In Hindi cinema, the cabaret dancer, glimmering in sequinned dresses, moving to sensuous choreography was a familiar presence for decades.


In some movies, she was important to the plot; in others, she appeared at the margins; but she never was a central figure. Yet, the cabaret dancer danced, her shimmering moves stirring hearts, raising temperatures, enchanting audiences, and cementing her place in public memory fantasy.

The role of the dancer, what she was allowed to represent, and how her character was meant to be interpreted, were all tightly scripted. Often, she was framed as a symbol: of temptation, danger, or villainous flirtations, and she was never meant to find love or domesticity which fell within the moral codes of society.


But the cabaret dancer in cinema was not just a role. It was a commentary on society’s anxieties around the visibility or public performance of a woman’s sexuality. The films mirrored the world outside the screen: a world eager to be entertained by women, yet unwilling to grant them social legitimacy.


The 'cabaret girl' in cinema gave way to the 'item girl' - both were used by the movie marketers to draw crowds. But funnily enough, while their labour sold tickets, they have rarely ever been acknowledged in a way that would inspire an aspiring actor.

Against a backdrop of smoky Mumbai bars, Mira Nair's India Cabaret (1985) foregrounds the labour, negotiation and complexity of bar dancers' lives.


In this 60-minute documentary, we are introduced to Rekha and Rosy - their colleagues and friends, Pearl, Sona, Vasanti. You're probably picturing them like Helen from Hindi movies - dancing glamourously. But off stage, these are women in crinkled saris, who roll chapatis, and offer daily morning prayers. In the greenroom, they share laughter, and often, a cigarette. It is this 'ordinariness' about them, that is striking, and perhaps even unsettling.



The film doesn’t frame these women as helpless victims or ‘fallen’ nor does it seek a 'resolution' or redemption. Instead, it simply offers a peek into the layered lives of the women - including the 'good woman' who awaits her husband at home. But just as the home-maker's labour at home is invisible, and lacks social recognition, Rekha, Rosie and the other dancers are denied respect in the very society that thrives on their labour. This film reclaims the narrative from the dancers' perspective - working women who know the value of their work, even if the world around them pretends not to.

Patrons leer at them from corners of the club. Outside, middle-class men moralise. One man Nair interviews says he goes to clubs regularly. Still, he finds the women “shameless.”
His hypocrisy is not hidden—Nair lets his words hang unedited, exposing the patriarchy that the dancers negotiate with, each day, to survive.

The stigma of their profession, though, follows them home. Rosy’s family is happy to accept the benefits of her income but they do not accept her. Her presence is unwelcome.
Rekha, after escaping an abusive domestic life, understands the value of her hard-won independence as well as the price she must pay for it. She lives away from her son who studies at a boarding school. Her family is unaware of her profession.

The reality of the womens' lives is an everyday rebellion. Patriarchy depends on controlling women’s bodies, their desires, their visibility. But what do we make of a woman who steps outside that script? Is she to be revered or is she to be rejected? Are we disgusted by her or are we in awe of her? This is a film that neither judges nor romanticises, but instead lingers and leaves us with questions : what makes work respectable or obscene - and in the end, who really profits from women's labour?

At the stroke of the midnight hour on August 15, 1947 2005, bar dancers in Mumbai took their final bow, stepping off stage and into a life of oblivion. For nearly 50,000 bar girls, this tryst with destiny meant sudden joblessness brought on by the Maharashtra Government's ban on dance bars.



In introducing the ban, the government’s ‘moral stance’ leaned towards the ‘protection of women against exploitation’ rather than introducing regulations that would safeguard their rights.

Flavia Agnes, lawyer and women’s rights activist and founder-member of Majlis (a legal and cultural resource centre based in Mumbai), offers a critique, situating the ban within a longer history of moral policing and regulation of women’s bodies in public spaces, unmasking deep-seated biases against gender, class, and sexuality. Read the full article here.

By Suanshu Khurana

In Ara, Bihar, a naach is nothing if it doesn’t have women dancers, lewd lyrics and aggressive men. Once the show is over, the Anaarkalis go back to their hardscrabble lives.

In this narrow alley, everyone knows of Chand and Bijli. Three decades ago, the two sisters were the stars of the Bhojpuri live performance industry. They were not coy women singing about love and biraha. They were, like the protagonist of Avinash Das’s film Anaarkali of Aarah, troubadours of desire. They sang songs, explicit about lust and longing:

"Raja chhu ke jani chhodi bada mann karta",
or
" Jobanwa jamp maare choli mein."

They knew how to string men along, with a wink and a thumka. They were the toast of the naach, celebrations of marriage, birthdays hosted by the relatively rich and mostly upper-caste men of rural Bihar, where alcohol flowed late into the night.

“When they got on the stage and sang, it was mayhem. In a patriarchal society where women didn’t go out much and did only household chores, here were these singers performing on stage, singing double-meaning songs,” says Patna-based Nirala, who runs the website, bidesia.co.in, and is a researcher of Bhojpuri music.

But Bijli Rani is not home to tell us of those electric nights. She no longer lives here. Nor does Chand.

We find our way to her niece’s house nearby. Roshni Rani is 18 years old, dressed in a black T-shirt and a pair of harem pants. She was 15 when she started singing and dancing in The Great Rekha Rani Theatre Company, led by Bijli’s daughter, Rekha.



The troupe charges between Rs 50,000 and Rs 60,000 for a performance, and Roshni earns almost Rs 15,000 a month in a good season (April-July and October-March, when all weddings and Hindu festivals take place). Roshni’s songs are innuendo-laden, full of playful allusions to sex, and she performs for raucous crowds of men, who whistle, applaud, dance and fire guns.
On one such night of ribaldry in Sasaram, a village in Rohtas district, a bullet nearly killed her.
“This was last year. I was twirling on the stage at a baraat naach, when a bullet grazed the side of my eye and hit me near the left ear. A pistol was fired by a drunk man,” says Roshni, without rancour or rage. Was anyone arrested for the shooting? “They say he is on the run. I don’t believe it though,” she says.

One wayward drunk is not a dealbreaker for her. “There is something about that applause. It wants me to keep dancing,” says Roshni. Her work has taken her to Delhi and she will soon be travelling to other parts of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. She doesn’t underestimate the risk.

“[But] risk toh kis kaam mein nahi hai? Shaadi mein bhi toh hai (There is risk in everything, no? Even in getting married),” she says, with a wry smile.

Ara, a town near the confluence of the Sone and Ganga rivers, is at the heart of Anaarkali of Aarah, a film about consent and the life of a musician. Swara Bhaskar plays a pan-chewing, innuendo-slinging Bhojpuri singer, who makes a living by performing lewd songs on stage. The film is loosely based on an incident in 2011, when Chhapra-based Bhojpuri singer, Devi, complained of being molested by vice-chancellor DP Sinha of Jai Prakash Narayan University in Chhapra. Says Das of the character in the film:

“She is the singer of these raunchy numbers, she is relatively poor and is low on police priority. As her songs are full of sexual undertones, people assume that she is inviting them to touch her.”

Devi, 39, recalls being the object of such impertinence.

“The men begin to consider you their property and misbehave on the stage. I wasn’t even singing anything lewd, yet a drunk public figure got on the stage and tried to touch me,” says Devi, in a phone conversation from Mumbai.

She took back her complaint after Sinha, who almost lost his job, apologised to her in public. But she also moved to Mumbai, and began singing more “acceptable” numbers and songs of devotion.


Another thread in the film comes from the story of Tarabano Faizabadi, a singer who had to flee Faizabad after being sexually harassed by neighbours and those in the audience. She is believed to have come to Delhi’s Seelampur.
The filmmaker’s search yielded no results but his research led him to Munnibai, of the Munni Orchestra Group in Ara. Once a nautanki artiste, 49-year-old Munnibai now performs on stage, besides running a brothel.

Dressed in a blue-and-yellow sari, she welcomes us with paan in a music room that has seen better days. A mattress lies on the floor, and dusty harmoniums and tablas line a shelf on the wall. First, we must speak to her “aadmi” (patron) for permission to quote her. That out of the way, Munnibhai is a little less wary, though still guarded about the past.
She was the daughter of a courtesan, who grew up in Ara amid music, dance and the idea of entertaining men. “I learnt music at the feet of the gurus. I took taaleem from them and began to do mujra naach when I was 17-18 years old,” she says.

But what she learnt is not what she performs now. “Who was listening to that music? Sunnewale toh khatam ho gaye ab. You can’t go hungry after a while,” says Munnibai. As competitors and age caught up, prostitution was the only way out.

In Bihar, most women who sing and dance belong to nomadic communities such as Nat and Bhaat, who have been involved with the arts for centuries. Many others are from the “lower” castes, poor and without an education.

When Roshni’s mother passed away half a decade ago, her father asked his sister to take care of her, and she found refuge in Bijli Rani’s home. Theirs was a family with a history of music, even if those glory days are only the stuff of family conversations. “Ma [Bijli Rani] was not happy with the idea of us learning the songs she sang on stage. But she would sit with a baaja (instrument) and teach us something that her mother, my naani, taught her. These were the songs she learnt as a child while accompanying her parents for nautanki performances,” says Rekha, about the songs that are no longer sung at any naach.

Shyama Devi, Bijli Rani’s mother, was an important figure in Bihar’s nautanki tradition. One of her contemporaries was Gulab Bai, the first female nautanki singer, who was awarded a Padma Shri in 1990, six years before she died.
Nautanki, the operatic style of Indian folk theatre, originated in Uttar Pradesh, but travelled with its performers to Bihar. Shyama Devi was married to an instrument maker and tabla player, and the two performed together in a mandli. Little Bijli would accompany the two and watch wide-eyed, as her mother would “transform into various characters”.

During her time, nautanki music had not lost its sheen of respectability. Gulab Bai and Shyama Devi sang songs written by playwright and folk singer Bhikhari Thakur, and writer and freedom fighter Mahendra Misir. Thakur, also called the “Shakespeare of Bhojpuri”, is well known for creating the 20th century theatre form, bidesia, which spoke of caste, communalism and upheld women’s rights, among others. Misir was a folk singer and the pioneer of purvi, a form of Bhojpuri folk, and wrote songs for all the courtesans who lived between Benaras and Calcutta. “But we love to erase history. So, if you ask people in Bihar, they’ll say that he wrote deshbhakti geet. These men wrote of a woman’s heart, its pain and triumphs. Just because people aren’t comfortable with the idea of Misir writing for courtesans and yet want to own him as a cultural symbol, they hide behind a few deshbhakti geet,” says Nirala.

From Gulab Bai and Shyama Devi to Munnibhai is a steep fall in the arts.

“With the passage of time, raga-based singing went into the background. Poverty not only led to double-meaning songs but also prostitution,” says Das.

But, as his film shows, for many women, the music is a way to earn some freedom.

Our search for Bijli Rani ends at Kela Mandi in Patna. Next to a row of coaching classes, the 51-year-old lives with her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. The wrinkles show from under a quick coat of make-up. She is wearing a yellow anarkali kurta and her hair is coloured brown.

“I couldn’t live in that atmosphere anymore. So I moved out. I wanted my children to be away from the ashleelta (vulgarity) that is now the hallmark of Bhojpuri industry. Gone are the days when people came to listen. Now they want to stare at our bodies. I have seen and done both sides of it. But no more."

On our request, she sings one of her favourite numbers, Piyawa jaat bada police je behaliya mein, from the film Gaadi No 11. The autotune machines are far away in Delhi, where she now records, and the song in her unadorned voice reminds one of biraha ke geet (songs of separation).

With the decline of nautanki, and the audience moving to racy tracks, the tone and tenor of her music changed. Has she seen Anaarkali of Aarah yet? “I hardly go to cinema halls. But it’s interesting if the issues of the singers in Bihar are being highlighted. I hope people understand that those women are human beings. Men should not consider them their property,” says Bijli Rani.


This article is excerpted from a version that originally appeared in the Indian Express on April 9, 2017.

“They are extremely delicate in their person, soft and regular in their features, with a form of perfect symmetry, and although dedicated from infancy to this profession, they in general preserve a decency and modesty in their demeanour, which is more likely to allure than the shameless effrontery of similar characters in other countries.”
- Oriental Memoirs (1813) by James Forbes

In the living rooms of 19th-century India, the arrival of a 'nautch girl' signalled prestige and cultural sophistication. The dancers, draped in silk, adorned with jewels, and accompanied by musicians, were the highlight of elite gatherings. For decades, both Indian aristocrats and British officials celebrated their artistry, elegance, and the unique grace described so evocatively by James Forbes in 1813.


But as the 19th century wore on, Victorian notions of morality, imported by the British and adopted by segments of the Indian elite, began to cast a shadow over the nautch tradition. What had once been seen as refined and alluring became, in the eyes of reformers, evidence of social decay.

Influenced by evangelical and social purity movements, British officials and Christian missionaries began to equate the nautch with prostitution, ignoring the nuanced realities of the dancers’ lives.
Originating in Madras and quickly gaining traction across India, Hindu social reform and purity associations launched a targeted campaign against nautch dancers. In pamphlets and newspapers, they warned that these women drained the wealth of their patrons, endangered public health, and promoted moral decline. Notably, their critiques focused less on the art itself and more on discrediting the women who performed it.

“In her breast is a vast ocean of poison. Round her comely waist dwell the furies of hell... Her blandishments are India’s ruin. Alas; her smile is India’s death.”- Keshub Chandra Sen

Figures like Keshub Chandra Sen and the Hindu Social Reform Association joined the chorus, motivated by a desire to “uplift” Indian society and redefine respectability. They saw the nautch as incompatible with new ideals of womanhood and national progress, and advocated for its abolition as part of a broader project of social reform.

Invitations to nautch performances, once a mark of honor, became grounds for public criticism. During the 1905 royal tour of Prince George, the nautch was dropped from the official program in Madras, signaling a dramatic shift in public attitudes.

By the time the Madras Devadasi Act of 1947 formally abolished temple dancer communities, the tradition was already in decline, eroded by decades of social stigma and legal repression. The anti-nautch campaign, while couched in the language of reform, left a legacy of marginalization and cultural loss. It also revealed the ways in which colonial anxieties about sex, race, and respectability could be projected onto the bodies of women, transforming artistic expression into a battleground for power and identity.

Today, the shadow of past stigmatization continues to shape public attitudes, debates, and the lived experiences of female public-performers.