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. The 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.
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.