Social Scientist

Gandhi's 'Fallen' Sisters: Difference and the National Body Politic Author(s): Ashwini Tambe Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 37, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Feb., 2009), pp. 21-38 Published by: Social Scientist Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27644308 . Accessed: 01/04/2013 00:07
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Gandhi's
Difference

Tallen*

Sisters:
Body Politic > GO

and the National

One

of Mohandas Gandhi's key contributions to modern Indian O" was his active troubling of the masculine character of antipolitical life of and His promotion fasting imperialist politics. handspinning
activities typically carried out by women the Congress as mass nationalist tactics,

pu
^

his rejection ofmilitarism, and his mobilization

women politics as an volunteers arguably more for party, enterprise.1 "feminized"

of large numbers of
rendered All nationalist this re the same,

crucially on its simultaneous gendering of politics depended desexualization. The introduction ofwomen to a domain populated by men raised questions about how theywould interact, and Gandhi evacuated of sexual possibility. In a variety of contexts, then, he
fashioned a strictly anti-sexual mode of nationalist expression. He sought to create routes for women's increased participation that were

strenuously endorsed celibacy forhis followers, very openly examined and criticizedhis own sexual impulses, and upheld thefigureof thepost
sexual widow as a

collective was best seen as a body in need of purification and vigilance, and thisbody was compromised oftenby sexual temptation. This article tracesGandhi's understanding of theplace of sexuality inpublic lifevia
an examination of his views and actions towards women in

personal

model.

In Gandhi's

vision,

the nationalist

several occasions, Gandhi used the figure of the to articulate a vision of thenationalist body politic,3with the prostitute prostitute emblematizing the corruption that tested the body politic's prostitution.2 On
virtue. party, collective. His repeated refusals are to admit prostitutes vision into of the Congress the nationalist in particular, indicative of his

Studying Gandhi's desexualized construction of the body politic is modes ofwomen's participation not politics. His vision influenced the but also the broader identity social in Gandhian movements, only
construction important because of its lasting legacy on contemporary Indian electoral

stands out for the high number of female leaders to have held top
elective

practices

of women

seeking

electoral

power.

South

Asia

Indian history, such as Indira Gandhi, Jayalalitha, and Sonia Gandhi,

have all projected

office. Many

of the most

successful

women

politicians on

in recent

widowed

or divorced women.

post-sexual

personae,

drawing

their

status

as

In other words, the apparent relative

2 I

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Social

Scientist

success

of the Indian

csi b* CO ^ ?v z3 -^ g
go 21

and post-independence electoral politics needs to be framed in terms ofwhat Gandhi's desexualization of thefield allowed and disallowed. E My analysis ofGandhi's exclusions allows me to furtherexplore his uneasy

polity

in incorporating

women

into nationalist

activism

historian Ajay Skaria5have forcefully recently, argued. They emphasize Gandhi's call for transforming statist politics through an integration of morality in politics.6 Pantham sets great store by Gandhi's criticism of the utilitarian
conception between value-neutral articulation potential of of humans whom social self-centered essentially order can only be preserved as beings, prone to conflict, and of the through based the creation

relationship with liberalism. Gandhi is generally understood to be a critic of liberal modernity, as both political theorist Thomas Pantham,4 and more

m >

of representative political machinery an alternative communitarian ethic, and service to others, offered,

governance. on

Gandhi's the human the

for reform

possibility of reconciling the "contradiction" in liberal theory between an individualistic private sphere ofmorality and a utilitarian, "purely technical

according

to Pantham,

public/political sphere" which remains allegedly "amoral" and only represents competing interests.7 According toGandhi, themoral worth of our individual was only interests had to be subjected to theprinciple of interdependence, and it ifour positions received the "uncoerced acceptance" of those affectedby them
that we could make a claim for them as moral, universal truths. For Skaria, such

testing of one's closely held truths in everyday acts of neighborliness (padoshi dharma) lies at the heart of Gandhian praxis. Unlike a liberal politics which
accommodates difference

that denies the particular, Gandhi's philosophy of neighborliness was an insistently local method of dealing with absolute difference and arriving at a
universalist ethos.8

only

through

the creation

of a "neutral

shared

space"

It is thisview ofGandhi's contribution to political thought that I critique via an analysis of Gandhi's writings on prostitutes. I explore Gandhi's trouble in
accepting the contributions

inability,in effect,to practice a real neighborliness towards them.The question I

provoked by Skaria, is how does one make sense of Gandhi's refusal of

of prostitutes

to nationalist

activism,

and

his

pose,

sympathy for the prostitute?While it is easy to see how the figure of the prostitute represented a negation of several principles Gandhi held dear, such as celibacy and self-sacrifice, I find Gandhi's inability to accommodate women in
prostitution neighborliness. to be The a refutation sexual potency of his of purportedly such women capacious represented concept a form of of

difference that crucially challenged his vision of an acceptable polity. My analysis draws on references to prostitutes inboth literaland figurative
registers. I review Gandhi's actual

22

received attention from psychoanalytically oriented biographers.9 Gandhi also

early

encounters

with

prostitutes,

which

have

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Gandhi's

Tallen'

Africa and Fiji, he also effectively utilized the symbolism of prostitution. I close terms in the individualistic which he understood prostitutes, and by examining
argue that Gandhi a collective refused a structural to it. understanding of prostitution, even as he proposed Prostitutes Gandhi's response

with prostitutes in the later interacted midst of his promotion of khadi spinning in the early 1920s. During struggles on behalf of Indian immigrants in South

and

the Nationalist on

Movement do not emerge from any sustained

political campaign on this issue. Indeed, when one looks at the history of law making on prostitution in late colonial India, Gandhi's voice is conspicuously absent. The 1920's and 30's were a time of great legislative fermenton this issue:

writings

prostitution

in Bombay, the Prevention of Prostitution Act of 1923 outlawed soliciting, pimping, and later,brothel-keeping. Similar laws followed in other parts of the
country. In Madras and Mysore, movements were afoot to abolish the devadasi

Yet Gandhi rarelyendorsed these system, mostly ledbymiddle class reformists10 even he particular positions, campaigned on the related social reform though
issues

when we
nationalist

of child marriage cause.

and widow

consider that abolishing prostitution was quite easily cast as a

Prostitutes represented the antithesis of the chaste

remarriage.

This

absence

is an

anomaly

womanhood
reverence

idolized by middle class nationalists.11 The abolition of also have been an obvious target for Gandhi given his should prostitution
for the principle of sexual asceticism or brahmacharya. Yet he resisted

efforts by others to draw him into these campaigns. In 1934, a son of a devadasi wrote toGandhi imploring him to take up the issue, declaring that "what the Brothels Bill and the IPC [Indian Penal Code] could not do ...a word from
[Gandhi's] mouth could do."12 Gandhi's associates Lilavati Savardekar and

more Meliscent Shephard eachwrote to him in 1931 and 1933, also appealing for
action from him He on this issue.13 Gandhi's a reluctance "not one responses to take on that a man were the issue, could sympathetic claiming and tackle" but that the that it noncommittal. question professed was

should be left "to the experts."14 He claimed that it required "a woman of exceptional purity and strength of character" to "rise and devote herself to
redeeming the evil What

of prostitution

them [to rise] in revolt against the evil and with thefire of her own purity burn
in the others."16 do we make of this reluctance to engage with the otherwise resonant

this part

of humanity,"15

and

called

for "some

sister

from

amongst

discourses of social reform and "uplift" ofwomen in prostitution? Could itbe that for Gandhi, engaging in such a politics of rescuewould have legitimated the
women's claims

Gandhi's inabilityto envision prostitutes as legitimate social figures. In 1921,350

to a marginalized

status?

The

following

episode

exemplifies

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Social

Scientist

o ^ rd E
^)

prostitutes in Barisal, a district in east Bengal, had volunteered to become rN members of the Congress party. They were responding to Gandhi's call to broaden membership of the party to anyone who could pay a fee of 14 annas. The women had also contributed to theTilak Swaraj Fund, setup byGandhi as
a means to support Congress' activities for social amelioration. When they

?> zj -^ g
go

expressed a wish to seek office inCongress committees,Gandhi refused and met with them to explain his objections. At the meeting, Gandhi tried to bar them from Congress committees by declaring thatno one "could officiate at the altar of Swaraj (self-rule) who did not approach
He advised instead. nationalist fervor was not so easily re-directed. Only "eleven the women to give

itwith pure hands and a pure

their profession and take up

heart."17

up

handspinning ~ZL The women's

r^ CO > o

of them promised to give up" their way of life "and take up spinning the next But "the take time to think,for theydid not wish to others said would they day."
deceive Congress [him]."18 members, Over were the next elected as few years, these and other women remained delegates, even founded an association

whose manifesto promoted helping thepoor and nursing the sick, spinning and
weaving, skills training among prostitutes, and adopting non-violence. In 1925,

when Gandhi encountered this group again, he reactedwith intense anger that their association provided higher musical training, and declared their
organization's humanitarian manifesto to be "obscene." He angrily advised "Let the women "to do he

proclaimed,
must

"

work

before

[that] thesewomen do know how to dance and sing... spinning

as a passport to vice." He regretted "more them as that "public opinion" than and

reforming

themselves."

it be understood"

not be used

their own "modesty" had not made

membership." because professional they He steal called the women and virtue," Their

them "refrain from seeking Congress

of Barisal dangerous akin to thieves, ' "unrepentant of mischief

described

murderers."

disqualified
disobedience)

them from being

movement.19

"tremendously

true members

dangerous

powers

of the satyagraha

(civil

Gandhi's reaction is not surprising to feminist scholars such as G?raldine Forbes, Radha Kumar, Sujata Patel, and Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert, who have While they credit studied themodes of women's nationalist participation.20 Gandhi with mobilizing unprecedented numbers ofwomen, theypoint out that
women's

standards of respectable femininity. Forbes points out that many elitewomen who were engaged in theirfirst forays into public activism were worried about being mistaken for prostitutes.21Gandhi sought to ensure that standards of
respectability plain-dressed 2 A clear obverse were and met, and constituted the ideal nationalist as overtly sexual woman figures, as selfless, were the high-minded. Prostitutes,

public

participation

was

predicated

on

their

adherence

to

strict

of idealized

nationalist

womanhood.22

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Gandhi's

Tallen'

Sisters

Although Gandhi's opposition in this case isnot surprising, the intensityof 3>
his anger is nonetheless his characterization puzzling. His rejection used "ugly," of the women's nationalist to 2~ 5" motives, vice" and that the women "spinning "murderers" as a passport and "thieves" \

his use

seems disproportionate to their motives and work. He displays a similarlydeep

suspicion of the motives of another group of Congress volunteers who were

of the terms, "disgraceful,"

3
^~

"fallen sisters" inMadaripur. When they formed "an association of fallen sisters"he declared it "dangerous, especially foryoung men" and urged them to
"concentrate character all their energies of their offense" on... [opening] than perform men's eyes to the bestial work.23 diabolical rather Congress a It is interesting

thatGandhi did not similarlyattempt to bar from theCongress party landlords

or industrialists, whose role quite in undermining counterposed for prostitutes, handspinning Instead them economy he or oppressing some farmers was strongest akin to his politics.24 terming reserved of

of his and

language

"wrecks

prominent social reform campaign in the 1930swas against untouchability; he

sought to recast those who were considered untouchables as God's children, or

Such language confirming theworst social stigmas about prostitutes is noteworthy coming fromGandhi, for in other contexts he sought to radically recast public perceptions of socially stigmatized figures. Gandhi's most

society,"

to "thieves."25

He embraced thewidow as a figure that allmen and women should harijans.26 and celibacy.27 emulate forher unstinting self-sacrifice Although Gandhi evinced much agony inhis writings on prostitutes, he took no similar leap in reshaping theirpublic image.He acknowledged theirnumbers, at one point estimating that
there were as many orientation as a million

he did not extend theboundaries of social inclusiveness to accommodate them.

This towards prostitutes

and fifty thousand

women

in prostitution.28

Yet

all living things."29 Far from being a liberal abstraction, this notion of There were differentpractices of neighborliness, Skaria observes: "with equals, friendship (mitrata); with subordinates, service (seva); and with antagonists, not simply entail charitable assistance to recuperate the subordinated. It grappled with the "constitutive impossibility of equality" and committed the
dominant satyagraha."30 Gandhi's concept ofseva, of particular relevance to this article, did neighborliness incorporated concrete differences in power between neighbors.

examines Gandhi's general principles of civic conduct. In his analysis ofGandhi's " Skaria observes that Gandhi's philosophy of absolute "neighborliness, was inclusiveness based on thenotion of "divinely institutedkinship (sagpan) of

is particularly

contradictory

when

one

with divinity,or acknowledging the subaltern's divinity, and devoting service to

"disclaiming theirdominance" bymerely asserting theprinciple of equality, the dominant had to radically displace themselves through imbuing the subaltern 95

to acknowledge

their

gulf

from

the

subordinate.31

Rather

than

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Social

Scientist

the

subaltern

in a form

akin

to

rN ^
^

"harijan" ("children of God") in place of dalit ("suppressed"). And hence his otherwise viewed as a blemished figure. deification of thewidow
EWhere, came then, is the evidence Gandhi of seva, of a transformative that prostitution entreat His was to prostitutes? with maintained impulse one when "sin" it for

worship.

Hence

the

resonance

of

the

term

?^
zj -^

which he could not devise a "universally effective"solution, asking: "Who should

reason the prostitutes, can be established and who should their customer? silence What on this associations for this purpose?"32 the latter more and and devadasis to not relative

Q
go ~Z_

issue is evident in the letters he received comparing the problem of harijans and
devadasis son and urging Gandhi and him to take reminded that harijans emergent," In 1934, a devadasis seriously. were and "sister movements" "forget the sister community in

?^ > -q

your enthusiasm for theHarijans."33 A similar comparison was drawn twelve Gandhi did somuch for years later in an irate letterto the Harijan askingwhy, if the uplift of theHarijan community, he ignored devadasi women residing in
Poona and

"equally

important

replied that the problems faced by harijans were quite different, in that their "occupation was necessary for thewell-being of society,"while "[p]rostitutes should be isolated because theiroccupation is revolting and detrimental to the
well-being

Bombay.34

In response

to the

comparison

with

harijans,

Gandhi

in that he believed every prostitute had the choice and ability to leave the profession. He accused prostitutes of livinga lifeof ease and argued that the only way to solve the problem was for them to "realize theirdignity" and "refuse to sell [their] honor."36 The
guilty

evenwomen born intodevalas* families remained guiltyof colluding in evil; theproblem was locatedwithin the will and sexualityof the individual prostitute. Gandhi saw theproblem of prostitution principally in individualistic terms

of society"35 Whereas

harijans

were

blameless

in his eyes, prostitutes

interesting implication is that Gandhi presumed

their profession. Commenting on "fallen sisters"

inLucknow, for instance, he had to be "satisfied that theydo not go to it from choice,"37 implying that they had to prove theirmotives to him. When the woman of Barisal did not renounce theprofession upon his urging, he saw them

prostitutes

of choosing

as being beyond redemption. I am struckby the amount of agencyGandhi attributes to his "fallen sisters." It seems odd thathe would notmore readily recognize that material deprivation
women to into prostitution the suffering especially of since he was so attuned The to, and committed sharing, the underclasses. rise of urban

often drove

prostitution in colonial India was clearly linkedwith the impoverishment of

rural women artisans and famine-related

2g

Gandhi was puzzlingly blind to this context, and his vision widow remarriage.38 was instead telescoped into the realm of individual will. It left little room for acknowledging the social processes of disempowerment, or foraccidents of birth

displacements,

and

strictures

against

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Gandhi's

Tallen'

(unlike the context of harijans). The fact of being a prostitute marked, for
Gandhi, a

her dignity she will refuse to sell her virtue" he declared in response to the question of legalized prostitution, in 1939.40Thus his understanding of a
structural problem was severely compromised by his preference for the lens of

deliberately

immoral,

self-generated

choice.39

"When

woman

realizes

individualmorality. Reading Gandhi's

In exploring

lifeand body
the reasons for Gandhi's positions on prostitution, prostitutes

need to be viewed not only as symbolic figures but also as actual persons with whom Gandhi interacted. Joseph Alter's observations on Gandhi's bodily
preoccupations Gandhi sex and typically food; are noteworthy towards are in this regard: meta-interpretations always read as Alter complains of Gandhi's symbols that scholars obsession of veer with else.41

the obsessions

Instead, Alter argues thatGandhi engaged with these items in a concrete rather than symbolic manner; that he regulated his intake of both food and sex as a worth asking centralplank of his concept of selfand his politics. In thisvein, it is to extentdid whether Gandhi viewed prostitutes only in what terms; m?tonymie
actual contact with, early and fears about, with prostitutes prostitutes shape have his often responses been seen to them? as events Gandhi's experiences

of something

childhood friendSheikh Mehtab when he was 15,his flirtationwith an English landlady "who lived on her body" in Portsmouth, and his encounter with a him to visit a prostitute in order tomake his wife jealous; thewoman however threwhim out of thehouse when he proved unable or unwilling to proceed with
the transaction.43 In the second case, a conversation with his prostitute in a port on the way to Durban.42 In the first instance, Mehtab coaxed

that were formative in his later renunciation of sexuality. His biographers typicallycite a fewprominent early episodes: his visit to a prostitutes' house with

heated with sexual innuendo led him to supposedly come close to having sex.44In the third episode, when on his way to Durban, Gandhi followed his ship's
captain "tussle."45 conscience; ashore and subsequently own his apologized to a prostitute in an ensuing By Gandhi's he depicted and loomed the first two episodes admission, large in his force that he struggled sexual desire as an enormous case because and a friend him He in his but he viewed recounted these

landlady

that was

to tame in both cases. He

"ineptness" these in the second as "miracles" outcomes

resisted actual sex, in the first case because of his

stopped of God." as "evidence

episodes

as traumatic

moments

in 1925 and in a 1933 letter.46 Gandhi declared that thePortsmouth episode was
when he "first became aware of the existence of God" and he "looked

long

after they occurred,

autobiography

an occasion

upon this occasion as themost perilous in his life." It is remarkable that he

viewed these episodes in such strong terms; as psychoanalyst Kakar remarks, we

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Social

Scientist

o rN c^ <TJ

can

never

be

sure whether an

Gandhi

had

"gigantic

erotic

temperament" such as

or

"merely men's E cl> The

possessed

overweening any eroticism

conscience"

any rate it is clear self-control, standard

that Gandhi and

processed account

the presence as evil.48

that magnified of women

lapses.47 At to

threatening

?zj ^ g
go

remarked that their "presence reminded him of his own identityas aman" and Men who visited prostitutes he "hung his head in shame" before them.50
remained much less marked by shame: at one point when Gandhi wrote about

displacing his sexual desires onto women, attributing to them the quality of danger.49This displacement is clear in his writing about thewomen of Barisal and Lucknow; he characterized prostitutes as "symbols of men's lust" and

psychoanalytic

of Gandhi's

views

on women

sees him

~Z_
f^

Indian youth who visited prostitutes, he forgivinglytermed them "prey to the

vice -q and At not vicious the same by nature."51 construction of the danger Prostitutes of prostitutes should time, Gandhi's

>

be seen asmore than just displacement; thewomen inquestion also need to be

seen as

threattoGandhi's idealmode of not only feminine,but general, behavior, which involved using intense self-control, negating the self, and denouncing
instrumentalism. The

actually

sexually

active

and

alluring.

represented

a direct

that fundamentally ran counter to each of these aspects ofGandhi's philosophy. Gandhi's ideal nationalist, represented in the figure of the sanyasi or celibate
widow, was motivated to serve others and sacrifice her self. To Gandhi,

figure

of the prostitute

enacted

a mode

of human

relations

prostitute represented the opposite of being self-sacrificial, for it involved

manipulating others for one's own

being

and duped men through active allure. In this logic, Gandhi's anger about the women of Barisal getting higher musical training makes sense: theywere manipulative capabilities. strengtheningtheir
Prostitutes of ascetic were dangerous that Gandhi in another, pursued, and more immediate a way. In the model on retaining masculinity there was premium

end; prostitutes

were

driven

by self-interest

and controlling seminal fluids; as Alter notes, Gandhi combined yogic principles
and Freud's theory of sublimation, drew on a range of sources to support

He adopted theprinciple of brahmacharya (celibacy) first his position.52 while in South Africa.53As early as 1913, he explained to his readers that "he who has
conserved extolled sexual celibacy his generative refrainment intercourse even fluid is known as viryavan, While he a man "from only carnal enjoyment."54 of strength" and he he at first recommended later advocated he came across complete William

for purposes couples.

of procreation, When,

for married

in 1928,

Thurston's study of thedeleterious effects of sexual intercourse,he called on all This logic led to readers ofNavjivan to carefully studyThurston's translation.55 a specific disparagement of the prostitute's body, which by definition drained 2g seminal fluid.

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Gandhi's

Tallen'

Sisters

It is important to note in this context Gandhi's

private individual selves moral as continuous regeneration Prostitutes with were were the public's at the centre

conception of individual
Individual vision action and of political their own lives, | in

"self."

5" 5

of Gandhi's

"

transformation.

their refusal to purify themselves. Self-purification seamlessly led to the purification of the public body. The self had to be purified through was an enlarged projection of thepurified self. vision of the ideal "public," then, He saw his own experimentswith diet and sex as literallyapplicable to all in the nation; his body represented the body politic. He obsessively focused on the specificpublic health implications ofwhat he did, broadcasting thedetails of his
experiments in his public writings. On numerous occasions, he fasted as penance brahmacharya, ahimsa, and satya, the first of which led to the others.56 Gandhi's

significant

in terms beyond

3 q~

for the public's ills. Within this conception of the body politic, then, therewas littleroom to acknowledge actual bodies thatdiffered radically fromhis own
bodies, which, as he saw them, thrived on the erotic. He could

to prostitutes that theybecome sanyasis (celibate) and embark on a program of personal purity, and called on reformers to "purify neighborhoods" where
prostitutes worked.57

only

recommend

Gandhi's emphasis on puritywas linked to discourses of public health of his time.The latenineteenth and early twentiethcentury in colonial Indiawitnessed
large-scale social Disease experiments control with controlling were prostitution inextricably as a way entwined, to eradicate so much so and morality

to abolish prostitution traveled under the label of "moral hygiene." Those seeking to raise the age ofmarriage used eugenicist public health rationales that it would improve thephysique of Indian children.58 These varied to a cleanse and cultivate the connote distinct continuous attempts body politic

syphilis.

that themovement

We relationshipbetween individual and society,also found inGandhi's thinking. can readGandhi's dismay with prostituteswithin this climate as connected tohis concernwith correctprocreation and public health. There are suggestions of this
stance leprosy," in the terms he uses and to describe prostitution "Plague in his Spots essays: "moral a "social disease" the title of an essay of Lucknow."

He

thus viewed the prostitute as diseased in literal and figurative ways, and regularly represented prostitution as a "spot" or "blot" on the body politic.
and public work

Women

Apart from the early encounters noted in his biographies, Gandhi's actual interactionswith prostitutes occurred largely in the earlyyears of his campaign to popularize handspinning and khadi.He presented spinning not just as an act
of economic those who resistance took it up. but The also moral as a moral valence act that could of spinning "purify becomes the hearts" clearer when of

exploring his views on women and domesticity. In the 1919-1921 period, Gandhi

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Social

Scientist

widely

rs
^

sources of income within their homes through this activity. He

widows and homebound women in DO general as a large

propagated

spinning

among

women,

who,

he argued,

could

be provided

shrewdly
resource of

E ^

cd

constructed

?^ zj
-^

Mandai (Gujarati untapped labour. In 1917, he announced to theGujarati Stri Women's Organization) thathe planned to draw widows away from "going to temples" and "waiting on holy men" and instead induce them to "take up the
"remarriage of the purest kind."59 He regularly For complained that women who left

task of serving India" through spinning cotton, which would help them in such as mill
that Dhed at the weaver roads,

g o GO O

home to work were subject to indignities at the hands ofmen

workers women price or road who of their construction not overseers. work 1921, instance, went he complained "out that women now worked could procure In at home he worried

for labour... from "on public

chastity."60 "for want

CO ~? >

communities

of domestic

where, under pressure of one sort or another, they [were] obliged to sell their
honour."61 The so-called "shame of [weavers'] daughters and.. .wives" was an

occupation"

emotional fulcrum inhis appeal forhandspinning.62 Gandhi's aversion to industrialization is awell-known plank of his critique ofmodernity, but less discussed ishis specific distaste for the gendered spatial mill work. His argument for spinningwas inextricablylinked to arrangements in
his disinclination for women's work-in

speech at a Rotary Club thatmen and women were "congregat[ing] in boxes where [they were] huddled together in amanner which [he] could not picture to outside the domestic sphere, he declared that "the chastity ofwomen can be protected with the help of the spinningwheel. There isno other occupation in
which our millions of women can engage themselves while staying at home." He [his audience]."63 In order to prevent this loss of honour accompanying work

factory

settings.

He

warned

in a

1925

would
subaltern problem

save women mill workers "from immorality by giving them this

He took a specifically honour. middle class view of the constraints neediness facing to the women, subordinating the problem of their economic

occupation."64

of their threatened

Gandhi believed in "the possibility of everyperson, however depraved, being

under and work, for reform, human and skilled treatment."65 to Given Gandhi's framing the ultimate Here, then, of converting prostitutes spinning "public" constituted of women.

reformed women victory

was the closest thing to seva (service) he performed forprostitutes: he suggested

spinning to them as a channel for self-transformation. campaign, he exhorted On several occasions at the start of his non-cooperation women in prostitution

for they represented

the most

to take up spinning. In 1919,when confronted with a letter about how Dhed women inDohad "procured work at theprice of their chastity"he declared that
handspinning and

jq

principal planks he used to promote khaddarwas that "it supportedwomen who

handweaving

alone

would

save

them.66 By

1920,

one

of the

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Gandhi's

Tallen'

Sisters

This claim became a staple featureof had been reclaimed from a lifeof shame."67 his speeches around the country: in Madras, he explained that the spinningwheel
was "an honourable substitute to

2> 5"
5*

lengthand breadth of our land, and it [was] onlywhen the spinningwheel [had] found a sure and established footing in our homes that it [was] possible for India to embark upon mass civil disobedience."68 In a 1921 speech toworkers in ofworkers, if you wish Dibrugarh, he declared: "ifyou want to end the suffering
to guard foreign the character cloth."69 He of women entwined and the ancient culture of India, and then burn the moral goals " victoryof convertingprostitutes in a 1922 letter: [The spinningwheel] is already proving moral an a means of weaning as thousands of women He from a life of shame, mentioned it is as instrument it is economic."70 the economic of spinning

[present]

to

...fallen

sisters

throughout

the

\ 3 ^

protection of women's honour in the same breath as its ability to feed the deployed the idiom of sacredness to achieve his ends, vesting hungry.He freely the spinningwheel with the quasi-magical quality of rescuingwomen's honour in "this time of Kaliyuga [age of vice]" when "it [was] difficult forwomen to
remain chaste."71

regularly

spinning's

were clearly compel his audience to accede to itsappeal. Some of his followers " won over: a "graduate fromUP" vaunted the spinningwheel as [giving]bread to the millions of starvingvillagers of India, [clothing] the farmers, livelihood to beggars, [and] a dignified profession to fallen sisters and thosewhose modesty
is otherwise

By equating

spinning

with modesty,

Gandhi

was

able

to better

There were indeed episodes that allowed Gandhi to proclaim such triumphs for spinning: many of the other "fallen sisters" Gandhi met in Noakhali, Cocanada, and Lucknow did take to full-time spinning,73and Gandhi was far more kindly disposed towards them than the women of Barisal. From his
political retained standpoint, no trace the only of her acceptable fallen sister was a repentant there was an one who obvious former profession. not However,

exposed

to the assaults

of lustful persons."72

problem in converting women

income otherwise difference made. spinning The women

from prostitution to spinning because of the

secure for the women noted the amounts that they had they debts for instance,

could

of Barisal,

to pay, and their income of sixty rupees a month as prostitutes could not be matched by spinning.Gandhi acknowledged that for them, then spinning could
only be "recreational, a sacrificial

Prostitutes, associated as require such an income ifthey led a reformed life."74

they were with fine dressing and elaborate self-care, thus also represented "there "75 the

practice..."

although

he noted

"they would

not

kind of consumption Gandhi deplored. As he noted while promoting khaddar

and denouncing of the harlot foreign in a woman cloth to a women's loveliness meeting in Dakor, is a touch seeking by fine dressing.

Gandhi's denigration of prostitutes also fed his goal of public mobilization in another way. Gandhi was highly attentive to the symbolic resonance of the

3 |

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Social

Scientist

es ^ rd E ??) ?zj

prostitution aimed at the diasporic Indian community. In 1906, the British government in Transvaal accused Indian men of bringing into the country women "of indifferent character" who were "styled wives."76 Gandhi

figure

of

the prostitute,

and

responded

dramatically

to any

accusations

of

vociferously denied this charge, and also extracted an apology from the newspaper Transvaal Leader for "casting an unjustified aspersion upon Indian
During in order his

women..."77

^
rN O O GO O 1^ CO >

South Africa and Fiji, he readily employed the narrative of violated sexual
honour to encourage

early

campaigns

on

behalf

of

Indian

immigrants when

in

government tried to discourage

women's married status, he

public

participation.

On

a few occasions

the

Indian immigration by questioning Indian

by casting this as an accusation of

prostitution and hence a grievous insult. He challenged the South African government when it restricted immigration in 1906 on the grounds that Indian
men

responded

when a justice ruled that South African law did not recognize Indian marriages because Islam, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism permitted polygamy. Gandhi depicted both actions of the government as slurs on the community, and
agitated women's against honour.. a more the rulings, .does "serious declaring insult" that a "nation that cannot He protect termed its the not deserve to be called than by that name."

brought

in women

of "indifferent

character."78

Later

in 1913, he protested

latter measure

the "obnoxious

which he was fightingat the time.79In 1919, sterlinglevied on Indian immigrants,

he responded

tax" of three pounds each

three indentured Indianmen inFiji; he cabled theGovernment of Fiji to stop the

system of indenture because it bred "immorality."80 In each of these instances,

strongly

upon

hearing

a report

that Indian

women

"served"

Gandhi

successfully mobilized
of women. This

the Indian community by decrying the

commonly used by nationalists across

dishonouring

gesture,

Although Gandhi grantedwomen ingeneral an increasing role innationalist - in 1921 and 1925, he called on women to rally around moral causes politics such as prohibition, and in the early 1930's women joined saltmarches his views of prostitutes did not vary much: well into the 1930's, he remained

regions, reinscribed an instrumental approach towomen: rather than being ends in themselves,women were meaningful only in relation to the community towhich theybelonged, and whose honor they represented.

neighbourliness would have entailed. Instead, he channeled effortsto reform

them in order to score victories resonance for his campaigns to mobilize exploited their symbolic against a nationalist industrialization, community. or

unwilling to directly engagewith them, and with the social problems that shaped their lives. Gandhi did not imbue themwith the qualities of divinity that he readily conferred on other subordinate figures, which his philosophy of

32

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Gandhi's

Tallen'

Sisters

Conclusion

>
ZZT =3 H tu

I have suggested thatprostitutes represented the genuine limitsofGandhi's vision of social inclusiveness. They could not be incorporated into the national body politic because they represented a mode of instrumental human
interaction antithetical

bodies thatdrained seminal fluid.Although Gandhi's positions sometimes drew

on the more had common been view of prostitutes of virtue." as women men, This whose "honour" often and "chastity" prostitutes stolen by "unscrupulous" he farmore view was presented shaped by

to principle

of self-sacrifice,

and

appeared

as diseased

3 cr

themselves

as "thieves

which he narrated as his actual experiences with prostitutes early in his life, traumas. In the early 1920s when he again did interactwith prostitutes, his
energy was benefits and reserved for converting Prostitutes them were to spinning, useful as a way to dramatize the of spinning. only to his purposes Gandhi's as converts, anger towards

perhaps

it infuriated

him when

prostitutes vividly exposed his individualist vision of political transformation: his downplaying of the structural forces that shaped prostitutes' lives
demonstrates impoverished. how his conception of the social was, ultimately, quite

they resisted

conversion.

My analysis ofGandhi's attitudes to prostitutes provides insights into how he viewed thenational body politic. The comments thathemakes on prostitutes'
motives, and

saw the public body as continuous with theprivate body. This public body was sometimes, peculiarly, hisbody: in a highly self-referential projection, thosewho
were

the requirement

that they purify

themselves,

demonstrate

how

he

who represented a form of feminine subjectivity that refuted fundamental even as principles ofGandhi's ethos, could not be dealt with inneighbourlyways,
subordinates.

radically

different

were

only

useful

as tests of his own

virtue.

Prostitutes,

Ashwini Department

Tambe

is Assistant

Professor,

Women

and Gender Canada

Studies

Institute

and

of History,

University

of Toronto,

Notes: 1 Kumar, 2 I use Radha, the terms In the The History ofDoing (Delhi: Kali for Women, 1994): 2.

here,

in their historically and 'prostitution' specific sense 'prostitute' from 1920s and 1930s, the terms referred to a range of women I readily acknowledge that the to brothel workers. to temple dancers courtesans term 'sex worker' ismore appropriate when referring to the present. the term 'body politic' has multiple meanings, I use it here in the sense 33

3 Although

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Social

Scientist

ON O o cd ZJ L_ _Q O) ZJ c
cd^ rS O GO O Z CO > O

found

in political

theory;

Robert Filmer 1651/1962J, and John Locke Press, (The 1680/1991), Cambridge: Cambridge University Second Treatise Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1690/ Upper of Government, this sense of the term body politic; Hobbes understood the state 1952), established as an artificial man, with pacts and covenants the various constituting Filmer presented the body politic as akin to a patriarchal family; Locke a less hierarchical emphasized entity, arguing that consent constituted the formation of the body politic. Pantham, Theory, "Thinking 11, 2 (May with Mahatma 1983): 165-188. of the ashram," South Gandhi: Beyond body parts. in response the basis

body. English Collier Books,

political

that is, as a metaphor Thomas philosophers

to conceptualize the public as a New York: Hobbes (Leviathan, and Other Writings, (Patriarcha

of

4 Thomas Political

liberal democracy,"

5 Ajay Skaria, "Gandhi's and the question politics: Liberalism Atlantic Quarterly, 955-986. 101, 4 (2002): 6 The scholarship on Gandhi as a social A.,

representative examples, The Review of Politics, Utopia: Experiments Halliburton, Murphy, anthropology," "From Ashis,

Appadorai, 31, 3 (1969): with "Gandhi Culture

is vast; see as and political theorist to social theory," "Gandhi's contribution 312-328. Also: Gandhian Fox, Richard, Beacon Press use of authoritative Also: 1989). sources in

(Boston: or Gramsci? The

Gandhi's Asian who

793-817. As well: Nandy, 77, 4(2004): Anthropological Quarterly, outside the imperium: Gandhi's in cultural critique of theWest" and Utopias: in the Politics Traditions, (Delhi: Tyranny Essays of Awareness Oxford University the origins of Press, 1987). See also: Spodek, Howard,"On Studies, The heritage of Kathiawad political methodology: 30, 2 (Feb 1971): 361-372. My focus here relationship with classical liberalism. and Gujarat" is specifically Journal of on those

analyze Gandhi's 166. 956. of

7 Pantham, 8 Skaria,

9 Two

Chicago Militant 10

Sudhir Kakar's Intimate Relations (Chicago: Gandhi's Truth: On 1980) and Erik Erikson's Nonviolence Norton, (New York: W.W. 1969). Press,

these

are

University the Origins

of of

or the prostitutes out See: Jordan, Kay, "Devadasi reform: Driving the priestesses of Hindu in Law and in ed. Robert Baird India, temples?" Religion Independent also: Parker, Kunal, "A corporation of superior (Delhi: Manohar, 1993) 257-277, of temple dancing prostitutes: Anglo-Indian legal conceptions girls, 1800-1914" Modern Asian Studies, 32, 3 (July 1998): 559-633. See as well: Srinivasan, Amrit, "Reform or conformity? Temple in theMadras and the community 'prostitution' in Structures The and the Household State, of Patriarchy: presidency" Community in Modernizing Asia', ed. Bina Agarwal (London: Zed, 1996) 175-198.

11

See: Chatterjee, Resolution of theWomen's in Partha, "The Nationalist Question" eds. Kumkum and Sudesh Vaid Women, (New Brunswick: Recasting Sangari Rutgers University Whitehead, Judith, models, Mothering, to Indian Sociology, Press, 1998) 233-253. See also: the motherhood "Modernizing and the Child Marriage Restraint 186-209. 29, 1 & 2, (1995): and Kumar, pp.34-36, Public health archetype: Act of 1929," Contributions

34

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Gandhi's

'Fallen'

Sisters

12 Collected Works

Gandhi Mahatma (henceforth CWMG). of Government and Broadcasting, of Information Ministry 14-9-1934. like Harijans," 515, "Almost Harijan vol. 59, no. 605, Tetter to Meliscent Shepherd." women

Publications of India,

vol.

Division, 64, no.

>GO ZT =5

13 CWMG 14 CWMG

Gandhi, M. K., "Work among unfortunate left to experts," Young India April 16, 1925. from Young India 28 September, 29, 1931.

everywhere

must

be

15

Ibid. p. 185; quote vol.

1925.

16 CWMG 17 Gandhi,

52, Bombay

Chronicle

August Social

Mohandas, 1942),

Women 183, quoting

and

Publishers, 18 Gandhi, 19 Gandhi, 1925. 20 See: Delhi,

from Young 183. p. 186-8;

(Ahmedabad: Navjivan Injustice India September 15, 1921.

Women Women

and Social and Social

Injustice, Injustice,

quote

from Young

India,

June 25,

Forbes, 2005).

G?raldine, Press,

Women

in Modern in Colonial The

India India

(Cambridge: (Chronicle 20

University

1996), and Women See also: Kumar, on Women,"

Cambridge Books: New and Kishwar, 5 8c 12

Madhu,"Gandhi

Economic

History of Doing, and Political Weekly

and also 1753-1758; Patel, 1691-1702, 1985): Sujata, in Gandhi," Economic and Political Weekly ofWoman Reconstruction (20 Feb. Movement in the Indian Nationalist Suruchi. Women 1988), 377. See Thapar, Unseen 21 22 Faces and Unheard in Colonial Voices India, 1930-1942 42. (Sage: New Delhi, 2006).

(Oct "Construction

Forbes, Women Partha Women's Vaid, Chatterjee

Question," 233-253. New vol. 31 no.

of the Resolution this point well in "The Nationalist explores in Recasting Women, edited by Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Brunswick: Press, 1993. Rutgers University 295 "Speech at Public Meeting," Madaripur, June 13, 1925.

23 24 25

CWMG Kishwar, CWMG

1691-1702, vol. 23, no. at Public

1753-1758.

42, Speech The Hindu 26 This Dr.

vol. 40, no. 112, "Notes," Young India June 8, 1921. CWMG in 11, 1927, published Chidambaram, September Meeting 1927. 13, September community such as

term has long been problematized by those in the Dalit it as being patronizing. who viewed B.R. Ambedkar, celebrated particularly "the widow's manner

2 7 Gandhi

him to the example of Basanti Devi, who prompted See CWMG vol. 32, June is the glory of Hinduism." 17 1925; "Ganga Swarup Basanti Devi," Navjivan June 28, 1925. On this issue as on to feminist is Gandhi's well, open emphasis critique. The widespread position a means to control their sexuality, often in the interest widows' celibacy has been treatment of this theme, of preserving property within families. For an excellent declare: see Chakravati, (New Delhi: Uma, Kali Rewriting History: forWomen, 1998). The Life and Times ofPandita Ramabai

35

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Social

Scientist

ON O o rd ZJ S-_
i?i cd ZJ c rd o ? rN

28

Gandhi, Women 25, 1925. Skaria, 976.

and Social

Injustice,

p. 186-8; figure quoted

in Young

India

June

29

-O

30 Ibid.
31 32 Ibid., CWMG January 33 34 CWMG, CWMG CWMG 1926. 980. vol. 27, vol. vol. vol. 22, no. 1921. 64, no. 92, no. 36, no. 515, "Almost like Harijans," Harijan Harijan 14-9-1934. 137, "Non cooperation means self purification, " Navjivan,

144, "Notes,"

GO O co

September Monster,"

15, 1946. Young India July 19,

35

129, "The Hydra

Headed

36 37

CWMG

vol.

76, no.

30 "Meaning

of Prohibition," Gandhi,

Harijan Women

June 17, 1939. and social injustice,

>

"?

See passage p.179.

on "Plague

spots of Lucknow,"

38

See: Banerjee, York: Monthly in nineteenth 21, 9-11 1860-1940: Societies, Service, India:

in Colonial the Raj: Prostitution (New Bengal, "Prostitution Ratnabali, 2000). See also: Chatterjee, of class and gender," Social Scientist, century Bengal: Construction and Rule, Pauline, in Calcutta, "Prostitution (1993): 233-253, (159-172) Sumanta, Under Review Press, The pattern of recruitment" in Class, eds. Gail Pearson and Lenore Manderson Sen, Ideology and Woman Asian in Asian Research 1999). (Hong Kong: and Labor Samita, Women Cambridge University

1987) 65-79. See also: The Bengal Jute Industry

in Late Colonial Press,

(Cambridge:

39

have

have been forced into it. As feminists studying the sex trade more become prostitutes palatable they are cast as figures when victims of social circumstances, and they lose their sympathetic appeal when they are endowed with agency. See: Kamala and Doezema, Jo, eds., Global Kempadoo, and noted, Sex Workers: and Redefinition (New York: Routledge, 1998), Rights, Resistance, also McClintock, "Sex Workers and Sex Work: Social Text Anne, Introduction," 1-10. See also: Pheterson, Gail, The Prostitution Prism (Amsterdam: 11, 4 (1993):

I chose to stay in prostitution. by this analysis to deny that women there is a danger when the structural forces of emphasizing of also reading prostitutes' lives through another middle class impoverishment standard of assuming that prostitutes couldn't possibly choose the profession, recognize that that they must

I do not mean

Amsterdam Barisal despite 40 41 CWMG Alter,

Press, 1996). University as Gandhi saw them: women he offered. 30, "Meaning

So

itmay

be useful on

to see the women staying in prostitution

of

who

insisted

the alternatives vol. 76, no.

of Prohibition,"

Harijan,

June 17, 1939.

Nationalism Joseph, Gandhi's Body: Sex, Diet, and the Politics of (University of Pennsylvania The Un Press, 2000): Claude, p.xi, 6. See also Markovits, Gandhian Gandhi: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma Anthem, (London: in India: A and Renunciation 2004). Roy, Parama, "Meat-Eating, Masculinity Grammar of Diet," in Gender and History, 14, 1 (2002): 62-91.

Gandhian 36

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Gandhi's

'Fallen'

Sisters

42

prominent (1969) and Kakar psychoanalytic (1980), biographies, by Erickson describe these episodes. Kakar also highlights Gandhi's sorrow over being in bed with his wife and not being by his father's side when the latter died. See Erik Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence Erikson, Gandhi's (New York: W.W. Norton, Press, 1969), 1980). Mahatma of Gandhi (New York: Smithmark and Sudhir Kakar, Intimate Relations (University of Chicago

Two

> CO zr l ZJ H eu 3 ZT CD

43

Payne, Robert, The Life and Death Publishers: 1969): 38. Payne, Payne, CWMG, Kakar, On 75. 90. vol. 101. the biography 59, no. 65.

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

this issue, see also (1980) 181-2; analysis

by Payne. of such an approach. 1921. in Bengal," Young India 1925.

Kakar's Ibid., CWMG,

is the best example India

quote

from Young

15 September, prostitution

"In response 25-27. 158; Alter Indian 24.

to a letter about

52 Alter, 53 54 55 56 57 Payne, CWMG, CWMG Payne,

Opinion

April

26,

1913. Navjivan September 30, 1928.

vol. 43, no. 63, "Curing 161. lauded

sex obsession,"

well-known

of the Salvation Army in Bombay, the that since the 1890s had picketed organization at corners of "notorious said that "there is no reason why some streets"; Gandhi on a such thing should not be organized large scale." CWMG Harijan September 4, 1937. Christian missionary 186-209. vol. vol. 16, no. 55, "Message 18, no. 282, to Gujarati Sin," Hindu Stri Mandai," 14, 1919. India, India, September September 1, 1921. 1, 1921. Nov 14, 1917.

In this context Gandhi

the actions

58 Whitehead, 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 CWMG, CWMG CWMG CWMG CWMG CWMG Gandhi,

"A Shameful

September Young Young

vol. 24, no. 90, "Ethics vol. 24, no. 90, "Ethics vol. vol. 32, no. 32, no.

of Destruction," of Destruction," at Rotary at Rotary

194, "Speech 194, "Speech K, Democracy, Publishers, 283. "How

Club," Club,"

August August

18, 1925. 18, 1925. by R.K. Prabhu

Mohandas

(Ahmedabad: 66 CWMG 1919. vol.

Navajivan 18, no.

real and deceptive, 1942). to Remove the Blot,"

compiled

Young

India

October

1,

37

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Social

Scientist

ON O o cd s -O I cd ZJ cz rd
csi O

67 68 69 70

CWMG CWMG CWMG CWMG 1922.

vol. vol. vol. vol.

20, no. 24, no 24, no. 26, no.

55, Young 126, "Speech 82, "Speech

India April at Madras,"

28,

1920. September August Hamilton," 15, 1921. 25, 1921. Young India June 4,

at Dibrugarh," to Sir Daniel

77, "Letter

71

CWMG Gandhi's David, 1997).

19, no. 13, "Speech at Bhagini Samaj." on idioms to discipline religious of the Devi," and transformations "Origins vol. reliance ed. Ranajit Guha (Minneapolis:

David

Hardiman

has criticized See: Hardiman, Studies Reader: Press,

his followers. in A Subaltern

1986-1995,

University

of Minnesota

O Z PO > o

72 73

CWMG

vol. 27, no. 255, "The Whisper Women and Social

of theWheel," p. 184-185

Young on

India April

17,1924. meeting,

See Gandhi's

and p. 186 on the Madaripur 74 CWMG vol. 40, no. 267,

Injustice,

the Noakhali

meeting. "Speech at Ashram Pudupalayam," March 21, 1925,

published inTheHindu March 22, 1925.

75 76 77 CWMG CWMG CWMG, 22, 78 1906. 5,"Letter to Immigration vol. 21, no. 230. Oct 27, 1920

vol. 4, September vol. 5, "Letter

2, 1906. Restriction Officer, Durban," September

to Immigration

vol. CWMG, 22, 1906. CWMG, CWMG September vol. vol.

Restriction

Officer, Durban,"

September

79 80

13, no. 18, no.

221. 270, "Significance of Fiji struggle," published in Navjivan

7, 1919.

38

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