The Courtesan Who Became a National Hero

Begum Hazrat Mahal

During the pandemic lockdown I spent several months learning about tawaifs, powerful courtesans during the Mughal era of India who operated houses where they were renowned as entertainers and instructors and were patronized by wealthy and powerful men. They were celebrated as artists, musicians, dancers, interior designers, and arbiters of etiquette as well as culture.

One of the most compelling stories I encountered was that of 19th-century woman Begum Hazrat Mahal. Born in 1920, she was sold by her parents and eventually became a tawaif and a wife of the shah of Lucknow. She was instrumental in directing a military operation during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, in resistance against her region’s occupation by Britain’s East India Company. She’s celebrated and revered in her homeland; in 1984, she even had her own stamp, as seen in the image at the top of this article.

When the British first encountered tawaifs, they were shocked by their sexual freedom and they hypersexualized them to discredit their intelligence and artistry, as so often happens when people who are seen as exchanging sex for money are stripped of all their other characteristics. It isn’t hypersexualizing them, in my mind, to see them as excitingly erotic or as sexual beings, but it IS hypersexualizing to dehumanize them by seeing them as therefore having no morals, no boundaries, no minds, no hearts, and no civil rights. People can work in the sex industry under the worst or best of conditions still remain multi-dimensional, producing art and culture and politics and spirituality and community and families and meaningful connections of love. And they can, like Hazrat Mahal, lead actions of military resistance against colonization.

This is the briefest introduction to her story. I’m not attempting to present this history in its fullness in a brief post. People from her culture have written about her, and I’d rather recommend their works than attempt to create my own, so I have recommended reading at the end of this article.

It just seems like a great time to think about rebellious whores working to overthrow the policies of an unjust government.

Above: clips from the 1985 film Tawaif. Tawaifs have long been popular, often sensationalized, characters in films, sometimes based on real people and sometimes entirely fictional. Tawaifs were more than subjects, however — they were significant agents in the development of the Indian film industry.

Further reading:

If you’ve never heard of this tawaif before, tell me what you think of her story! I’ve read two historical novels about her: Warrior Queen of Awadh and In the City of Gold and Silver. (Those links go to Amazon, but they’re not monetized.) There is also a fascinating and heartbreaking book about the effect of the British on tawaif culture called Tawaifnama by a documentarian that follows the effects of colonialism through generations of a single family.

Dewan, Saba. Tawaifnama. Westland, 2019.

Gaekwad, Manif. The Last Courtesan. HarperCollins, 2023.

Dhurva, Juhi. “Tawaifs: Their Descent and the first War of Independence.” Article

(What is sex work?)

(What is whorephobia?)

As always, I’m writing and publishing without an editor, so please feel free to offer corrections, suggestions, and advice.