Introduction

India plays a central role today in the economic, social and political infrastructure of South Asia. However, it is a land of contrasts, where great wealth coexists with grinding and devastating poverty; where violence against women is rampant even though a vital and active feminist movement fights for women's rights; where sexuality is celebrated in the erotic temple sculptures of Konark, and in ancient texts such as the Kamasutra (Art of Love) and there is widespread sexual repression and control over women's sexuality.

Prostitution in India has taken myriad forms historically, and in the current contemporary context. In the pre-colonial period, India experienced different forms of prostitution. These included: religious prostitution or the devadasi system, where young girls entered in a symbolic marriage with god, but were considered sexually available to men; and the tawaif or courtesan system, where young girls were trained in classical dance and music but also engaged in sexual services with their clients. It was only in the colonial period, however, that prostitution and ‘red-light areas’, as we know them today, were created. The British army in India had a policy of supporting the creation of such regulated zones around cantonments, railway stations and working-class areas in urban centres where young single men lived. Prostitution was conceived of as a necessary evil, to meet the sexual needs of young men (Ballhatchet, 1980, p 79).

Many of these red-light areas have survived in urban centres, including Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi, and here prostitution takes the form of a highly organised and internally regulated brothel system. In other parts of the country, including rural India, the sex trade is more informal and unregulated. The pre-colonial forms of prostitution, including the devadasi and tawaif systems still survive, though are much amended, and are often difficult to distinguish from the brothel systems. At the upper end of the sex trade are ‘call girls’, who are in many cases educated and middle-class women, who operate independently or through a mediator.

The national context

Scholars agree that it is very difficult to measure the ‘status of women’, especially in the context of a large and diverse country such as India (Radha Devi, 1993; Kishor and Gupta, 2004). While women in India theoretically enjoy a number of legal rights, in practice these are denied to them.