Kamathipura is Mumbai's oldest and Asia's largest red-light district. It was first settled
after 1795 with the construction of causeways that connected the erstwhile seven islands
of Bombay. Initially known as Lal Bazaar, it got its name from the Kamathis of Telangana
state, who were labourers on construction sites. Due to tough police crackdown, in the
late 1990s with the rise of AIDS and government's redevelopment policy that helped sex workers
to move out of the profession and subsequently out of Kamathipura, the number of sex workers
in the area has dwindled. In 1992, Bombay Municipal Corporation recorded there were
50,000 sex workers here which was reduced to 1,600 in 2009, with many sex worker migrating
to other areas in Maharashtra and real estate developer taking over the high-priced real
estate. O
History
After the completion of the Hornby Vellard project in 1784, which built a causeway uniting
all seven islands of Bombay under William Hornby, governor of Bombay, plugged the Great
Breach in Mahalaxmi, while the subsequent Bellasis Road causeway joined Mazagaon and
Malabar Hill in 1793. This resulted in several low-lying marshy areas of Mumbai Flats like
Byculla, Tardeo, Mahalaxmi and Kamathipura opening up for habitation. Thereafter starting
1795, Kamathis of Telangana state, working as labourers on construction sites began settling
here, giving the area its present name. It was bounded by Bellasis Road on the north,
by Grant Road on the south and the main road across, Falkland Road. At one point during
this period it was home to a Chinese community, which worked as dockhands and ran restaurants.
By the late 19th century it all changed. Till then, as previous 1864 Census figures
for Bombay indicate, other areas had a larger population of prostitutes, like Girgaum, Phanaswadi
and Oomburkharee compared with Kamathipura, all which declined after 1864. This small
region boasted the most exotic consorts. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a large
number of women and girls from continental Europe and Japan were trafficked into Kamathipura,
where they worked as prostitutes servicing British soldiers and local Indian men. Gradually,
social stratification also took place: A busy road in Kamathipura was known as Safed Gully
owing to the European prostitutes housed here during the British Raj. The lane is now known
as Cursetji Shuklaji Street. The first venereal disease clinic of Bombay was opened in 1916,
taken over by BMC in 1925. Nearby, Bachchuseth ki Wadi on Foras Road was famous for its kothewalis
or tawaifs and mujras. When the British left India, the Indian sex
workers took over. In recent decades, large numbers of Nepalese women and girls have also
been trafficked into the district as sex workers. Over the years under Indian government rule,
the sex industry in Kamathipura continued to flourish, and trafficking brought women
from different parts of the country here. Eventually it became Asia's largest sex district.
Today, it is said that there are so many brothels in the area that there is no space for the
sex workers to sit. They hang around in the streets, solicit customers, and then rent
an available bed. The 3,000-odd buildings in the area are largely dilapidated and in
urgent need of repairs; safe drinking water and sanitation is scarce as well.
Linganna Puttal Pujari, who migrated to Mumbai from Nizamabad in Telangana in 1928 and was
a prominent social worker and city and state legislator, was largely responsible for most
of the civic amenities available to the residents of Kamathipura today.
Some historical sources point out that the origin of slums, subsequently the red-light
areas of Mumbai including Kamathipura is related to land acquisition, from the indigenous locals
who were evicted from their farmlands and cattle-fields and forced themselves to live
in congested conditions, for the development of the industrial harbor city. At the early
stages, people accumulated in the new slums partly depended on constructions contracts.
Later, as men became unemployed due to lack of jobs, more women turned up selling themselves
in the red-streets for livelihood. Now these streets are playgrounds for human traffickers
and mafia in addition to the economic refugees who came during the past years. In the 1970s
and early '80s Bachchu Wadi at Kamathipura was frequented by gangleaders from Mumbai
underworld, such as Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, and Dawood Ibrahim.
In 2005, with a state-wide ban on dance bars, many dancing girls, who couldn't find other
means of income, moved to prostitution to survive, in Mumbai's red-light districts,
like Kamathipura. According to police, in 2005, there were 100,000 prostitutes working
out of five-star hotels and brothels across Mumbai.
The area is home to a small cottage industry of about 200 women who make a living rolling
beedis. Demographics
Kamathipura is divided into roughly 14 lanes and divided according to regional and linguistic
backgrounds of the sex workers. Most of the sex workers come from other Indian states
and Nepal.There is little interaction between areas, which makes it harder for social organizations
to organize them into a movement or union. Further, lack of public opinion, political
leadership or social activism which is empathetic towards them means a tough time forming unions.
The area had 55,936 voters in 2007, out of which 6,500 Telugus; the rest are Marathi,
South Indians and East Indians. Since 2005, the Sanghamitra collective, run
by and for the sex workers of Kamatipura, has provided practical assistance to women
in the sex trade as well as helping to rescue children and trafficked women from the brothels.
See also Prostitution in India
Notes
References Ashwini Tambe. Codes of misconduct: Regulating
Prostitution in Late Colonial Bombay. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-5138-8.
Ashwini Tambe. "Managed Stratification in Bombay Brothels, 1914-1930". Swedish South
Asian Studies Network, Lund University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
Sharvari Ajit; University of Utah. Gender-based violence among female sex workers of Kamathipura,
Mumbai, India: A contextual analysis. ProQuest. p. 17. ISBN 0-549-94774-4.
External links The day my God died - Documentary by PBS
Frontline interview with Raney Aronson Frontline - INDIA - The Sex Workers, 2004
Watch YouTube documentary on a school in Kamathipura