The British Empire’s long list of crimes against Bharat includes slavery, racism, religious intolerance, plunder, & more. But did you know that the British systematically forced 1000s of Indian women to become sex slaves under the guise of “prostitution” for their soldiers?
In 1898, Elizabeth W. Andrew & Katharine C. Bushnell wrote “The Queen’s Daughters in India”, revealing unforgettable details about how the British devised a system of prostitution & official brothels to use Indian women as sex slaves for soldiers of the British Military.
When the British first took control of Bharat, they built “Cantonments”, as separate mini towns for the residences of British soldiers & officers. Cantonments were not governed by the civil laws of India, but separate British laws allowing them to abuse the rights of Indians.
Over 100 cantonments were established to “protect” soldiers from rebellion & provide for their needs. The Cantonment Acts of 1864 regulated & structured prostitution in them. Official brothels called “Chaklas” were created for “poor women to gain economic independence.”
Horrifyingly, an entire regiment of 1000 soldiers was serviced by just 12-15 Indian women. The British justified prostitution as safeguards against the “perversion” of homosexuality. The real reason was to reinforce racial dominance through sexual control of Indian women.
Over 30% of sick British soldiers had STDs due to their promiscuity. In contrast, Indian soldiers had very low infection rates. The British medical journal, Lancet tried to dismiss this discrepancy by claiming that Indians were immune from childhood due to hereditary syphilis!
British medical officers blamed “a warm climate & a country of lax native morals” for tempting soldiers. They justified their promiscuity & reinforced racial superiority, by asserting that tropical diseases were “more virulent” than European & that Indians had lower morals.
In 1864, “The Contagious Diseases Acts” mandated testing of any Indian woman suspected of STDs at “Lock Hospitals”. They were forced to go for weekly medical exams to check for STDs, so that soldiers could continue using “prostitutes” without risk of infection.
The compulsory examination was like a surgical rape. Any infected woman was confined & forcibly treated with medicines containing arsenic until symptoms subsided to resume providing sex again. Unlucky ones with advanced disease were thrown out on the streets to suffer & die.
But British soldiers were not subject to any such exams for signs of STDs. The excuse was that soldiers would feel “brutalized & violated” by such exams. Yet it was fine for them to brutalize, violate & infect helpless Indian victims forced into the Chakla brothels.
The women in Chaklas had no other choice as they were very poor. Their “fees” was fixed by the British military. It was so low, that the British enlisted new recruits by advertising how sex in India was almost free & assurances that sexual diseases were fully treated
When the soldiers travelled to camp for military activities, tents were set up for the women at the back part of the encampment. As the soldiers marched, the women were carried like cattle in guarded carts or trains to the destination of the regiment.
Many girls were tortured, abused & savaged by the soldiers. They were beaten, cut, forced into unnatural acts, and even burnt or strangled by drunk soldiers. Such violent crimes were hidden from the outside world as Indian women had practically no rights.
On June 17, 1886, a military order, known as the “Infamous Circular Memorandum,” was sent out to all Cantonments of India by General Chapman, in the name of the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts. Its contents were shocking.
The order specified an urgent need to find methods to acquire many more attractive & younger Indian women as soldiers’ demands for “prostitutes” were very high & Indian women were not willing to be prostitutes. The British soldiers were desperate for fresh flesh.
But the British didn’t just want indian sex slaves, they wanted them as attractive & young as possible, since younger women had a lower chance of being infected with STDs. It was a clinical selection of sexual prey to minimize disease & maximize pleasure for soldiers.
Many strategies were devised to trap innocent Indian women. Policemen would observe girls & if they talked to any men, they were accused of being prostitutes. They would then be captured, taken to the Cantonment & forced to register as Chakla prostitutes.
British officers sent out Indian Sepoys to forcibly capture at least 12-15 of the best looking girls as young as 14 from every village. Once the Colonel approved them, they were forced into service & old “prostitutes” with sexual diseases were thrown out.
The British justified this disgusting practice with the blatant lie that Hindu women in the Chakla system belonged to a “prostitute” class or caste. But prostitutes were never treated as outcastes by Hindus Such a caste never existed & was created to malign Hindu society.
Shockingly, many Anglo Indian kids born of these encounters were especially victimized. Many were raised till teenager-hood & used as fresh slaves, because of their European features. It was the British who created their own sub class of mixed blood progeny as prostitutes.
Imagine such a cruel system which continuously preyed upon fresh, young & beautiful sex slaves & mercilessly culled those with STDs to protect the soldiers who molested & infected them in the 1st place. This was how British Christian colonizers “civilized” heathen Hindoos.
In 1886, the Acts were finally repealed due to increasing awareness & protests by feminists led by Josephine Butler. But it was only after WW1 & the abolitionist movements had weakened imperial power that prostitution was abolished by the British in the 1930s
History books often gloss over this horrific fact that the British brutalized & violated thousands of Bharatiya women to satisfy their insatiable lust. How ironic when these same British claim to have saved Hindu women from the falsified myths of Sati & Child marriage!
These heart rending facts show us how the racist British Empire institutionalized sexual slavery of Indian women. Forgetting such heinous crimes would be a grave injustice to the souls of those innumerable Bharatiya women who suffered indescribable humiliation & torment.
Sources: Levine, Philippa, “Gender and Empire”, 2004 Elizabeth W. Andrew & Katharine C. Bushnell, The Queen’s Daughters in India, 1898
(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread posted by @MumukshuSavitri on September 18, 2021, with minor edits to improve readability and conform to HinduPost style guide)
