Political players

Courtesans of Hyderabad

Bibliographic Data

ID8961600
AuthorsKaren Leonard (University of California, Irvine, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume50
Issue4
Pages423-448
Publication date2013-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Indian Economic & Social History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-4646 • E-ISSN: 0973-0893
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0019464613502414
OpenAlexW2073590780
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited24

Important recent works on the Mughal state and women in the Indo-Muslim world have not considered courtesans or tawa’ifs, the singing and dancing women employed by Indo-Muslim states and nobles, to be significant participants in politics and society. Drawing on detailed archival data from late nineteenth century Hyderabad state and other historical materials, I argue that courtesans were often elite women, cultural standard-setters and wielders of political power. Women whose art and learning gained them properties and alliances with powerful men, they were political players in precolonial India and in the princely states. They successfully negotiated administrative reforms in princely states like Hyderabad, continuing to secure protection and patronage while in British India they began to be classified as prostitutes. Colonial and modern India have been less than kind to courtesans and their artistic traditions, and more research needs to be done on the history of courtesans and their communities

Ancient history · Colonialism · Economics · Elite · Management · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Singing · State (computer science · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law

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