ABOUT THIS BOOK
Unfinished Gestures presents the social and cultural history of courtesans in South India who are generally called devadasis, focusing on their encounters with colonial modernity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following a hundred years of vociferous social reform, including a 1947 law that criminalized their lifestyles, the women in devadasis communities contend with severe social stigma and economic and cultural disenfranchisement. Adroitly combining ethnographic fieldwork with historical research, Davesh Soneji provides a comprehensive portrait of these marginalized women and unsettles received ideas about relations among them, the aesthetic roots of their performances, and the political efficacy of social reform in their communities.
Poignantly narrating the history of these women, Soneji argues for the recognition of aesthetics and performance as a key form of subaltern self-presentation and self-consciousness. Ranging over courtly and private salon performances of music and dance by devadasis in the nineteenth century, the political mobilization of devadasis identity in the twentieth century, and the post-reform lives of women in these communities today, Unfinished Gestures charts the historical fissures that lie beneath cultural modernity in South India.
REVIEWS
“This pioneering work reveals the complex cultural and social history of classical South Indian music and dance as they evolved over the last three centuries. By intense fieldwork with the last surviving artistes from the world of traditional temple and salon performance, and through painstaking study of the primary sources in Tamil and Telugu, Soneji reconstructs the heartbreaking story of the so-called devadasis, including their marginalization at the hands of a prudish colonial government and a puritanical, Anglicized elite. He has opened a window to a musical world of astonishing richness and expressive power and to an aesthetic sensibility that has largely disappeared, and he has explained the social and cultural processes that undermined that sensibility and, indeed, the entire cultural system in which it once flourished. Anyone who has discovered the great power of Karnatak music should read this book in order to understand how this refined tradition acquired its present public forms, and in order to get beyond the standard, highly distorted narrative of its origins. Soneji is the foremost historian of this musical world as it developed from late medieval to early modern modes of performance.”
— David Shulman, Hebrew University Jerusalem
“Unfinished Gestures is an important and original book, both lively and learned, that offers a new perspective on the professional artists/courtesans of South India known as devadasis. Where earlier constructions—and critiques—of the roles and identities of devadasis have focused on the uncomfortable juxtaposition of religion and sex that these women seem to represent, Soneji’s extensive archival and ethnographic research allows for a far more nuanced and complete understanding of the aesthetic, economic, and social dimensions of the lives of devadasis in the last two hundred years. Soneji enriches our knowledge of the history of the devadasis in the unexplored eras of late colonial Tanjore and Madras, and provides us with a rare sense of these women’s self-understandings, in the past and in the present. Locating the devadasis within the complexities of gender and nation, caste and religion, this volume not only makes an exciting contribution to the study of India’s history, but illuminates the ambiguities and still-unfinished projects of the India of today.” —Leslie C. Orr, Concordia University
— Leslie C. Orr
“Sensitive, sympathetic, and very well-written, Unfinished Gestures moves the debate about devadasis in a new and interesting direction and will be the standard bearer in the field. Soneji’s ethnographic work supports his historical claims and brings to life the poignancy of contemporary devadasis’ lives.”
— Janaki Bakhle, Columbia University
“Soneji provides an exhaustive historical account of devadasi beginning with the nautch girls of colonial Tanjore leading up to the 1947 law criminalizing the devadasi lifestyle as a form of prostitution…. [He] documents their real and imagined positioning in postcolonial India through a historical framework supplemented by first-person accounts by those from the community and with descriptions of performances he attended.”
— C. Gillitt, Choice
“Weaving together history, literature, ethnography, and ethnomusicology, Davesh Soneji's impressive work, Unfinished Gestures, showcases the heterogeneity, hybridity, and ingenue of India’s devadasi artists in the colonial period and beyond. . . . Davesh Soneji’s painstaking archival data, music excerpts, and fluid linguistic engagement with Tamil, Telugu, Sanskrit, Hindi, Persian, and European-language materials make this book’s narration of devadasis’ history vivid and compelling.”
— Arthi Devarajan, Journal of Asian Studies
“This book offers fresh and thought-provoking insight into the cultural, political, and economic history of the so-called devadasis in South India over the past 200 years. . . . By combining analyses of courtly archives, literary sources, and personal records with ethnographies, Soneji shifts attention away from institutional, patriarchal power and the middle-class moral economy of ‘rescuing’ a (fallen) tradition in favor of emphasizing the resilience of nineteenth- and twentieth-century women as they encountered colonial modernity.”
— Religious Studies Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
On Historical, Social, and Aesthetic Borderlands - Davesh Soneji
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226768113.003.0001
[devadasis, South India, colonial modernity, production of culture, dance, colonial Madras, courtesans]
This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume which is about the history of the devadasis in South India. This volume examines the connections between colonial modernity and the production of culture in the courtly milieu and investigates what happened to the devadasi communities after the 1947. It also explores the dance and culture of the courtesans in late colonial Madras, the religious lives of devadasis, and the place of dance in late colonial Tanjore. (pages 1 - 25)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Producing Dance in Colonial Tanjore - Davesh Soneji
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226768113.003.0002
[dance, colonial Tanjore, devadasi, Maratha kings, identities, subjectivities, professional dancing women]
This chapter examines the production of dance of colonial Tanjore. It explains that the dance of the devadasi was developed under the patronage of the Maratha kings at Tanjore and highlights the complexities of the dance training and repertoire. It investigates the kinds of identities and subjectivities colonial Tanjore made available to devadasis and the analysis reveals a picture of professional dancing women embedded in complex political and aesthetic economies. (pages 26 - 69)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Whatever Happened to the South Indian Nautch? Toward a Cultural History of Salon Dance in Madras - Davesh Soneji
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226768113.003.0003
[South Indian nautch, salon dance, Madras, salon culture, South India, javali, cultural eclecticism, colonial modernity]
This chapter examines the history of the South Indian nautch and the cultural history of salon dance in Madras. It discusses one of the fundamental ironies of salon culture in South India and describes the salon performances, particularly the javali genre. It also explains that salon dance came to define dance as specifically urban and that the javali was considered as a sign of the cultural eclecticism represented by colonial modernity. (pages 70 - 111)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Subterfuges of “Respectable” Citizenship: Marriage and Masculinity in the Discourse of Devadāsī Reform - Davesh Soneji
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226768113.003.0004
[devadasi reform, citizenship, marriage, masculinity, South India, colonial modernity, Madras Legislative Assembly, anti-nautch debates, nationalist masculinities, Tamil Nadu]
This chapter examines the issues of citizenship, marriage, and masculinity that were associated with the discourse on devadasi reform in South India. It discusses the shifting moral economies of colonial modernity that fundamentally could not accommodate the social and aesthetic practices of women from devada communities. It relates the story of the Madras Legislative Assembly debates up to 1947 and offers an alternative view of the anti-nautch debates that highlights the tacit tensions of nationalist masculinities in Tamil Nadu. (pages 112 - 160)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Historical Traces and Unfinished Subjectivity: Remembering Devadāsī Dance at Viralimalai - Davesh Soneji
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226768113.003.0005
[devadasi dance, Viralimalai, prostitution, devadasi culture, R. Muttukkannammal, pottukkattutal, aesthetic practices, cultural memory]
This chapter examines the historical traces of devadasi dance in Viralimalai. It explains that Viralimalai has high rates of prostitution and this is attributed to its links with devadasi culture. It also describes the experiences of R. Muttukkannammal, the last woman to have pottukkattutal performed at the Viralimalai temple. This chapter also analyzes the aesthetic practices and cultural memory in a devadasi community and the ways in which dance repertoire enabled a doubled reading of devadasi history. (pages 161 - 188)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Performing Untenable Pasts: Aesthetics and Selfhood in Coastal Andhra Pradesh - Davesh Soneji
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226768113.003.0006
[kalavantula community, Andhra Pradesh, social transformation, political transformation, identities, devadasi]
This chapter examines the persistent yet invisible performance practices of a section of the kalavantula community in Andhra Pradesh that has witnessed the drastic social and political transformations of their communities. It explores the unfinished dimensions of kalavantula lives and describes how some women in these communities fashion distinct identities based on the past that run alongside the cell phones and flat-screen televisions. It also addresses the question of what it means to be a devadasi in contemporary South India. (pages 189 - 221)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Coda: Gesturing to Devadāsī Pasts in Today’s Chennai - Davesh Soneji
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226768113.003.0007
[devadasi, Chennai, Madras, Indian classical dance, Bharatanayam, cultural exports, cultural life]
This chapter examines the traces the devadasi past in modern-day Chennai (formerly Madras). It explains that Chennai remains the capital of Indian classical dance and describes the practice and politics of Bharatanayam, one of India's most cherished cultural exports which were created in Madras. It also discusses the narratives that often accompany token gestures toward the devadasi community in the cultural life of modern Chennai. (pages 222 - 226)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Appendix 1: Selected Documents from the Files of Muthulakshmi Reddy
Appendix 2: The Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act of 1947
Notes
References
Index
