Anjali Arondekar

speaker

496 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 1 May

Anjali Arondekar’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society · Sex Work in Colonial India · 1 May 2026 podcast

How does that help us think about how we study, think, organize, right?

Because I think the organization of sex workers is also important here, right?

They learned from all of these strategies of erasure and manipulation, right?

All of the wonderful unions of sex, the biggest union of sex workers, as you know, is in India, learned from these mistakes and they have used those to further their rights and responsibilities.

So the devadasi is a Sanskrit word.

Deva means God.

Dasi means slave.

And it would, as I said, mean literally in Sanskrit, the slave of God.

But it is used interchangeably as courtesan, prostitute, sex worker, depending on your orientation.

Devadasis are all over India, South India, Northern India, Western India, but they're very different.

And so, for example, well, you live in the UK, so you may have heard of the death of Asha Bhosle recently, or Lata Mangeshkar, who are the two most famous singers who have collaborated with.

They are members of the Devadasi community.

So Devadasi is also very known for their poetry.

talents in performance, in dancing and singing.

So a lot of members of my community are very, very famous classical singers in the Indian musical tradition.

So they are both veneered for their performance and their talent, but their history of sexuality has often disappeared.

And part of what I wanted to do was kind of insist that the history of sexuality is part of the story.

Devadasis still exist in some parts of India, and devadasis are always attached to goddesses, right?

As I said before, the profession of a courtesan or a devadasi is allowed, is made permissible because it is attached to a goddess.

Devadasis are also always lower caste.

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