Brahmanical patriarchy and the politics of anti-trafficking and prostitution governance: from colonial to contemporary India

Abstract

Brahmanical patriarchy alongside the close relation of prostitution with human trafficking continues to mould contemporary anti-trafficking and prostitution governance policies in India. This study examines such relationships and breaks down how brahmanical patriarchy as a caste-driven hierarchy between the genders has shaped the historical and contemporary governance of human trafficking and sexual commerce, its political economy and its consequences for marginalised groups. It underlines how, originating in the colonial period, the components of brahmanical patriarchy advanced the marginalisation of women in sexual commerce by influencing anti-trafficking governance. In addition, it has produced the marginalisation of other communities such as religious minorities and immigrants, in contemporary times. This study suggests that it is the intersection of (colonial and/or current) political-economic interests and socio-cultural hierarchies and controls such as brahmanical patriarchy (as in this case of India) that moulds anti-trafficking and prostitution governance measures, continuing the marginalisation of subalterns such as sex workers, migrants and minorities.

Keywords:

• Brahmanical patriarchy
• anti-trafficking
• sex work
• colonial India
• governance
• migration
• minorities

Introduction

I had chosen to go ahead as a sex worker, nobody pressurised me [sic]. This is my profession, just like other jobs. Had I wanted to move out of it, I could have done so a long time ago. Now, the government is pushing for rehab, but they don’t understand that sex workers are not perceived by the society with dignity. (Kusum quoted in Ghosh 2018)

This statement of a consenting adult sex worker from Delhi reveals a volume of social contestations against the governance of anti-trafficking and sexual commerce in contemporary India. She gave this statement in the media while registering her protest against the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) bill (anti-trafficking bill), which was passed in India’s lower house of Parliament in 2018. Like her, thousands of other sex workers registered similar protests across India against this bill (Bhattacherya 2018; DNA Correspondent 2018; Ghosh 2018). Such a response instigates many queries and problems in the current anti-trafficking and prostitution governance system. For instance, why does the government push to prevent and rehabilitate consenting adult workers from involvement in sex work through the proposed anti-trafficking reforms, and why are sex workers not perceived with dignity by society? Such perceptions about the dignity of sex workers signify a social hierarchy and social identity of sex workers that are shaped by caste-driven societies in India, motivating this study to examine anti-trafficking and prostitution governance through a political economy and caste perspective, especially by applying a framework of brahmanical patriarchy.

Brahmanical patriarchy refers to the caste-driven patriarchal hierarchy, which is ensconced in the social, political and governance arrangements of India and is the key component of the hindutva world view that the current far-right government propagates in India (Rege 1998; Omvedt 2000; Arondekar 2009, 2012; Rao 2009; Chakravarti 2015; Arya 2020; Chacko 2020; Chhachhi 2020). As Chhachhi notes, hindutva is a political and ideological project that constructs a nation state blending a pure singular (Hindu) identity with being Indian, seeking to establish an exclusivist majoritarian nation (Chhachhi 2020, 53). Chhachhi argues that ‘one of the key components of Hindutva is the principle of “brahmanical patriarchy,” a world view and structuring of the social order which is based on upper caste notions of purity and impurity’ (Chhachhi 2020, 55). This exclusivist majoritarian social order of hindutva and brahmanical patriarchy (as its key component) not only places women of lower caste in a subservient position but also spitefully controls and regulates those (individuals or communities) who do not qualify for such a pure singular (Hindu) identity (Chhachhi 2020), including sexual and religious minorities as well as domestic and international migrants. For instance, the current hindutva establishment in India has produced and amended laws such as the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) that marginalises muslim migrants, and which permits Indian nationality for non-muslim minorities from neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan but excludes muslims, resulting in the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that identifies and deports or detains ‘illegal migrants’, labelled as infiltrators from Bangladesh (Chhachhi 2020).

Recent Indian anti-trafficking regulation is also imbued with norms rooted in brahmanical patriarchy, targeting migrants and marginalised communities. For instance, in recent years, the Indian government presented several versions of an anti-trafficking bill in the public domain and parliament, which also criminalises and draws stringent attention to the provisions of ‘illegal migration’, regulating the mobility of migrants and immigrants and concentrating their deportation in the form of ‘rehabilitation’ (Prasad 2015; DNA Correspondent 2018; Pattanaik and Sullivan 2018; Tandon 2018a; Sinha 2019). Pattanaik and Sullivan underline that such provision is not only anti-migrant and discriminatory but also misrepresents the reality of migration (Pattanaik and Sullivan 2018). Pai argued that certain clauses of the anti-trafficking bill endanger freedom of expression (in Chandra 2018). Nalini Nayak notes that it fails to address changing forms of labour exploitation (Nayak 2018). Dasgupta (2018) and other experts and activists, including United Nations (UN) experts, pointed out that such reforms will make the sex workers less safe and will lead to an increase in violence against migrants and sex workers, and silence them (Chandra 2018; Giammarinaro and Boola 2018). Such issues have been understood and raised from the perspective of human and labour rights, yet the framework of brahmanical patriarchy is less applied in analysing such anti-trafficking governance, which offers a critical lens to understand social and political economy implications of anti-trafficking governance and its impact on marginalised populations, along with the examination of colonial historical wrongs of anti-trafficking governance in India.

The historical colonial reforms of anti-trafficking governance primarily focussed on prostitution and formulated anti-trafficking policies targeting sexual commerce (Kannabiran 1995; Banerjee 2000; Sreenivas 2011). The governance of sexual commerce is interlinked with the anti-trafficking governance because of the Victorian definition of human trafficking as prostitution in colonial India (see Irwin 1996). It resulted in politics and policy amendments affecting sex workers and other marginalised communities such as devadasis. Such amendments were also supported by native upper caste reformers of colonial India, which, as scholars argued, were aimed to reproduce brahmanical patriarchal norms (Omvedt 2000; Chang 2012; Arondekar 2009; Tambe 2009a; Legg 2014b). Present policy reforms in India also reflect a relationship between the prostitution and anti-trafficking governance, indicating a close synonymity of prostitution with human trafficking as well as the influence of Brahmanical patriarchy on Indian anti-trafficking governance approaches, which continues to marginalise communities such as sex workers in contemporary India. Focussing on this relationship and intersection between regime reforms and brahmanical patriarchy, this study develops its analysis on anti-trafficking governance policies in two segments: colonial and post-colonial India. It examines how the combined influence of brahmanical patriarchy and reforms of respective regimes shaped the historical and contemporary governance of human trafficking and sexual commerce, and explores their political economy implications for marginalised subaltern groups and individuals.

This study argues that the combined influence of brahmanical patriarchy and reforms of respective regimes on anti-trafficking governance, in both colonial and contemporary India, advanced the marginalisation of individuals in sexual commerce. In addition, contemporary anti-trafficking measures in India render other communities (such as religious minorities, migrants, immigrants, etc.) marginal, which indicates a (re)assertion of (hindutva) hierarchies, including brahmanical patriarchy. The focus of analysis in this study is contextualised at the level of India, aiming to contribute to the policies and debates in the realm of anti-trafficking governance in India. It is primarily because the analytical framework that looks into brahmanical patriarchy appears relevant yet less studied in India’s context of anti-trafficking governance. Also, albeit at a minor level, by exemplifying the case of India, it also contributes to and invites reflection on the international debates related to power relations, political economy, and socio-cultural influence and its inattention in international approaches such as the UN framework on anti-trafficking governance. This study concludes that it is the intersection of (colonial and/or current) political-economic interests and socio-cultural hierarchies and controls (such as brahmanical patriarchy) that moulds anti-trafficking and prostitution governance measures in India, enduring marginalisation of communities such as sex workers, minorities and migrants.

Brahmanical patriarchy and its relation with multiple patriarchies: a theoretical framework

Patriarchy is an essential frame in feminist analyses of power relations (Walby 1989). In its classic interpretation, the notion of patriarchy explains oppressive gendered dynamics. Some feminists look at patriarchy as universal (see Nicholson 1990), whereas other feminists view patriarchy through its interwoven relation with economic, political and colonial structures (Eisenstein 1979; Walby 1989; Calixte, Johnson, and Motapanyane 2005; Baldry and Cunneen 2014). For instance, the critique of a universally homogeneous patriarchy underlines the neglect of concerns such as race, nation, class and caste (Patil 2013; Baldry and Cunneen 2014; Chakravarti 2015; Arya 2020).

The concept of caste-based brahmanical patriarchy, as Gail Omvedt also suggests, was first used by historian Uma Chakravarti (Omvedt 2000). Chakravarti conceptualised brahmanical patriarchy as ‘effective sexual control over women to maintain not only patrilineal succession but also caste purity’ (Chakravarti 1993, 579). Further, Arya notes that

Indian social structure is founded on graded inequality ensuring hierarchical value to its members based on caste firstly and then gender …. Brahmanical patriarchy includes in its very conceptualisation that all individuals are allotted a particular position of privilege and deprivation, and the resultant violence and discrimination to the lower caste groups. (Arya 2020, 222)

Scholars also argue that norms of brahmanical patriarchy exert control on political economy, gender, caste, legal structures and the state, along with sexual control on women and their purity. For instance, Gail Omvedt points out that

brahmanism supported a hierarchical structure with community limited to jatis [caste] and with a differentiated patriarchal repression of women: high-caste women were dominated by family patriarchy, bahujan [lower caste] women were dominated more by state patriarchy which was concerned to maintain them as exploited labourers. (Omvedt 2000, 188–189)

Brahmanism here refers to traditional norms of hindu society that are driven by caste hierarchies. Katju explains that the brahmanical patriarchy is a way of talking about the relationships among gender, caste, the economy and the state (Katju 2018). Brahmanical patriarchy, in the simplest terms, hence denotes caste-based patriarchy and power relations, aiming at inequitable gendered supremacy, ‘purity’ and privileges of upper castes (savarna) in prevailing social, political, economic and caste structures in India (Chakravarti 1993; Rao 2009; Ramberg 2016; Arya 2020).

Rather than being confined to higher caste groups (Chakravarti 1993, 2015; Omvedt 2000; Chhachhi 2020), scholars have also identified patriarchal controls within the lower caste groups. For instance, scholars such as Omvedt (2000), Guru (1995), Arondekar (2009, 2012), Rao (2009), Ramberg (2014, 2016) and others have underlined patriarchal domination within the dalits (lower caste), identifying what is referred to as ‘caste masculinity’ and ‘dalit patriarchy’ (Ramberg 2014, 2016; Arya 2020). Yet what appears important is that such patriarchies are not completely unentangled with the brahmanical patriarchy and its hierarchical norms. For instance, Arya (2020) and Jha and Sharma (2016) points out the brahmanical oppression as the underlying reason for dalit (lower caste) men’s patriarchal conduct, emphasising that patriarchies in India are graded and contained according to the hierarchical brahmanical caste system. Scholars also situate women from lower castes as double sufferers of caste and gender, with privileges going to upper caste and brahmanical authority (Guru 1995; Rege 1998; Omvedt 2000; Shah 2014; Arya 2020). This therefore suggests that, in the context of India, brahmanical patriarchy continues to shape and influence the hierarchies of privilege and social orders, which also structure and shapes the patriarchal domination within lower caste communities.

Scholars have also noted that brahmanical patriarchy was shaped and ‘modernised’ by the influence of colonial rule and its patriarchy in the metropole. For instance, Gail Omvedt notes that under British rule, this ‘feudal form of brahmanism gave way to the modernised, updated, “reformist” brahmanism which constructed an image of “Hindu woman” transcending caste differences but drawing to a considerable degree from the patriarchy of traditional brahmanism’, referring to what she called as ‘new brahmanism’ (Omvedt 2000, 189). Whitehead also documents that a group of western-educated Indian upper caste and class reformers absorbed many attitudes of Victorian social purity movements in India, using terms similar to the British ones, to eradicate prostitution in India (Whitehead 1995, 51). Patil termed this influence colonial patriarchy, referring to gendered patriarchal hierarchies that were observed in the colonial metropole and also shifting to and shaping the local patriarchies in the colony (Patil 2013). It thus indicates how upper caste reformists absorbed British terms and colonial patriarchies to influence the governance of prostitution. Drawing on these interlinked relations of brahmanical patriarchy with other patriarchies, this conceptual framework therefore offers benefit to this study to revisit and examine the combined and intersectional influence of colonial reforms and brahmanical patriarchy on the political economy of prostitution and anti-trafficking governance in colonial India, and how brahmanical patriarchy still influences the governance of prostitution and anti-trafficking policies in contemporary India.

Combined influence of regime reforms and brahmanical patriarchy on anti-trafficking and prostitution governance in colonial India

The existing literature offers less focus on the impact of anti-trafficking and prostitution governance policies by analysing regime reforms and their intersection with brahmanical patriarchy. This sub-section will draw on this focus and illustrate how their combined influence created marginalisation among sex workers and other marginalised communities in colonial governance.

Colonial governance: interests and impacts

Colonial India commenced reforms on governance of prostitution through policies such as the Cantonment Act of 1864 (CA) and the Contagious Disease Act of 1868 (CDA) that resulted in the penalisation and stigmatisation of sex workers. For instance, by portraying Indian female sex workers as ‘vectors of disease’ and ‘symbols of vice’, CDA enforced compulsory registration and medical checks among sex workers, the failure of which resulted in penalisation (Banerjee 2000; Chang 2012; Tambe 2009a). Tambe notes that by resulting in forced incarceration for an indefinite period, the Indian CDA was far more coercive than the English CDA (Tambe 2009a). Also, under the CA, authorities divided sex workers into two classes: (i) those frequented by European soldiers and (ii) those outside that category (Banerjee 2000; Tambe 2009a). Shah argues that ‘this move toward institutionalizing prostitution through official colonial military policy had a number of consequences, including that of heightening official concerns about maintaining racial “purity”’ (Shah 2014, 151). It reveals how initial colonial reforms pertaining to the governance of commercial sexual services institutionalised race and gender hierarchies, resulting in coercive incarcerations and stigmatisation that ensued in the marginalisation of sex workers.

The colonial policies that portrayed sex workers as ‘vectors of disease’ in the nineteenth century morphed into framing women sex workers as ‘victims of trafficking’, intending to promote colonialism as a ‘civilisation’ project. For instance, the regimes in colonial India instrumentalised the murder of a sex worker, Akootai, to assert colonialism as civilising project against increasing anti-colonial sentiments. It is because of this situation that India’s entry into the League of Nations as a mature colony and the interwar situation during that period encouraged constitutional anticolonialism, producing mounting pressure¹ for responsive measures (Chang 2012; Tambe 2009a; Legg 2014a, 2014b). In 1917, Akootai was tortured and murdered by her brothel keeper in Bombay. After the death of Akootai, the regime produced a series of reports that aimed at determining the conditions of sex workers and assessing whether the provincial laws concerning brothel abuse were sufficient for existing situations or not (Chang 2012; Legg 2014b). In December 1917, the government of India sent a request to the provincial government to report on such matters. Responding to such requests, Commissioner F. Booth Tucker wrote, on 16 September 1918, ‘In reference to the case of the little girls who are now practically sold in slavery to the brothels in Calcutta, Bombay and other cities …. It seems quite on par with the evils of Sati [and] girl infanticide’.²

Chang argues that Tucker’s comparison between sex trafficking and the practice of sati and girl infanticide aimed to depict sex work as a product of Indian barbarity (Chang 2012). The reports from provincial governments, however, showed data that disproved such a sketch of Indian barbarity. For instance, in response to the 1917 inquiry, local governments, except for Punjab and the North-West Frontier, asserted that such conditions did not exist in their jurisdiction (Legg 2014b). Unsatisfied with this response, the regime established the Shuttleworth Commission in 1919 to survey the social conditions of sex workers in each city (Chang 2012; Legg 2014b), resulting in reforms such as the enactment of a Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (SITA) during the 1920s and 1930s. It identified sex workers as ‘victims’ of trafficking and criminalised activities related to sex work ( Legg 2014b). This shift (from ‘vector to victim’) in language and policy strengthened the regime’s narrative at international forums in providing testimony regarding the unpreparedness for self-rule and thus the legitimisation of colonialism in India (Chang 2012; Tambe 2009a). Yet, essentially, it also reflected how colonial patriarchy was shifted in the colony; as Patil suggests, the shift in modern colonial patriarchy from classic language (of authority and rights) to paternal caretaking was intended to promote colonialism as a civilising project for the colonies (Patil 2013). A consequence of this change of governance was the criminalisation of sex workers, a move that was also supported by western-educated and upper caste Indian reformers, intersecting colonial governance with the components of brahmanical patriarchy.

Intersection of colonial governance with brahmanical patriarchy

Colonial anti-trafficking regulatory reforms were aided by native anti-colonial reformers and upper caste elites to establish a legal system that drew on brahmanical norms, reflecting the intersection of colonial governance with brahmanical patriarchy. For instance, the support of western educated and upper caste reformers for colonial policies on the governance of sexual service and human trafficking in India changed the status of devadasis from ‘sacred servants’ to ‘profane prostitutes’ (Kannabiran 1995; Omvedt 2000; Arondekar 2009, 2012; Sreenivas 2011; Ramberg 2014). The Sanskritic term devadasi earned meanings like the servant of the god, slave of the god, or maid servant of the god. As Hackney notes, ‘modern scholarship defines the devadasi as a woman who married a temple deity, provided artistic services for temples she served, and gained income for her services’ (Hackney 2013, 2).

The shifts in the situation and reputation of devadasis in colonial India are unfolded in two broader, combined contexts: the economic-political interests of the British regime and the new brahmanical ‘reformist’ agenda of upper caste elites. For instance, as Sreenivas explained, the colonial establishment’s fiscal and political matters resulted in new regulations and the reframing of devadasis as ‘traffickers’ or ‘victims’. Traditionally, devadasis benefitted from ritual privileges and income from the tax-free land grants known as inams. Sreenivas noted that ‘the prospect of reducing tax collection by granting inam lands didn’t sit well with colonial administrators’ (Sreenivas 2011, 84). The colonial administrators recognised that ownership of some inam land was necessary for securing political support within agrarian society. This is because in the absence of such tenures, as Sreenivas states, cultivators could leave the land, withhold taxes, or undermine the state’s revenue collection (Sreenivas 2011, 84). Such concerns contributed to the enactment of colonial policies such as The Madras Hindu Religious Endowments (Amendment) Act of 1929 (Madras Act, 1929), which ended inam grants to devadasis, leading to situating devadasis under the purview of human trafficking to criminalise and penalise devadasis as traffickers or social ‘evils’ (Kannabiran 1995; Sreenivas 2011; Ramberg 2014). Sreenivas documents that the colonial regime sought to regulate the temple economy and therefore called into question the position of devadasis through anti-trafficking laws (Sreenivas 2011). Framing them as ‘social evils’, ‘traffickers’ or ‘victims’ resulted in disenfranchisement of devadasis from resource entitlements and reputable social locations (Kannabiran 1995; Omvedt 2000; Arondekar 2009, 2012; Sreenivas 2011; Ramberg 2014).

These reforms were resisted by devadasis, but devadasis did not receive support from native upper caste anti-colonial reformers, which resulted in their further marginalisation. For instance, the colonial courts subsequently started positioning devadasis as prostitutes, which was not the construct of the courts before 1870s. The courts also asserted that devadasis who adopted daughters were trafficking in minors for prostitution, resulting in stigmatisation, criminalisation, and incarceration of devadasis as traffickers (Kannabiran 1995; Sreenivas 2011). As Arondekar notices from the work of feminist historians, including Janki Nair, ‘colonial regulatory reforms were aided … in large part by nationalist efforts to establish legal systems that drew on brahmanical norms that further erased devadasi structures from visibility’ (Arondekar 2012, 250). Arondekar highlights that devadasi reforms were efforts to transform diverse (Hindu-based) family structures and resonate with Victorian models of heterosexual marriage and patriarchy (Arondekar 2012). Along with feminist historians such as Kumkum Sangari, Sudesh Vaid and Lata Mani, Arondekar notes that this privileged and benefitted the upper caste women (Arondekar 2012). As the theoretical framework indicates, it further signifies how brahmanical patriarchy and Victorian colonial patriarchy from the metropole was interlacing and shaping the domestic discourses on anti-trafficking and sexual commerce, including standpoints of anti-colonial upper caste native reformers.

The domestic anti-colonial upper caste native reformers did not see sex workers and devadasis as ‘pure and chaste’ caste women in their imagination of independent India and supported the stance of ending this source of livelihood. For instance, Tambe reveals that ‘Indian nationalists and campaigners utilized colonial measures and legal currents to advance an agenda that positioned the state differently but in ways that did not significantly reduce the problem of violence against prostitutes’ (Tambe 2009b, 122). In 1921, when sex workers intended to join the then anti-colonial Congress Party and contribute to the Tilak Swaraj fund (Tilak Self-rule fund), Congress and upper caste anti-colonial campaigners, including, M. K. Gandhi,³ refused to allow them membership (Tambe 2009a, 2009b). Gail Omvedt points out that both upper caste and British rulers were complicit in this process that ‘saw brahmans as the elite representatives of a broader “Hindu community”’, and “Its creators were not the orthodox like Tilak [who created the Tilak Swaraj fund] but even more the reformists’ (Omvedt 2000, 189). It reflects social and sexual control on the basis of purity and chastity, uncovering how the components and control of brahmanical patriarchy affected the governance of sex workers and devadasis.

Sex workers and devadasis were also stigmatised and belittled as ‘shameful’ and ‘degrading’ bodies by native anti-caste reformers and campaigners, who considered it necessary to follow heteronormative norms like women of upper caste and Victorian colonial patriarchy (Rao 2009; Ramberg 2016). For instance, in Bombay in 1936, Ambedkar, a prominent anti-caste thinker and reformer, addressed sex workers and devadasi women from the Kamathipura red-light district of Bombay, arguing that

The Mahar women of Kamathipura are a shame to the community. Unless you are prepared to change your ways, we shall have nothing to do with you, and we shall have no use for you. There are only two ways open to you: either you remain where you are and continue to be despised and shunned or you give up your disgusting professions and come with us. … You will ask me how you are to make your living. There are hundreds of ways of doing it. But I insist you must give up this degrading life. You must marry and settle down to normal domestic life as women of other classes do and not live under conditions that inevitably drag you into prostitution. (Rao 2009, 66)

Ramberg also claims that ‘B. R. Ambedkar himself was quite clear that nonconjugal forms of sexuality were incompatible with Dalit (lower caste) progress’ (Ramberg 2016, 244). This stance of anti-caste campaigners instigated complex interpretations in critical scholarship about the treatment of (lower caste) sex workers and devadasis. While this stance of anti-caste campaigners reflects patriarchal hierarchies within the caste group, importantly, it also reveals what Gail Omvedt points out in the context of brahmanical patriarchy: that ‘lower groups seek to increase their status in the hierarchy by emulating the lifestyles and “dharma” of the upper castes’, pointing to what she refers to as a ‘Sanskritisation’ process under brahmanical patriarchy (Omvedt 2000, 189). It also indicates what scholars argued (as mentioned in the theoretical section): that men’s patriarchal conduct within lower caste groups is situated within the underlying reason of the brahmanical oppression, emphasising that patriarchies in India are graded and contained according to the brahmanical caste system (Jha and Sharma 2016; Arya 2020). It also points to emulating western colonial patriarchy and biases against sex workers; as Whitehead notes, anti-brahmanical reformers ‘unconsciously adopted the class and gender biases of western sanitary science’, in opposing certain forms of brahmanism (Whitehead 1995, 59).

In the context of this study, what correspondingly appears pertinent to underline is that such positionality of anti-caste native reformers in colonial India, regarding communities such as sex workers, devadasis and their sexuality, (re)situated such individuals and communities at the bottom of the gender and social hierarchies. It further indicates the consequences of the ‘Sanskritisation’ process under brahmanical patriarchy or colonial patriarchy and biases against sex workers. It hence shows the further marginalisation of women involved in commercial sexual services as double sufferers of gender and caste hierarchy, as also noted by Whitehead: ‘Reactions to commercial prostitution by reformers and revivalists foreshadowed a pattern whereby the reproductive function of women as mother became linked with the virtue of nationalist cause, while non-reproductive female sexuality symbolized by working-class prostitution was largely marginalized’ (Whitehead 1995, 59).

Overall, this sub-section underlines the combined interests and influence of colonial governance reforms and brahmanical patriarchy on anti-trafficking and prostitution governance in colonial India. As Whitehead (1995) notes, analyses regarding governance of sexual services in colonial India mainly concentrate on the standpoints of British administrators; this sub-section reflects on this and makes an additional contribution by showing how the domestic debates around sexual commerce were shaped during the nineteenth century, highlighting that the native norms of brahmanical patriarchy such as sexual control on women, purity, inequitable gendered supremacy, and privileges of upper castes also influenced and shaped the policies and perceptions, along with colonial governance. The combined influence of the British colonial regime and brahmanical patriarchy resulted in consequences such as stigmatisation, criminalisation, incarceration, victimisation and penalisation of sex workers (Tambe 2009a), indicating that such governance policies and reforms advanced the marginalisation of women in sexual commerce. Such marginalisation also continued in and passed over to post-colonial India, which is discussed in the next section.

Continuity of components of brahmanical patriarchy in anti-trafficking and prostitution governance in contemporary India

Caste hierarchy has remained an inexorable social and political enterprise since its formation in India. But, as Shah (2014) notes, the project of interlacing modernity with the caste discourse began during colonial India. This section will examine how such frameworks of colonial India crossed over to post-colonial India, what new reforms shaped policies on human trafficking and prostitution governance in present India, and what the implications of it are for the political economy of marginalised groups.

Brahmanical patriarchy in post-colonial anti-trafficking measures: from independence until 1980s

Anti-trafficking measures from India’s independence until the 1980s were linked more with measures established in the colonial period than with the post-1980s, indicating a continuity of components and the influence of brahmanical patriarchy. This is because the rise of the second and third waves of feminism during the 1980s and afterwards brought other nuances, including the internationalisation of United Nations anti-trafficking governance measures (Halley et al. 2006; Truong 2014; Wylie 2016; Kotiswaran 2018), which I will analyse in a later sub-section. This sub-section therefore focuses on anti-trafficking measures until the 1980s, examining how the components and influence of brahmanical patriarchy on the governance of human trafficking and prostitution crossed over from colonial India to the period following the independence of India.

After the independence of India, the influence of brahmanical patriarchy and colonial reforms continued on anti-trafficking governance measures. For instance, the government in independent India enacted the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (SITA), which was conceived and produced by regimes in the colonial period during 1920s and 1930s (Chang 2012; Sahni, Shankar and Apte 2008; Legg 2014b). As noted in an earlier section, SITA was endorsed for the complicit intention by the British to benefit its political economy interests and to avoid mounting⁴ anti-colonial/British pressure (Chang 2012; Tambe 2009a; Legg 2014a, 2014b). Yet, what remain less focussed and less well studied is how the construct of SITA and its components maintained, continued, and ensured the social constructs of brahmanical patriarchy, during and after the independence of India. For instance, as some scholars point out, the use of the acronym ‘SITA’ also represents a gift to native upper caste campaigners, who aided in colonial reforms and drew on efforts to establish a legal system of brahmanical traditions, involving brahmanical patriarchy (Arondekar 2012; Legg 2014b). Legg notes:

[…] while the title, Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act, drew upon the international discourses regarding trafficking and immorality of the time, the acronym ‘SITA’ also presented a gift to legislators and campaigners …. Sita is one of the most revered Hindu goddesses, abducted by the demon king Ravan, and rescued by Ram, an incarnation of Vishnu …. After her rescue, doubts remained among the common people about the sexual loyalty of the pregnant Sita, which led Ram to insist on a public trial by fire to prove his wife’s sexual purity … Sita represents the perfect wife: knowledgeable, wise, rescued, tried, and controlled. The twentieth century would see the model of the perfect, complementary wife venerated and politicized, a figure in many ways dialectically constructed against the image of the denounced and apolitical prostitute. (Legg 2014b, 96)

Legg insists that the SITA fit into a long line of legislative interventions that sought to delimit and define the sexual and gendered position of Indian women (Legg 2014b, 96). It suggests that the assertion of control over women’s sexual relations, embedded in the socio-cultural context of India, thus draws an imaginary of Indian women that emulates the piety and purity of conventional goddesses. Components of brahmanical patriarchy such as control on sexual purity and sexual relations hence appear to be materialised through the provision of the SITA legislation in independent India, which not only criminalised women involved in transactional sex but also drew out the measures for rescuing such ‘unchaste’ women. It reflects how brahmanical patriarchy continued its influence on and significance for post-colonial anti-trafficking governance. The same legislation and acronym SITA continued to be used from 1956 until it was amended in 1986 in post-colonial India.

The 1986 amendments produced the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1986 (ITPA), which remains at present the primary legislation on anti-trafficking governance. The key amendment in the provisions of ITPA rests on the replacement of the acronym SITA with ITPA, because the ITPA continues the major provisions of SITA, barring a few minor changes (Sahni, Shankar and Apte 2008). For instance, identical to SITA, ITPA conflates sex work with trafficking. The use of the term ‘Immoral’ indicates the brahmanical imaginary of purity and chastity, as such synonymity of trafficking with sex work constructs sex work as ‘immoral’ commerce. Section 6(1) of ITPA sets a punishment of imprisonment from 7 years up to a life term, or 10 years with a fine, ‘for sexual intercourse with a person not a spouse’ (Government of India 1956; NALSA 2004). The use of phrases like ‘sexual intercourse with a person not a spouse’ in Section 6(1) dictates control on sexual relations, even if there is consent. The term ‘not a spouse’ signifies the parallel control and construct of pure woman and wife that anti-colonial campaigners envisioned in their imaginary of an independent India, which further indicates the continuity of the components and influence of brahmanical patriarchy on governance of anti-trafficking and prostitution.

While ITPA still exists in India as a law, the new measures after the second wave of feminism and the United Nations framework added new governance interventions, which leads me to examine whether the new measures made any significant changes to or challenged components of brahmanical patriarchy in present-day India, or not.

Has recent internationalised anti-trafficking reform challenged brahmanical patriarchy?

As noted in the conceptual section, components of brahmanical patriarchy include control on sexual relations, privileges to caste individuals, and graded inequality ensuring hierarchies on the basis of social orders and gendered identities, among others (Chakravarti 1993; Omvedt 2000; Arya 2020; Chhachhi 2020). The previous sub-section underlines that such components continued to exist in post-colonial India before the second wave of feminism in the 1980s and the internationalisation of anti-trafficking governance in early 2000. This sub-section analyses this internationalisation of anti-trafficking governance by applying the framework of brahmanical patriarchy and examines whether it impacted existing policies and components of brahmanical patriarchy or not.

Internationalisation of anti-trafficking governance in the contemporary world is ingrained in the second wave of feminism, resulting in the production of the United Nations framework on anti-trafficking governance (Wylie 2016). The second wave of feminism in the late twentieth century contributed to advanced reforms, regarding women’s rights and emancipation. It also engaged with the questions of women in sex work, resulting in a difference and diversity of perspectives among feminists (Shah 2014; Wylie 2016). For instance, campaigners identified as abolitionists support the perspective that prostitution invigorates patriarchal violence and sex workers are the victims of trafficking (Truong 2014; Wylie 2016). Shah writes that,

Abolitionist discourses on prostitution … conflate prostitution and trafficking by (1) excluding nonfemale sex workers (male, transgender, and hijra sex workers) from its analytic frame, (2) framing women doing sex work as utterly powerless victims who do not ‘have’ agency, and (3) conflating prostitution and violence. (Shah 2014,  198)

The abolitionist perspective foregrounds rescue and rehabilitation of sex workers, and advocates criminalisation of sex work, which is challenged by anti-abolitionist campaigners. Rescue and rehabilitation in the contemporary context, as Shah also notes, ‘entails extrajudicial removal and detention in remand homes, often through raids conducted by a combination of police and NGOs [non-governmental organisations]’ (Shah 2014, 132). Such measures are contested by anti-abolitionists, focussing on the agency of such rescued individuals and of sex workers generally, including aspects such as gender, human and labour rights (GAATW 2007; Truong 2014; Wylie 2016). These discursive but active politics and engagement of feminists also contributed to the production of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (UN Protocol) in 2000 (Wylie 2016). In India, such debates, administrative reforms and politics of contestation gained currency after the ratification of this UN protocol in 2011 (Kotiswaran 2018; Dube, Chakraborty, and Winterdyk 2019).

The UN Protocol claims to provide the first international definition of human trafficking, thereby internationalising a universal anti-trafficking governance structure (GAATW 2007; Wylie 2016). While it extends the scope of trafficking to sectors other than sex work, it also promotes raiding, rescues and criminalisation of sex work, conflates sex work with trafficking, and denies consent. In the context of India, these provisions are largely established under the ITPA, but the ratification of the UN Protocol also extended the scope of such provisions to industry sectors other than sex work. For instance, India amended Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code in 2013 to resonate with UN protocol. The amended Section 370 (re)defined human trafficking as follows:

Whoever, for the purpose of exploitation, recruits, transports, harbors, transfers, or receives, a person or persons, by using threats, or using force, or any other form of coercion, or by abduction, or by practising fraud, or deception, or by abuse of power, or by inducement, including the giving or receiving of payments or benefits, in order to achieve the consent of any person having control over the person recruited, transported, harbored, transferred or received, commits the offence of trafficking’. (Government of India 2013, 4)

Thus, the consent of the victim is immaterial in determination of the offence of trafficking. This definition resonates with the UN protocol definition and differs from ITPA, as ITPA focuses only on the purpose of prostitution. Identical to the UN protocol, Section 370 also denies consent (see Government of India 2013), reproducing a framework that links Indian anti-trafficking policies with the campaigns of abolitionists.

The campaigns of abolitionists also followed the state’s attempts to make a new anti-trafficking law, which was tabled in Indian parliament in 2018. Serious engagement with this bill started after a petition by abolitionist NGO Prajwala in 2014 in the Supreme Court (Supreme Court of India 2004; Kotiswaran 2018; Tandon 2018b). As a response to this petition, the Supreme Court ordered the National Legal Services Authority (NLSA) to become involved, which instituted a NLSA committee. The list of NLSA committee members suggests that abolitionist campaigners were overrepresented, and it did not include members representing opposing perspectives such as sex workers or non-abolitionists (NALSA 2004; Kotiswaran 2018), indicating a graded inequality in representation. The consequence of sidelining opposing perspectives (such as sex workers’ perspective) on the NLSA committee is that the NLSA report recommends a policy that endorses abolitionist policy perspectives, which was also shown in the provisions of the anti-trafficking bill in 2018 and 2021 (Kotiswaran 2018; Reuters 2018; Trivedi 2018). It was resisted by sex workers, experts, and activists.

Resistance to such reforms from opposing groups builds on anticipated harms that these reforms and the anti-trafficking bill entail. For instance, Kajol Bose, a sex worker and secretary of Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC; a collective of over 65,000 sex workers) stated that if this bill becomes law, there will be an increase in raids, resulting in police intimidation and marginalisation of women in sex work (Dasgupta 2018). Nisha Gulur, a trans sex worker and member of the National Network of Sex Workers, stated that

This Bill does not differentiate between trafficking and consensual sex work and forces rescue and rehabilitation on us. I can tell you, as a sex worker, that the two are separate. I came to this work through my own desire; I’m not asking to be rescued. I can fundamentally stay anywhere in India – but according to this Bill, a magistrate will decide where to send me for rehabilitation. This violates my rights. (quoted in Bhattacherya 2018)

The statements of both Bose and Gulur suggest that the current anti-trafficking reforms continue to frame sex work as sacrilegious, violate individuals’ rights, reproduce hierarchies, and marginalise sex workers. An overview of the provisions of such reforms further suggests forced rescue and rehabilitation of sex workers, as it does not acknowledge the consent to work and conflates sex work with trafficking. It underlines aspects such as control over sexual relations, hierarchies on the basis of identities and graded inequality, indicating a close correspondence to the components of brahmanical patriarchy (eg control on sexual relations), especially in the context of India. As Arya notes, ‘Brahmanical patriarchy includes in its very conceptualisation that all individuals are allotted a particular position of privilege and deprivation’ (Arya 2020); the denial of positions of privilege (such as consent or representation on committees), and the deprivation of sex workers’ agency and rights in anti-trafficking measures, hence signify such privileges and hierarchies, denoting that the exclusion of the perspectives of marginalised groups persists in the current system of anti-trafficking governance. It also implies a resemblance to situations of the colonial past (as noted in an earlier section) where caste-privileged reformers silenced the resistance of devadasis against anti-trafficking policies by supporting colonial reforms, reflecting that brahmanical patriarchy is not significantly contested by such internationalised reforms in current India.

The internationalised reforms and current politics of anti-trafficking governance thus have not significantly challenged, dismantled or disaffected existing policies in India. For instance, the UN Protocol’s conflation of sex work with trafficking resonates with SITA’s conflation of prostitution with trafficking. It also equates with rescue and criminalisation measures. The situation may or may not be the same in the socio-cultural contexts of other countries, but considering the historical context of hegemony and social control of caste-based hierarchies in India, it appears that the campaign of abolitionists and the internationalisation of anti-trafficking governance has not diminished or otherwise impacted the components that constitute or reinforce brahmanical patriarchy. In addition, over the past few years, such reforms have raised multifaceted concern in the domestic political economy context, because of the rise and politics of the current hindutva regime, which is discussed below.

Anti-trafficking governance amid emerging concern under the hindutva regime

In 2014, India’s government was taken over by the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), the political arm of a far-right hindutva organisation called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that publicly propagates the brahmanical ideology, including hindutva’s key component: brahmanical patriarchy (see Dismantling Global Hindutva 2022.; Banerjee 1991; Chhachhi 2020). After taking control of the national government, BJP has been involved in aggressively formulating and implementing laws that control the rights of marginalised groups who do not fit into its belief of hindutva, especially minorities and members of lower caste groups. For instance, as stated in the introduction section, the implementation of CAA and NRC denies citizens’ rights to muslim minority migrants and takes away their existing Indian citizenship; they are furthermore deported or detained in detention centres by labelling them as ‘illegal migrants’ or ‘infiltrators’ from Bangladesh (Chhachhi 2020). Reports suggest that such legal policies of this hindutva regime has affected 4 million people in India’s north-eastern state of Assam. These 4 million are largely people of immigration descent who migrated to and have lived in India for years with various kinds of Indian identity papers. They have now been deprived of their Indian citizenship, and have been framed as ‘illegal migrants’ or ‘foreigners’ in the lists of the NRC (AlJazeera 2019).

While such framing of a minority community as ‘illegal migrants’ in CAA and NRC has affected the entitlements of 4 million people, what appears even more concerning and perilous is that this language about ‘illegal migrants’ and provisions of criminalisation regarding them have also been added in the recent policy reforms of anti-trafficking governance. For instance, Section 32 (xi) of the proposed anti-trafficking bill of 2018 included a provision stating that if someone even ‘encourages’ or abets a person to ‘illegally’ migrate to India or from India, then that perpetrates an aggravated form of trafficking, leading to stringent punishment for life or not less than 10 years at minimum (Government of India 2018; Pattanaik and Sullivan 2018). The term ‘encourage’ and the use of the phrases ‘illegally migrate’ and ‘to India or from India’ in section 32 (xi) suggest intentions of controlling and containing international (undocumented) migration and the informal facilitators of such migration. In addition, they also reflect the conflation of migration with trafficking, as consent is considered invalid. This conflation of international ‘illegal’ migration along with the existing discourse framing the minority community as ‘illegal migrants’ in CAA and NRC implies an apprehension of disproportionate targeting of migrant minorities (similar to CAA), along with the targeting of sex workers because of the conflation of prostitution with trafficking. As experiences of sex workers suggest (see Sangram 2018; Walters 2018a; Najar 2021), such targeting implies interventions such as forced detentions, ‘rescues’, or forced deportation in the name of rehabilitation of such immigrants. It signifies that the current anti-trafficking reforms under the hindutva regime not only marginalise sex workers, but also rendere other groups such as minorities and migrants potentially vulnerable. As Chhachhi suggests, hindutva and brahmanical patriarchy not only locates women of lower caste (or sex workers) in a subservient position but also regulates those (individuals or communities) who do not qualify to have a pure singular (Hindu) identity (Chhachhi 2020). Such intensifying apprehensions under current hindutva dispensation thus further attest to the continuity of components of brahmanical patriarchy in anti-trafficking governance, reflecting that such policies not only act on but also marginalise migrants and minorities.

Conclusion

This study underlines the combined and intersectional influence of regime reforms and brahmanical patriarchy on anti-trafficking and prostitution governance. That the existing critical scholarship has not focused on the framework of brahmanical patriarchy for analysing anti-trafficking and prostitution governance indicates a relative gap in the literature. This study contributes to filling the gap by exploring these intersectional relations, inviting further debate and discussion.

This study underlines that anti-trafficking and prostitution governance in India served in the past and continue in the present to extend the interests of the regime and components of brahmanical patriarchy. It results in reproduction of gendered and social hierarchies in a way that creates marginalisation of subaltern communities as its consequence. For instance, this study underlines how the reforms on anti-trafficking and prostitution governance resulted in the dispossession of land, stigmatisation, criminalisation, and incarceration of sex workers and devadasis in colonial period. It also underlines how such reforms and governance measures were applied to retain the privileges of upper caste, British colonial interests, and components of brahmanical patriarchy, such as control on sexual relations and the ‘purity’ and ‘chastity’ of native women, in the imaginations of anti-colonial native reformers.

In the later section on post-colonial and contemporary India, this study underlines that the governance of anti-trafficking and sexual commerce did not decolonise its colonial legal reforms, which extends the provisions and components of brahmanical patriarchy in post-colonial period. In addition, the article underlines that the internationalisation of anti-trafficking governance, including the UN Protocol, failed to challenge existing hierarchies, controls and components of the brahmanical patriarchy. It thus produces harms and marginalisation as its consequence. Recent studies also point to such marginalisation and problems. For instance, Najar (2021) draws on the experience of sex workers in India and contends that two decades of the UN Protocol imply epistemic violence. A study by Kimberly Walters highlights that eight out of 10 times, anti-trafficking interventions rescued women against their will in the name of saving them from sex trafficking in India (Walters 2018b, 2018a; Walters and Ramachandran 2018). Simanti Dasgupta underlines that the current anti-trafficking measures have rendered sexworkers voices inaudible (Dasgupta 2014). Ahmed and Seshu document that the anti-trafficking interventions in India destabilise HIV programming for sex workers, impacting their health (Ahmed and Seshu 2012). A report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences found that girls in shelters were experiencing rape and sexual violence perpetrated by state officials (India Today Web Desk 2018; Walters 2018b). These studies clearly reflect how the anti-trafficking and prostitution governance in contemporary India continues the marginalisation of sex workers. It also underlines that reforms under current hindutva dispensation are indicative of multifaceted vulnerabilities, which marginalise minorities and migrants, along with sex workers.

In sum, in response to the statement (in the introduction) of a consenting adult sex worker that raises questions such as why the government forces rehabilitation upon consenting adult sex workers through the anti-trafficking reform, why sex workers are not perceived by society with dignity and so on, the present analysis suggests that it is the intersection of (colonial and/or current) political-economic interests and socio-cultural hierarchies and controls such as brahmanical patriarchy (in this case of India) that moulds anti-trafficking and prostitution governance measures, continuing the marginalisation of subalterns such as sex workers, migrants and minorities.

Acknowledgements

The author expresses his gratitude to Prof. Karin Astrid Siegmann, Prof. Inge Hutter and Prof. Amrita Chhachhi for their regular support, critical insights and reflections on this work. The author is also thankful to Prof. Simanti Dasgupta and Dr Joop De Wit for their comments and insights on earlier versions of this work. The author also thanks the anonymous peer reviewers for their comments and helpful insights. Last but not least, the author appreciates and thanks his research participants, friends, family and colleagues for being a continuous source of inspiration and support during the progress of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jaffer Latief Najar

Jaffer Latief Najar works as a PhD researcher with the International Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, The Netherlands. He has previously contributed to research and policies on anti-trafficking governance in India by working in collaboration with several United Nations agencies, the Government of India, NGOs, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India. His research interests include a focus on urban poor, migration, governance, labour political economy, gender justice, bottom-up community practices and governance, de-colonial epistemologies and practices, street-level bureaucracy, transformative methodologies and development policies.

Notes

1 For example, see the article “A Dreadful Case,” The Times of India, April 16, 1917, 8; cited in Chang (2012, 12), documenting criticism by anti-British nationalists against the government and its legitimacy of rule over India in the local press after the death of Akootai.

2 Home Department, 1919. Proposed Adoption of Measures for the Prevention of Inhuman Practices Obtaining Brothels & Proposal of the Appointment of Women Police Officers to Aid in the Suppression of Brothels. Police-A, Aril, Nos. 173–189. New Delhi: National Archives of India, cited in Chang (2012, 12).

3 Tambe recorded that, ‘although Gandhi’s positions sometimes drew on the more common view of prostitutes as women whose "honour" and "chastity" had been stolen by "unscrupulous" men, he far more often presented prostitutes themselves as "thieves of virtue"’ (Tambe 2009b, 33). Also see Chang (2012), Tambe (2009a, 2009b) and Legg (2016).

4 For example, see the article: “A Dreadful Case,” The Times of India, April 16, 1917, 8; cited in Chang (2012, 12), documenting criticism of anti-British nationalists against the government and its legitimacy of rule over India in the local press, after the death of Akootai.