Keywords
Courtesans
Colonial Modernity
Gender
Delhi
Morality
Purity
Cultural Transformation
Erasure
How to Cite
Abstract
This study explores the historical trajectory of the tawaifs of Delhi, tracing their transformation from cultural custodians to "stigmatised women" under the colonial moral order. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Delhi, tawaif occupied a distinctive social and cultural position as arbiters of refinement (tehzeeb), poetry, and performance. Far from being peripheral, they represented the 'only' cohort of educated and economically independent women, adept in music, dance, and literary arts. They played an important role in imparting etiquette, culture, and artistic training to royal princes and members of the elite. They owned properties, managed their own establishments, and were often among the city's highest taxpayers, highlighting their prominence in Delhi's economic and cultural landscape. For the Mughal elite, association with a tawaif signified sophistication and participation in the urbane culture of Shahjahanabad. The revolt of 1857 fundamentally altered these perceptions of British rule. Through the lens of Victorian morality and colonial ethnography, tawaifs were recast as symbols of moral decay and 'fallen women' erasing their earlier status as artistic and cultural intermediaries. This process of stigmatisation produced a broader cultural amnesia, obscuring women's agency in Delhi's artistic life and shaping the city's moral and cultural landscape under colonial modernity.
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