Regulationist Measures: Prostitution and Politics in the State of Mysore
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12724/ajss.45.7Keywords:
Cantonment, Civilian Space, Lock Hospitals, Prostitution, SyphilisAbstract
The paper explores official policies towards Prostitution and the spread of Venereal Diseases in the Cantonment and Mysore Provinces. A medico-military discourse emerged in the Cantonment with the spread of Sexually Transmitted Diseases among white troopers. Transgressive sex was tolerated despite prostitutes being considered a receptacle of diseases. In not recognizing the dynamics of disease transmission, regulatory measures and race, sex, and class-bias blatantly vilified prostitutes. Though civilian spaces in the State of Karnataka were not as complex, regulations were enforced in tandem with the Cantonment during the colonial rule. Consequently, after the independence, the State’s measures were coincidental with the social purity movement’s censure of Devadasis.
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