Bollywood’s obsession with prostitution isn’t new. From Pakeezah to Umrao Jaan to Devdas, Bollywood has been obsessed with the genre of “courtesan movies”. What has dramatically changed though is Bollywood’s portrayal of the lives and realities of these courtesans. While in earlier movies like Pakeezah and Umrao Jaan, courtesans were bejeweled, decked up and glamorized, the movies also portrayed the harsh reality of their lives and their suffering succinctly. These movies stopped short of glorifying prostitution.
But present-day Bollywood has gone many steps ahead and is making movies blatantly glorifying the flesh trade and portraying prostitution as some sort of a profession to aspire to.
The latest to jump on to the bandwagon is Sanjay Leela Bhansali who has directed a venture called “Heeramandi” that is going to release on Netflix in two seasons format. The first season of Heeramandi is due for Netflix release sometime in December 2023 or at the beginning of 2024.
Sanjay Leela’s Heeramandi starring Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hyadri, Richa Chaddha, Sanjeeda Sheikh, etc., is reportedly based on the story of Heeramandi, a red-light area of Lahore. The story of the series is reportedly set against the backdrop of the Heeramandi of Lahore where courtesans were apparently not like the modern-day prostitutes, but skilled performers of music and dance patronized by the royalty.
The glorification of prostitution and exploitation of women under the rule of the Islamic invaders of Bharat and its whitewashing as some kind of refined entertainment form is something that the popular culture industry has been doing for long. That is why the insistence that “courtesans” shouldn’t be called prostitutes and that a Mughal-era courtesan was way superior to the supposedly commonplace modern-day women who have been pushed into the flesh trade.
Despite the rosy whitewashing, everyone knows the reality. All the jewelry and expensive clothing and the talk of classical singing and dancing can’t hide the fact that the “courtesans” were pretty much women forced into the flesh trade either coercively or by virtue of their circumstances. Despite all the refined singing and dancing, the real deal of that arrangement was the selling of one’s body is something that one cannot brush off under the carpet.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali seems to be taking recourse to the same whitewashing trope in Heeramandi as he portrays highly glamorous and bejeweled women in the trailer, decked in all sorts of finery, with the tagline “where courtesans were queens”. Calling women who were victims of the flesh trade in a highly exploitative milieu queens is a mockery of their sufferings, if anything. It also belittles the fight and struggles of modern-day women who are trying to get out of the clutches of prostitution and educate their kids.
There are so many organizations working with survivors of trafficking, trying to rehabilitate them back into society and help them with education and livelihood. A web series like “Heeramandi” discredits and mocks all these efforts with one stroke as it seems to be giving a message that what need do women have to study and work hard and seek employment when they can just deck themselves up, be beautiful, and enjoy the patronage of rich and royal men.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali has the right to make a movie on any subject of his choice. But so do people of Bharat have the right to register their protest and question his choice of subjects. That too is freedom of expression. From a movie like “Hum Dil de Chuke Sanam” to “Heeramandi”, Bhansali indeed seems to have come a long way.
The choice of Heermandi for making a web series by Sanjay Leela Bhansali doesn’t seem to go down well with the common people of Pakistan as well. Just type the hashtag Heermanadi on Instagram and check out the results. You’ll see many comments underneath various promotional videos and photos of Heeramandi; a lot of these seem to be made by people from Pakistan who are saying things like what need did Bhansali have to make a movie on a subject like this. Many comments seem to be reprimanding Bhansali for tarnishing Islam by making a movie on a subject that supposedly shows the dark side of Islam, the debauchery of Nawabs, and all that. Then, there are comments that accuse the makers of Heeramandi of inaccurate portrayal of historical realities.
“Heeramandi mein kaha itni khubsurati thee”, writes one user. “Seriously he really needs to work again how the ladies were look ike in Heeramandi before independence… aisa lagta hai nawab ki biwian ho.” There are many comments like this. I don’t know anything about the location of the people who are making these comments but from the comments, it seems like they know a bit about Heeramandi so they might be from Pakistan I am guessing.
Bharat is a huge victim of human trafficking and child trafficking. Due to massive under reporting, we don’t have proper statistics pertaining to these things. There is a whole nexus of human trafficking, child trafficking, pornography, child abuse, and prostitution. These are rackets involving billions of dollars, and the participation of some real big names and powerful people. A movie that comes to my mind immediately is Madhur Bhandarkar’s Page 3, a hard-hitting movie that showcases the reality of the so-called high society of Bharat. In the movie, a lady is running a ngo for children, and her husband uses kids from her ngo for “entertaining foreigners” without her knowledge.
What one is trying to say is that my making a movie blatantly glorifying prostitution without bringing forth the context and cruelty of that world, the director is doing a deep disservice to the victims of flesh trade and trafficking. One of the classic arguments to defend the glorification of prostitution is that we are just trying to change the societal stereotypes associated with these women and trying to make the world see them in a less biased light.
This argument completely overlooks the fact that how the men who consume the bodies of these women for money and think they are commodities to be bought and sold in a marketplace think about these women is way worse than how the world supposedly thinks about them. And that philosophical musings on the trappings of these women in a world characterized by male desire are not going to help. One needs to condemn prostitution in clear and unequivocal terms. One needs to understand that respecting a woman who is into the flesh trade doesn’t mean you have to glorify or justify the flesh trade.
The result of the glorification of prostitution by the Bollywood brigade is that one sees an alarming increase in the number of educated Bharatiya girls casually taking up prostitution as a “source of side income”. I have no statistics to prove this but there are many articles on this topic on the internet; how prostitution is on an alarming rise in urban Bharat and has made its inroads into the small towns and cities of Bharat.
The woke media with its distorted definitions of women’s empowerment and liberation leads to this thinking amongst young Bharatiya women that what’s wrong with selling one’s bodies if it can buy them luxury and comfort. Little do they realize that the idea of selling one’s body for money to cater to male desire is the very antithesis of the woman’s right to her own body. When you are selling something for money, that thing becomes a commodity. Even if your agency is involved in the act of selling and you are supposedly doing it out of free will, you no longer have control over your body once the transaction is made. That is precisely why something like the flesh trade is the very antithesis of feminism.
Bharat has changed and developed at a phenomenal pace. It’s a new aspirational Bharat that knows how to straddle tradition and modernity. It’s a Bharat that has women joining the armed forces in combat operations, becoming top-notch scientists, entrepreneurs, mountaineers, diplomats, cabinet ministers, etc. But Bollywood still seem to be stuck in the old-time warp of objectifying and exoticizing women. That’s why they are still betting on a genre like courtesan movies.
But the Bharatiya audience has evolved now. It can see through all the façade ad propaganda. The “Umraao Jaan” of yesteryears struck a chord with the Bharatiya audience because despite the problematic bits, the movie managed to portray her suffering and tragic life story poignantly. But Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Heermandi” makes too much of a leap of faith by calling courtesans queens.
I haven’t seen the web series yet because it hasn’t been released so far. Maybe, (and I sincerely hope), the movie goes beyond the sensational trailer and makes an effort to portray the dark and grim realities of Heeramandi. But from what it looks like, at least from the trailer, the movie seems to a desperate attempt to set the cash registers ringing by glamorizing and glorifying prostitution.
