Non-cooperation fervour in Banaras spiked with Gandhi’s visit to the city on November 25, 1920. In the two days he spent here, Gandhi addressed several meetings. He spoke at the Banaras Hindu University, where he was cheered by a huge gathering of students, even as Madan Mohan Malaviya remained in the background. He addressed a meeting at the Town Hall too, where a mammoth crowd of 20,000 people gathered on the afternoon of November 26 to hear Gandhi speak of colonial exploitation, of the imperative to protest, and to boycott British-made goods and institutions of the state in order to gain complete freedom based on the principle of satyagraha, or truth-force. The pursuit of truth, he said, shuns violence against the opponent, who must instead be weaned away from error by patience and compassion.Unknown to Gandhi, a group of tawaifs, led by Vidyadhari Bai, had been part of the vast gathering at the Town Hall. They had been informed about the meeting by Prem Kumar Khanna. Disenchanted by the moral hypocrisy of his erstwhile Hindu nationalist allies, he was now a regular visitor in the tawaif localities.Prem Kumar had lost none of his earlier fervour against the tawaif tradition. His critique of their lifestyle and art practices as immoral and obscene had, however, undergone a subtle transformation. Instead of his earlier feeling of revulsion and hatred, he now nursed a growing sympathy for tawaifs and prostitutes, whom he saw as victims in need of rescue, reform and rehabilitation.Tawaifnama by Saba Dewan (Context/Westland, 2019)His growing interactions with the many Muslims among them also made him question his previous communal prejudices and biases. Before his contact with the tawaifs, Prem Kumar had little or no acquaintance with Muslims in his city. His visits to Sultana’s home and those of other Muslim tawaifs made him increasingly aware of the ties of common language, culture and history that bound Hindus and Muslims together.Not surprisingly, Prem Kumar found himself drawn by Gandhi’s inclusive call for Hindus and Muslims to come together and liberate India from the yoke of colonial rule. Unmindful of ridicule from the so-called respectable classes of the city, he began to focus his energies upon converting tawaifs to the cause of non-cooperation and nationalism, in the hope that it would lead them to renounce what was, in his view, their demeaning means of livelihood.The tawaifs, while amused by his clumsy attempts to make respectable women of them, saw in Prem Kumar Khanna a useful counter to the hostility that came their way not only from nationalist quarters but society at large. Moreover, with time, many among them had begun to nurse a grudging respect, even affection, for their morally didactic, thick-headed but scrupulously honest and well-meaning foe-turned-ally. Agreeing to bhai-ji’s suggestion that they attend the Mahatma’s meeting at the Town Hall, Vidyadhari – who had been following with interest news about non-cooperation-inspired defiance of colonial rule in other parts of the country – had organised a group of tawaifs to accompany her to the gathering.Gandhi’s speech made a great impression upon many of them, especially Vidyadhari. She began performing nationalist songs in every mehfil she was invited to, renounced foreign-made cloth and began wearing only Indian hand-spun fabric.Over the coming months, Vidyadhari organised a series of smaller meetings at her home to enthuse other tawaifs to the cause of the Non-Cooperation Movement. She was joined in these efforts by Sultana, who too had been closely tracking the unfolding political scenario. Prevailing upon Husna Bai to call a meeting of the entire community, they had worked out the details of the agenda in consultation with the choudharayin and Prem Kumar Khanna.Early 20th Century potraits of courtesan performers, as featured in the documentary ‘The Other Song’ (2009) by Saba Dewan. Photographs courtesy: Kashi Sangeet SamajOnce Vidyadhari’s song came to an end, Husna Bai addressed the assembly as planned. After thanking Prem Kumar for taking out time to join the meeting, the old choudharayin spoke with characteristic eloquence of the great challenge facing the tawaif community. Times were changing. And tawaifs too would have to keep pace with a fast-transforming world. Mahatma-ji had unleashed a great and powerful storm that would no doubt blow away the British regime. Tawaifs, always on the forefront in earlier wars against foreign rule, would once again have to step forward and contribute their bit to the nationalist cause. This, Husna Bai said, pausing meaningfully, was not just their duty as daughters of this great land but also the need of the hour if they did not wish to be consigned to the dustbin of history.Except for Tara and Bindo, too young to appreciate the subtext of Husna Bai’s nationalist exhortations, everyone present in the hall well understood the real significance of her speech. While many among them had growing sympathy with the nationalist movement, they had also been following with rising apprehension news of renewed morality drives in its present phase.Following Gandhi’s visit to Banaras, local newspapers had been flooded with reports of city-wide meetings at the mohalla level, attended by all sections of the local population – Hindu or Muslim, rich or poor, upper- or lower-placed castes – to pledge support to the Non-Cooperation Movement. Similar meetings were organised too by specific community- and caste-based associations. Taking a cue from reports of developments elsewhere in India, participants at these meetings subsumed the nationalist agenda within an overarching umbrella of social and moral cleansing.[…]As the meeting in Husna Bai’s house drew to a close, Sultana presented the real reason behind the call for this gathering. On behalf of all present, she proposed a resolution that had been drafted after careful thought by her, Husna Bai, Vidyadhari Bai and Prem Kumar Khanna.The motion reiterated the allegiance of all present to the nationalist cause. Furthermore, it proposed the formation of the Gayika Sangh, a registered association of ‘singing and dancing girls’ that would protect the interests of its members and promote social and moral reform. Members of the Gayika Sangh would weed out obscenity in their performance of music and dance, abstain from the consumption of alcohol and other intoxicants, use only swadeshi hand-spun clothing and promote nationalism by singing patriotic songs on all occasions where they were invited to perform.The shift from ‘tawaif’ to ‘gayika’ is significant. Trying to keep pace with the changing times, tawaifs were attempting a makeover of their traditional identity – an identity that, under sustained attack earlier from colonial quarters and then by the nationalists, had become overlaid with connotations of immorality and sexual vice. More importantly, with the erosion in traditional structures of patronage and customary norms that had earlier protected their lifestyle and art practice, the tawaif community was now reinventing itself as a trade association operating within the legal framework of colonial political economy.The meeting concluded late in the evening with a vote of thanks moved by Vidyadhari Bai. Thanking Prem Kumar Khanna for gracing the assembly, she brought the proceedings to a close by announcing that a formal public meeting to pass the resolutions moved this evening would take place on the following evening, August 9, 1921, at the Adi Vishweshwara, the only major temple left in Banaras that still kept its doors open to ‘gayikas’.A report that appeared in Aaj on August 10 had this to say, ‘Yesterday a meeting of prostitutes was held in Adi Vishweshwara temple. It was presided by a framed photograph of Mahatma Gandhi. The meeting began with the prostitute Husna praying for the well-being of the Emperor. She also stressed that the prostitutes needed to reform themselves. Vidyadhari said that we ought to stand by the country in its hour of need … The prostitute Moti Bai spoke of the need to forsake singing of obscene songs. She also stressed upon the need for prostitutes to reform themselves. An organisation to work for the uplift of prostitutes, the “Gayika Sangh” was also formed.’The tawaifs of Banaras, when they cast their lot with Gandhian nationalists, were not to foresee his outburst a few years later against what he termed the ‘obscene manifesto’ of a group of tawaifs in Barisal. Their crime? They had organised efforts to help the poor, nurse the sick and support the cause of Gandhi’s satyagraha. Gandhi, when he encountered the group in 1925, declined to recognise them as Congress workers, or even accept their donations unless they gave up their unworthy profession, which made them ‘more dangerous than thieves; while thieves merely stole material possessions these women stole virtue’.Excerpted from Tawaifnama, by Saba Dewan, a well-researched multi-generational chronicle of one family of well-known tawaifs from Banaras and Bhabua, their lives, art practice and struggles. It was first published in 2019, but is relevant in the context of the fictional serial Heeramandi, which also speaks of Tawaifs’ involvement in the freedom movement.With permission from the publisher, Context/Westland.Saba Dewan is a documentary filmmaker.