Tawaif

[1][2] Known variously as tawaifs in North India, Baijis in Bengal and naikins in Goa these professional singers and dancers were dubbed as “nautch girl” during the British rule.

[6] The tawaifs excelled in and contributed to music, dance (mujra), theatre, and the Urdu literary tradition,[7] and were considered an authority on etiquette.

People think of them as prostitutes, undermining their value as great musicians.”[8] On 12 May 2024, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper described tawaif as "cultural idols and female intellectuals".

Ganikas were trained in fine arts like dance and music in order to entertain kings, princes, and other wealthy patrons on religious and social occasions.

[13] The patronage of the Mughal court in the Doab region and the subsequent atmosphere of 16th century Awadh made arts-related careers a viable prospect.

[14] Many girls were taken at a young age and trained in both performing arts, including mujra, Kathak, and Hindustani classical music, as well as literature, poetry (particularly ghazal), thumri, and dadra.

The training of young tawaifs also encompassed urdu writing and enunciation, as well as social skills employed in cultivating patrons and retaining them, particularly the complex etiquette associated with their craft, in which they were seen as experts.

[18] Once a trainee had matured and possessed a sufficient command over dancing and singing, she became a tawaif, high-class courtesans who served the rich and noble.

Young girls regularly spent hours in riyaz, learning songs and dance to the exacting standards set by their teachers.

[21] The tawaif's introduction into her profession was marked by a celebration, the so-called missī ceremony, that customarily included the inaugural blackening of her teeth.

[22] It is also believed that young nawabs-to-be were sent to these tawaifs to learn tameez and tehzeeb which included the ability to recognise and appreciate good music and literature, perhaps even practice it, especially the art of ghazal writing.

The uppermost echelon of tawaifs was entrusted with the responsibility of teaching adab (etiquette) and qa'ida (manners) to the kings and young princes.

The kotha of a tawaif is a performance space and as a guardian of arts and culture, and is only open to the city's elite and wealthy patrons.

[21] In these rarified spaces, tawaifs would compose poetry, sing and dance with live musical composition, as well as performing at banquets, all of which required years of rigorous training.

[citation needed] Like the geisha tradition in Japan,[25] their main purpose was to professionally entertain their guests, and while sex was often incidental, it was not assured contractually.

Despite this, British men were happy to take local women as concubines and mistresses but were uninterested in becoming patrons of the formerly well tolerated tawaifs of Lahore, and even less interested in spending lavish sums upon them.

A number of singers from Pakistan also were tawaifs, including Zeenat Begum and Tamancha Jan.[31][32][33] The annexation of Oudh by the East India Company in 1856 sounded the first death-knell for this medieval-era institution.

It was soon looked down upon with disfavour by the colonial government, and the tawaifs were eventually forced to go into prostitution due to a lack of employment opportunities.

The earliest singers to record for the gramophone, in the early 20th century, came from tawaif backgrounds, as did the first actresses of Parsi theatre and, later, the ‘talkies’, films with sound.

In the 1980s, when kothas were no longer recognized as centres for aesthetics, and society disapproved of the tawaif's art, as they felt it was sex work in the guise of adakari (performance).

Explore the lives of the tawaifs or dancing girls on a heritage walk through the streets of Shahjahanabad with Enroute Indian History.