Prostitutes. And a play on them?

Prostitution. Why talk about it? Why a play on
such issues? Why act in a character of a prostitute, could not you find a more
socially relevant and acceptable story? These are some responses my fellow teammates
received from their near and dear ones once they disclosed the details of our
play Chalta Phirta Bambai.

I recall what Manto said in a response to the criticism
he received for his brazen way of writing. 
He said, अगर आप इन अफसानों को
बरदाश्त नहीं कर सकते तो इसका मतलब हैं की ये जमाना नाकाबिले-बरदाश्त हैं | “If you find these stories intolerable, it must mean that
we live in an intolerable age.” There is a lot that Manto wrote in defense of
what he wrote and why such stories needed to be told. However, I am not going
to those details. I want to write her about our own limitations and tunnel
vision on issues of life and our surrounding.

Anybody who does not fit into the ‘normal’ of our
perception are not only physically outcast, we also don’t like to talk about
them. Leave apart, understanding different dimensions of them. Commercial sex
workers – CSWs (as they are called in HIV interventions, which I find a better
expression than prostitutes) are one such entity. We prefer to ignore them and
at the best forget their existence. Prostitution thrives on the demand for
commercial sex work, demand that largely comes from men, and solicited mostly
by men. Why then only the women in this profession are ostracized and looked
down upon? According to official sources, there are around 3 million i.e. 30
lacs i.e. 30, 00,000 CSWs operating in India; one-third of which are below 18
years. These women must be serving crores of men every day, everywhere and
still do not exist in a way that we so-called bhadralok can talk about their lives.

There are few
legal things that I want to bring our attention to. First and foremost, prostitution
is not illegal in India. Yes, legally speaking, prostitution
or prostitutes per se is not a criminal activity. However, according to The
Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act 1956, third party acts of facilitating
prostitution like brothel keeping, living off earnings and procuring, even
where sex work is not coerced etc, are criminal offenses.  This means prostitution is legal but procuring
for prostitution is illegal. Or in other words, prostitution is legal but is not
regulated. This loophole in the law in fact makes the situation of CSWs more
vulnerable. While it is the people (most of the times men) who transact on
behalf of the prostitute are the criminals, the way law has been projected
through police and media, it is the women in the profession that are being portrayed
in bad spirit.

Gujarati newspaper, at times along with quotes
from Guajarati stalwarts, reports the profession as ‘અનીતિધામ’ or ‘કુટણખાનું’. I find such expression very judgmental and filled with preconceived prejudices towards women.  In fact, at times the word ‘વૈશ્યા’ is used for the women in prostitution, which itself is so wrong
grammatically. ‘વૈશ્યા’ would mean feminine of વૈશ્ય, which is a class in
varna system that deals with trading. According to Bhagvadgomandal,
 વૈશ્યા’ means વૈશ્ય સ્ત્રી; વાણિયણ. The correct usage should be ‘વેશ્યા’. The lesser said is better for the poor state of Gujarati language, especially in Gujarati media.

I have been fortunate to have opportunities
of working with organisation that deals with CSWs in India and Australia. Both
these countries are interesting cases in dealing with prostitutions. By the
way, there are at least 20 countries in the world, where prostitution is both legalized
and regulated. Australia is one such country where most of its eastern part (New
South Wales state, specifically) has it legal and regulated.  I am not trying to get into legalizing prostitution.
However, I want to emphasize the fact that the state of prostitutes is much
better in NSW than in India and it is largely to do with the decriminalization.
It is the advocacy efforts through last few decades in NSW that brought about
the change wherein prostitutes there can run a campaign called ‘Nothing about
us without us’ seeking their total involvement in all policy matters pertaining
to them. Can we even remotely think of it in India??

World View of Prostitution

I was also fortunate to watch play
called ‘My Mother, Her Gharwali, Her Maalak and His Wife’. This play was a
result of theater workshop among residents of prostitution area in Sangli,
Maharashtra. Almost all the characters on stage were real life people affected
by prostitution. The play depicted a day in the life of prostitutes. At the end
of the play, there was an interactive session with the artists, who included
prostitutes, their madam, their siblings or children etc. I particularly recall
the response that one of the old prostitutes, the madam, gave to a gentleman –
father of two girls - who offered monetary support to girl children of
prostitutes. She said, ‘सर, पैसेकी बात ही ना
करो | आप सोच भी नहीं सकते उतने पैसे हम एक रात मे कम लेते हैं | अगर कुछ कर सकते
हो तो ये करो की हमारी बेटियांका एडमिशन उन स्कुलमे करवाओ जहाँ आप जैसे लोगो की
बेटियां पढ़ती हैं |.

Clearly, our understanding of these women needs
reflection. They do not need money all the time. That they can earn, the very
same way all of us earn through professions. It is the social acceptance of
their profession that they yearn for. It is their acceptance that they seek and
ask for. It is very existence of their faculties like heart, mind and soul that
they remind us of. They are in the profession where their bodies are offered.
They are not mere bodies. They are human being, serving other human being and
deserved to be treated exactly the same way!!