BENGALURU: Nights in Bengaluru are peaceful. Slightly colder than during the day, most vacant streets remind you of the quaint countryside. But like most things, your experience differs based on your identity. If your work does not agree with the existing definition of a ‘respectable profession’, you are at risk of biting the dust. Recently-released book Urban Undesirables by social scientists Neethi P and Anant Kamath, details with research how the lives of street-based sex workers in the city are consistently maligned with prejudice and abuse.
The idea for the book was conceived in 2015. “Back then, both of us were faculty members at Azim Premji University. There was a broader research agenda of looking at work and livelihood, in the underbelly of society. Some of our colleagues were looking at issues around domestic workers and so on. We decided we will take a look at street-based sex workers,” shares Neethi, a senior researcher at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements.
In the broader umbrella of sex workers in Bengaluru, Kamath explains their research was specifically based on workers in areas like MG Road, Majestic, KR Market and Yeswanthpur. “We are not looking at sex workers who operate as escorts or operate through their mobile phones but those who stand in public spaces, go with their customers to a private area and offer their services. There are thousands of such workers in the city, and they belong to the much lower castes and come from disadvantaged economic backgrounds. Many of them do work outside of their sex work like they can be a garment worker or a street vendor. We were trying to map out a cartography of sex work in Bengaluru through their eyes,” explains Kamath, assistant professor at the National Institute for Advanced Studies.
The city has always had a liberal reputation in most social circles. But the authors believe that when it comes to the underclass, Bengaluru mirrors every other city in the country. “The urban image of Bengaluru is mostly of an IT city. When you cast your eyes on the urban poor, you will soon realise the story is not much different from other cities, especially when looking at the urban informal workforce. There exists a history of sex workers in the city spanning multiple decades. But for some reason, they are never considered when we discuss urban planning,” says Neethi.
While the cycle of abuse remains the same for all sex workers, the nature and degree of it are gendered. “The difficulties are naturally faced by the transgendered sex workers as it is tough for them to even be around the city. The second most would be the women sex workers. While they can be around the city, their lives get difficult the moment their profession is discovered by the police or people in the area. I wouldn’t say the men have it any easier, but the cases of violence once caught are fewer in numbers,” says Kamath.
To change their perception of sex workers in society, Kamath believes the first thing that needs to change are two dominant points of view. “There are two perspectives that are problematic. One is to look at sex workers, especially women, with pity. Like they need to be rescued. In fact, one of the slogans in their protests is to save them from ‘saviours’. The other perspective is that these people are ‘loose’. All they want from us is to accept them and let them be. While the nature of their work might be disagreeable to many, many of them have found that they can take better economic and other decisions with sex work than with many other occupations,” he concludes.