2409:4071:4D9B:7F76:0:0:16C9:E702 at 12:39, 22 May 2021

2021-05-22T12:39:16Z

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{{EngvarB|date=July 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2015}}
{{Infobox settlement|name Kamathipura mulund churchgate linking
| native_name = {{small|Lal bazaar}}
| native_name_lang = marathi
| other_name =
| settlement_type = Red Light Area
| image_skyline =
| image_alt =
| image_caption = A lane in Kamathipura
| nickname =
| pushpin_map = India Mumbai
| pushpin_label_position =
| pushpin_map_alt =
| pushpin_map_caption = Location in Mumbai, India
| coordinates = {{coord|18.96|N|72.82|E|display=inline,title}}
| subdivision_type = Country
| subdivision_name = {{flag|India}}
| subdivision_type1 = [[States and territories of India|State]]
| subdivision_type2 = Metro
| subdivision_name1 = [[Maharashtra]]
| subdivision_name2 = Mumbai
| established_title = Established
| established_date = 1795
| founder =
| named_for =
| government_type =
| governing_body =
| unit_pref = Metric
| area_footnotes =
| area_total_km2 =
| area_rank =
| elevation_footnotes =
| elevation_m = 4
| population_total =
| population_as_of =
| population_footnotes =
| population_density_km2 = auto
| population_rank =
| population_demonym =
| demographics_type1 = Languages
| demographics1_title1 = Official
| timezone1 = [[Indian Standard Time|IST]]
| utc_offset1 = +5:30
| postal_code_type = 
| postal_code =
| registration_plate =
| website =
| footnotes =
| demographics1_info1 = [[Marathi language|Marathi]]
| name =
| official_name = {{Big|कामाटीपूरा}}<hr/>{{Small|Kamathipura}}
}}

'''Kamathipura''' (also spelled '''Kamthipuram)''' <ref name=toi2009/> is a neighbourhood in [[Mumbai]], India. It was first settled after 1795 with the construction of causeways that connected the erstwhile [[seven islands of Bombay|seven islands of Mumbai]]. Initially known as Lal Bazaar, it got its name from the ''[[Kamathis]]'' (workers) of other areas of the country, 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/beyond-brothels-how-real-estate-pressures-and-online-sites-offering-sex-are-changing-red-light-areas/story-rYIPA8CF4M8Hp1tdzbuV0H.html|title=Beyond brothels: How real estate and online sites are changing red light areas}}</ref> In 1992, [[Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation]] (BMC) recorded there were 45,000 sex workers here which was reduced to 1,600 in 2009<ref name=toi2009/> and 500 in 2018.<ref name="hindustantimes">{{cite web |last1=Kamath |first1=Naresh |title=Maharashtra government pushes for revamp of Mumbai's Kamathipura area |url=https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/maharashtra-government-pushes-for-revamp-of-mumbai-s-kamathipura-area/story-bRs5RFdXu9B7pXcHgAwaYK.html |website=www.hindustantimes.com |access-date=16 December 2018 |language=en |date=6 January 2018}}</ref> Many sex workers have migrated to other areas in Maharashtra with real estate developers taking over the high-priced real estate. In 2018 the Maharashtra government sought tenders to demolish and redevelop the area.<ref name="hindustantimes" />

==History==
[[File:Seven Islands of Bombay en.svg|thumb|left|160px|Former [[seven islands of Mumbai]], before the 17th century]]
{{Quote box
|quote =The ground floors open directly onto the road like native shops. In their lower and upper rooms, native women call to male passers-by.
|source = - A visiting [[Christianity|Christian]] missionary in late 19th century <ref name=mum/>
|width=20%
| quoted = 1
|salign = right
}}
[[File:Bombay City map (1924).jpg|left|140px|thumb|Kamathipura area in map of Mumbai, 1924]]
Before the completion of the [[Hornby Vellard]] project in 1784, which built a [[causeway]] uniting all [[seven islands of Bombay|seven islands of Mumbai]] under [[William Hornby (governor)|William Hornby]], governor of Bombay (1771-1784), plugged the Great Breach in [[Mahalaxmi, Mumbai|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]]'' (workers) of other areas of the country, 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|Gaodevi]] on the south and the main road across, Falkland Road.<ref name=mum>{{cite web |title=Kamathipura |url=http://theory.tifr.res.in/bombay/physical/geo/kamathipura.html |publisher=Mumbai Pages }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title= Bellasis Road|url=http://theory.tifr.res.in/bombay/architecture/civil/bellasis-road.html |publisher=Mumbai Pages, TIFR }}</ref> 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.<ref name=toi2009/>

Till then, as previous 1864 Census figures for Mumbai indicate, other areas had a larger population of prostitutes, like [[Girgaon]] (1,044), Phanaswadi (1,323) and Oomburkharee (1,583) compared with Kamathipura (601), all which declined after 1864.<ref name=tambe62>[[#Ta|Tambe, p. 62]]</ref> 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 [[Empire of Japan|Japan]] were [[Human trafficking|trafficked]] into Kamathipura, where they worked as prostitutes servicing soldiers and locals alike.<ref name=hara>{{Cite journal|first=Harald|last=Fischer-Tiné|title='White women degrading themselves to the lowest depths': European networks of prostitution and colonial anxieties in British India and Ceylon ca. 1880–1914|journal=Indian Economic and Social History Review|year=2003 |volume=40 |doi=10.1177/001946460304000202|pages=163–190 [175 & 181]|issue=2|s2cid=146273713}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|first=Ashwini|last=Tambe|title=The Elusive Ingénue: A Transnational Feminist Analysis of European Prostitution in Colonial Bombay|journal=Gender & Society|year=2005|volume=19|pages=160–79|doi=10.1177/0891243204272781|issue=2|s2cid=144250345}}</ref> Gradually, [[social stratification]] also took place: A busy road in Kamathipura was known as Safed Gully (White Lane) owing to the European prostitutes housed here during the British raj. The lane is now known as Cursetji Shuklaji Street. The most well-known brothel in the area, Pila House, is the hybridisation of its original word: Playhouse. The first [[venereal disease]] clinic of Bombay was opened in 1916, being taken over by BMC in 1925. Nearby, Bachchuseth ki Wadi on Foras Road was famous for its ''kothewalis'' or [[tawaif]]s and [[mujra]]s.<ref name=toi2009>{{cite news |title=Red light district swaps sin for skyscrapers |url=http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-11-28/mumbai/28060014_1_prostitutes-kamathipura-aids |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130909012642/http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-11-28/mumbai/28060014_1_prostitutes-kamathipura-aids |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 9, 2013 |work=[[The Times of India]] |date= Nov 28, 2009}}</ref>

When India [[Indian Independence Act 1947|gained independence]], Indian [[sex worker]]s moved into the area. In recent decades, large numbers of [[Nepal]]ese women and girls have also been trafficked into the district.<ref>{{YouTube|id=h1beOGLfqxA|title=Selling of Innocents _ Part I – Film by Ruchira Gupta}}</ref> Over the years under Indian government rule, the sex industry in Kamathipura continued to flourish. Trafficking and economic circumstances also brought women from different parts of the country there. Eventually it became Asia's largest sex district.<ref name=kar17/>

The [[brothel]]s in the area are crowded. Sex workers wait outside to pick up customers and then rent an available bed. The estimated 3,000 buildings in the area are largely dilapidated; safe drinking water and sanitation is scarce as well.<ref name=dna2007/>

Some historical sources point out{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}} that the origin of slums, subsequently the red-light areas of [[Mumbai]] including Kamathipura is related to land acquisition, from the indigenous population who were evicted from their farmlands and cattle-fields and forced to live in congested conditions, to facilitate the development of the industrial harbor city. In 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 began to engage in sex work in order to survive. Gang activity also increased in the area; in the 1970s and early '80s, Bachchu Wadi at Kamathipura was frequented by gangleaders from the [[Mumbai underworld]], such as [[Haji Mastan]], [[Karim Lala]], and [[Dawood Ibrahim]].<ref name=toi2009/>

In 2005, with a statewide ban on [[dance bar (India)|dance bar]]s, 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.<ref name=sfg>{{cite news |title=Prostitution beckons India's former bar girls |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/26/MNGJ9HSC6R1.DTL&feed=rss.news |publisher=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] |date=March 26, 2006 |first=Paul |last=Watson}}</ref>

The area is also home to a small cottage industry of about 200 women who make a living rolling [[beedi]]s (hand-rolled Indian cigarette).<ref name=dna2007>{{cite news |title=Beedi workers look for saviour|url=http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_beedi-workers-look-for-saviour_1076427 |publisher=[[DNA (newspaper)|DNA]] |date=Jan 25, 2007 }}</ref>

==Demographics==

Kamathipura is divided into roughly 14 lanes and divided according to regional backgrounds of the workers. Most of the workers come from other Indian states.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/dancing-in-the-dark/article4932416.ece | location=Chennai, India | work=The Hindu | title=Dancing in the dark | date=20 July 2013}}</ref> 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.<ref name=kar17>[[#Ka|Karandikar, p. 17]]</ref>

The area had 55,936 voters in 2007, out of which about 15,000 are Muslims, 6,500 Telugus and the rest are Marathi and North Indians.<ref name=dna2007/>

==See also==
*[[Prostitution in India]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|33em}}

==References==
*{{cite book |title=Codes of misconduct: Regulating Prostitution in Late Colonial Bombay|author=Ashwini Tambe|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-8166-5138-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v4QVzOyWICMC&q=Kamathipura&pg=PA61 |ref=Ta }}
* {{cite web |title=''Managed Stratification in Bombay Brothels, 1914-1930'' |url=http://www.sasnet.lu.se/EASASpapers/22AshwiniTambe.pdf |date=July 9, 2004 |publisher=Swedish South Asian Studies Network, [[Lund University]] |ref=Bro |author=Ashwini Tambe |access-date=6 November 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120524004354/http://www.sasnet.lu.se/EASASpapers/22AshwiniTambe.pdf |archive-date=24 May 2012 |df=dmy-all }}
* {{cite book |title=Gender-based violence among female sex workers of Kamathipura, Mumbai, India: A contextual analysis|author= Sharvari Ajit |author2=University of Utah|year=2008|isbn=978-0-549-94774-5 |page=17 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l5C_vRetEMIC&q=Kamathipura&pg=PA17 |ref=Ka }}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
*[https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/daymygoddied/index.html The day my God died -] Documentary by [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]]
*[https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india304/aronson.html Frontline interview with Raney Aronson]
*[https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india304/index.html Frontline - INDIA - The Sex Workers, 2004]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMtlMBkJfSc Watch] YouTube documentary on a school in Kamathipura

{{Mumbai topics}}
{{Prostitution in India}}
{{Asia in topic|Prostitution in}}

[[Category:Neighbourhoods in Mumbai]]
[[Category:Red-light districts in India]]

Kamathipura - Revision history

2409:4071:4D9B:7F76:0:0:16C9:E702 at 12:39, 22 May 2021