. A woman who represented a stigma-ridden profession from an equally stigma-ridden area had stepped forward and left the so-called influential audience pondering over a number of uncomfortable questions.
A social activist, sex worker, and mafia queen in Mumbai during the 1960s, Gangubai Kothewali, or Gangubai Kathiawadi as she was popularly known, is a lesser-known activist who actively lobbied for the rights of sex workers. Article 21 of the Indian Constitution provides “Basic Protection of human decency and dignity” that extends to sex workers and their children. When the very legal framework of the country deals with the rights of such under-represented individuals, it is only a change in the general mindset of the privileged masses that can fulfil the dream of equality that the matriarch of Kamathipura envisioned.
[Inspired by “Mafia Queens of Mumbai” by Hussain Zaidi]
#ganguabai kathiawadi #sexwork #brothel #dignityofwomen
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