Songs between cities: Listening to courtesans in colonial north India

Williams, Richard David

Abstract

In the aftermath of 1857, urban spaces and cultural practices were transformed and contested. Regional royal capitals became nodes in a new colonial geography, and the earlier regimes that had built them were recast as decadent and corrupt societies. Demolitions and new infrastructures aside, this transformation was also felt at the level of manners, sexual mores, language politics, and the performing arts. This article explores this transformation with a focus on women's language, female singers and dancers, and the men who continued to value their literary and musical skills. While dancing girls and courtesans were degraded by policy-makers and vernacular journalists alike, their Urdu compositions continued to be circulated, published, and discussed. Collections of women's biographies and lyrics gesture to the importance of embodied practices in cultivating emotional positions. This cultivation was valued in late Mughal elite society, and continued to resonate for emotional communities of connoisseurs, listeners, and readers, even as they navigated the expectations and sensibilities of colonial society.

Citation

Williams, R. D. (2017). Songs between cities: Listening to courtesans in colonial north India. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 27(4), 591-610. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186317000311

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 24, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Sep 26, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 26, 2017
• Deposit Date: Oct 22, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 22, 2017
• Journal: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
• Print ISSN: 1356-1863
• Electronic ISSN: 1474-0591
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 591-610
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186317000311