Image Courtesy: Wikipedia

On 24 January 2019 Divya (name changed), a girl from Lingadahalli of Bagewadi taluk and Vijayapura district was allegedly gang-raped and killed. Divya belonged to a Dalit family in the village and her mother was a devadasi. She was attacked by unidentified men while the elders were out at work and her body was hung from the thatched roof of her hut to appear like a suicide. The photographs of the crime sight, however, show her feet flat on the floor. Speaking to Newsclick, Huchangi Prasad, a Kannada writer and a Dalit rights activist from Davangere, said that these findings show her death as a murder. He also noted that the local police was refusing to file an FIR. The Dalit organisations in the region are protesting to get the case registered.

Prasad said, “the fact that the police is refusing to file an FIR raises various questions about the case and the media which is otherwise always ready to “break” news, but has now turned blind to the case.” In the email to Newsclick, which brought the case to our notice, the writer-activist wrote, “Dearest, Baba Saheb Ambedkar, I do not think Divya, who was like my sister, would die the way she did if the Constitution written by you was being followed.” As he rightly observes, such a case, happening just a few days before the 70th Republic Day bears testimony to discriminatory and violent practices like devadasi system that is still in practice.

According to Grace Nirmala Mallela, “there are around one million devadasis in India; about 90% of them belong to the Dalit communities and lower segments of the backward classes. While talking about devadasis, the story of their “eventual decline” in society is reiterated. However, it is important to note that it is not as black and white as it seems. Why are women of a specific caste and class dedicated to gods? – This has been widely discussed question for a long time now. However, the larger question, as Prasad points out, is: In these times of women empowerment of the governments declaring “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” what is the future of the betis of devadasis?

Artists and Sex Workers
The present-day devadasi system is a continuation of the custom of dedicating girls to the life of a devadasi by the lower castes. In her article, “The Devadasi, Dharma and the State”, historian Janaki Nair, writes that the devadasis were and are different from Basavis. She refers to the work of Ananthakrishna Iyer’s on Mysore Tribes and Castes in the early 1930s, to note that, “The bedars, dombars, holeyas, madigas, kilakkyatas and voddas often dedicated their girls as basavis at the local temples.” This practice was prominent among the families with no sons and those who were struggling to meet their daily needs.

Although the dedication of girls below 18 as basavis was made an offence under Section 372 of the Indian Penal Code, the law was not absolutely against it. One of the reasons for this negligence as Nair points out could be because “the basavi’s duties within the temple, however, were only nominal.” In Iyer’s words “they did not prostitute themselves promiscuously for hire as the devadasis”. Thus their “links with the temple institution were far more tenuous than those of the devadasis,” whose performances remained central to the temple rituals until the last decade of the 19th century.

It is often said that the Devadasi were associated with the artistic performances and offerings to the divine in the temple. Yet Nair argues, “there are no known direct references to dancing in the temple in the oldest books of dance theory, the Natyashastra and the Abhinaya Darpana.” Interestingly, she continues, “Inscriptional evidence from medieval Karnataka is more revealing. This was first mentioned in the 11th-century collection of stories, the Kathasaritsagara. The available historical records and evidence reveal that it was only in the 11th century that the devadasis became the artists of the temple and the royal court.

Before the 11th century, when temple women were assigned specific duties, the word “sule” (meaning prostitute) only existed in inscriptions. It was only in the 11th century, when the temple as an institution was expanding, that the word “patra” (meaning singing/dancing girl) was gradually attached to them. The word “devadasi” itself is conspicuous by its absence in this period (Though it was still present in the inscriptions of neighbouring regions as well as in the ‘vachana’ literature of the Virashaivas). By the 12th century, when the temple as an institution had expanded considerably not only in size but in the complexity of rituals performed, specific duties were assigned to temple women. Indeed, the temple complex increasingly came to resemble the king’s court, and the devadasi’s relation to the deity approximated the courtesan’s relation to the king.”

Thus, both arguments, one claiming that the devadasis enjoyed a status of importance, and the other, that they were sex workers, have an element of truth in them. First, the Devadasis received grants from the temples and the kings, thus owning wealth. However, Nair cautions us against such oversimplification, “We must not exaggerate the power enjoyed by devadasis, who despite their relative autonomy nevertheless remained dependent on that triad of men within the political economy of the temple, the priest, guru and patron. Yet, since her sexual services were embedded within the wider cultural sphere of symbolic and material exchanges in the temple, the devadasi enjoyed a position quite distinct from those of proletarianised sex workers.” The genealogy of the present-day form of the Devadasi system draws back to not the wealthy and powerful artistic authorities but to the Basavis of the lower castes.

The demand for the abolition of the devadasi system in both Madras and Mysore presidencies has remained active since 1869. The torch bearers of this demand were the upper caste Hindu men, for whom, a devadasi represented immoral practices in the temples.  According to Janaki Nair, this could be because by then the devadasis had grown into wealthy and powerful women and the upper caste male sensibilities refused to be economically and socially subordinate to these lower caste women. Whatever the reason for the demand, in 1909 the Mysore government passed an order to completely abolish the system.

The Betis of Devadasis
As explained earlier, the Devadasis who were part of the temple rituals declined with the decline of the power and role of the temple complexes. However, the dedication of Basavis continued. Even to this day, on a particular full moon day called Bharat Hunnime, thousands of girls are dedicated to gods and goddesses in various places in Karnataka. The Karnataka Devadasis (Prohibition of Dedication) Act had come into effect in 1982 abolishing the devadasi system. The Act, however, criminalised the devadasis. Instead of criminalising the practice of dedicating a five-six-year-old girl to the temple, the Act criminalised the girls for being dedicated. This shows the hold that the upper and dominant castes, pujaris, pandits and religious heads have on the state.

On 12 February 2016 according to a report in The Hindu, a Supreme Court bench of Justices F.M.I. Kalifulla and S.A. Bobde directed all States and Union Territories, especially Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, to strictly enforce the Centre’s order to check “undesired and unhealthy” practice of forcing young girls into becoming devadasis. Irrespective of the legislation in place, the system continues with the patronage of landowning classes, upper and, dominant castes and religious leaders. As Huchangi Prasad observes, “devadasi system is an indication of the upper caste Hindu society’s refusal to retract from Manu’s laws meant to oppress women.”

In the recently concluded conference, the devadasis reiterated their 12-point charter of demands which includes effective abolition of the devadasi system in the state and a compensation of Rs. 5000 per month as pension to all devadasi women. So far, the women have launched many agitations and protests in the state. After the mass dharna in Bengaluru on June 12, 2007, the then state government was forced to provide pensions and social security measures. However, the pension amount was a meagre Rs. 1,500 per month.

The devadasis are now demanding a survey to secure social benefits for the children of devadasis. At present, women who are 45 years old and above get the pension. They are demanding that the age limit should be brought to 24-25. Another major demand is that the children of the devadasis should get inheritance rights over the property of their biological father.

---

Yogesh S is part of the editorial collective of the Indian Writers’ Forum.

 

Expanding Worlds: mural on the wall of a girls high school depicting career options for women. Photo: Rita Banerji

Modi’s initiative was all the more surprising, given that Gujarat had recorded the lowest Child Sex Ratio (CSR) for girls under his stewardship as state minister.  Modi’s views on women often infuriated women’s activists, for example when he attributed  the high rate of malnutrition among girls under five in his state to dieting and fashion consciousness.  However, as Prime Minister, his Save the Girl campaign appears to have the imprint of Maneka Gandhi’s (the Women and Child Development Minister) independent thinking on women’s issues.  Mr. Modi observed that female genocide  is a national “crisis” although his plea to let girls live and to educate them was framed as the ‘Prime Minister… begging for the lives of daughters’ rather than in the language of rights.

India’s female genocide is widely attributed to poverty and illiteracy even though data and facts say otherwise. As India’s most recent census data from 2011 shows, the CSR, which is the ratio of girls to boys from birth to six years, is best among the poorest and least educated communities. Globally a CSR of 950 girls to 1000 boys is considered ‘normal’.  CSR in India gets worse in proportion to increases in wealth and education. The wealthiest states have a CSR of 850 and below, much lower than the national CSR of 914 in the 2011 census, itself the lowest since India’s independence. This correlation between increase in wealth and a corresponding increase in the rate of killing of girls in the 0-6years age group is repeated across the spectrum in neighbourhoods, districts, villages, cities and states. 

Even a religion wise comparison reveals that the worst CSRs are to be found among the wealthiest communities: the Sikhs and the Jains. Conversely, the highest CSRs are among the tribal and lower caste communities who are also the poorest and least educated.  Yet even among the tribals, when there’s access to wealth through education and jobs, there is a corresponding decline in CSR.  Kerala, with its matrilineal past and no history of female infanticide, had a higher than national average CSR which was always attributed to its high literacy rate (almost 92%). However by the 2011 census Kerala too showed a drop of 8.44% in CSR with reports of rampant foeticide and infanticide. This corresponded with an influx of wealth (almost $20 billion/year) into this historically communist state from Indians working overseas.

What is this driving compulsion to be rid of daughters, particularly with upward social mobility? The answer is dowry – the insidious, misogynist, patriarchal politics of wealth ownership and distribution. The more wealth a family accrues, the more invested it becomes in the patriarchal retention of that wealth and views daughters as a threat to that goal.  Indeed, the more educated a daughter is, and wealthier her family, the bigger the dowry she is expected to bring. Dowry is seen as a way of dispensing with a daughter who then can make no further claims on the family’s inheritance, but because of their education daughters are increasingly fighting for their legal share of parental property. On the other hand, a man not only has an inherent right to his own parents’ property but to his wife’s parents’ wealth too. A son is an easy means of wealth acquisition; the more educated he is, the larger the dowry the family feels entitled to demand. Indeed there are openly exchanged dowry rate charts that list copious amounts of cash, luxury cars, property and gold and diamond jewellery by the kilos.  In fact wealthier neighbourhoods record the highest rates of dowry violence and dowry related murders and suicides.

Nonetheless, this clear correlation of wealth and education with female genocide is anything but an evil-rich and pious-poor divide. The factors that save girls in poorer and illiterate communities, or at least don’t kill them in the same high proportions, are an inverted extension of the same patriarchal system in which women are simply dehumanised and turned into buyable, sellable, usable and disposable commodities. Daughters in poorer homes are allowed to live because as children they can be put to the economic servitude of their families. Poor families use daughters for cleaning, cooking, fetching fuel and water, and for earning an income for the family.  Millions of girls are leased or sold by their families for work as domestic help in urban areas, as labour in fields and factories, and to the sex industry.

Another thriving business involves the sale of thousands of girls as ’brides’ through a network of agents to wealthier states with low sex ratios. These girls are kept as slaves, to sexually abuse, to bear babies, and are abused and exploited by all the men of the house, before they are resold as ‘bride’ to another family. In Hyderabad, there’s a flourishing business where wealthy paedophiles from Gulf countries pay poor Muslim families handsomely to arrange a temporary “marriage” with their underage daughters, who they enslave, abuse and divorce before returning to their countries. There are also thriving baby trafficking networks, often operating out of government orphanages, where the babies, all girls, can be bought for as little as Rs 5000/- (approx. £60) from poor tribal communities.

However, there are also numerous tribal communities like the Bedia, the Banchada, Kanjar, Sansi and Nut, where traditionally the sex trafficking of daughters and sisters has been a primary source of income for families and is considered a ‘family trade.’ These communities are also known to openly auction the virginities of their daughters as young as ten, for large sums to the highest bidders. The 2011 census’s CSR for the Bedia population shows an interesting anomaly.  While tribal communities generally have normal CSRs of about 950, census data shows the Bedia community with a CSR of 1276, which is abnormally high.  Investigations reveal that tribal communities like the Bedia and Nut have interstate networks to traffic girl babies, who they  adopt and raise as their own ‘daughters’ and prep for the ‘family trade’ by injecting them with hormones to sexually develop them by the time they are seven and eight.

Although the ‘Save the Girl, Educate the Girl’ campaign is well-funded, its emphasis on rhetoric instead of strategic and well thought out projects puts into question its ability to accomplish its goals. Common sense says that the focus needs to be on the middle and upper classes where census data shows CSR to be the worst. Yet, the campaign focuses on rural and poorer districts, instead of targeting the more powerful classes for fear of a political backlash.
 

A popular rural project that’s been massively funded by this campaign is the planting of trees at the birth of a daughter. The logic behind planting trees is that fathers of girls can harvest these trees to pay dowry. Encouraging the custom of dowry, the very factor contributing to female genocide, contradicts the campaign’s aims. Two of the most important and likely to be effective projects suggested at the campaign’s inauguration unfortunately have not yet seen the light of day, and must be implemented.  One of these projects is putting up public boards that note the CSR of every neighbourhood, on a monthly basis, thereby forcing members of communities to be watchful of and accountable to each other. These particularly must be set up in urban, middle and upper class areas in coordination with police and legal cells for effective action.  

The second recommended project that must be implemented is the compulsory registration of all births and deaths of girl children. Additionally, there must be a system of compulsory monitoring of all girls till they reach the age of 15, as 95 % of girls are killed or go missing between the ages of 1-15 years. Indeed, the low CSR is often falsely assumed to be due to sex-selective abortion.

The breakdown of the CSR census data shows that more than 84% girls are actually killed from age one to six years.  Less than one million girls were eliminated through sex selection and/or killed as infants after birth and up to age one. But by age six, that number escalated and  7 million girls were exterminated. 

In order to save girls, the implementation of these two projects must be the campaign’s number one priority.

Rita Banerji is a writer, photographer and gender activist. Her book 'Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies' is a historical study of the relationship between gender, sexuality and power in India. She is the founder and director of The 50 Million Missing Campaign, a global campaign to end India's female gendercide. Twitter handle: @rita_banerji

This article was first published on openDemocracy.