Inter Press Service - August 22, 2002
Sudeshna Banerjee

When Basanti, a minor Bedia girl, was rescued from a brothel and returned to her parents who live in Agra's red light area of Basai, she had no words of thanks for her 'rescuers'.

"I do not want to take up any other work and I am not interested in an education," said Basanti tonelessly.

Her cool, composed look and her attitude did not betray any remorse and she seemed determined to return to what has been a centuries-old tradition among the Bedias, some 3,000 live of whom here in Agra, 200 kilometres south of the capital New Delhi.

"The whole problem lies in their basic mentality and loyalty toward family values and tradition," explains Roma Debabrata, a lecturer at Delhi University and director of Stop Trafficking, Oppression and Prostitution of Women and Children (STOP).

This, experts suggest, is probably why Basanti says she would like to continue in sex work, even if she has spent a year in one of New Delhi's rehabilitation homes.

"Since they have a different attitude to life where morality is concerned, the only way to wean them away from the trade would be to devise a completely different educational curriculum for their children," Mahesh Kumar Gupta, who heads the government administration in Agra, says.

Gupta urges that this curriculum touch on the vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS that comes with sex work.

While education has brought some changes to the Bedias' sending of their women into prostitution, it persists even among many well-to-do Bedia families across north and central India.

The difficulty of bringing about change even today is highlighted by reports of how the parents of a judge, Kashi Nath, a Bedia, were sent to jail on trafficking charges, for having sent a daughter into prostitution a few years ago.

The Bedias are regarded as a 'warrior' caste, which initially took to prostitution, hunting and illicit brewing after suffering a series of military defeats in earlier times. It is said that to a member of the warrior caste, robbery or prostitution is preferable to manual labour.

As part of sweeping reforms effected by colonial British rule, the Bedias were branded a criminal tribe along with 'thugs,' a tribe of robbers who famously lent their name to the English vocabulary.

Ritual prostitution is not confined to the Bedias. Across India, there are communities such as the 'devadasis' (servants of the gods) of South India who have encouraged their girls and women to take to temple dancing and move from there to outright sex work in metropolises like Mumbai.

Just as they zealously undertook the 'suppression of thuggee' the British took it upon themselves to ban the 'devadasi' cult. The successor Indian government upheld the ban, but could never really stop women from taking to it in large numbers because of religious custom that accorded a place to prostitutes.

A government survey carried out in southern Karnataka state a few years ago found that there were 8,000 'devadasis' in just one district, most of them devoted to the cult of the goddess Yellamma.

Attempts at reform have been thwarted by the fact that there is, after all, money in sex work.

Sex workers in Delhi's 'GB Road' red-light district, most of them from the Agra area, are believed to bring in about five million U.S. dollars annually, says Brij Kishore Singh, a senior police official who has led several raids in the area and is involved in rehabilitation work.

Bedia girls are initiated into the trade soon after puberty and this is accompanied by coming out ceremonies and elaborate rituals such as 'nathni utherna' (taking off the nose ring) and 'sar dhakwana' (covering the head) that symbolise the end of childhood innocence.

"But all these ceremonies mark their future existence as commodities for male consumption," says Mohini Giri, former director of the National Commission for Women who has done an extensive study on Indian tribes.

Marriage is rare for Bedia girls, but once married within their own community, they are not permitted to dance or attract clients for money.

Bedia men who marry girls from the community must pay a large dowry, and often they look for brides from other communities.

No data is available on HIV/AIDS prevalence among the Bedias in Agra, experts say. A doctor working for the National AIDS Control Organisation has been trying to look into the reproductive and health aspects of the community for the last six months, but without much success because of its secretive nature.

Gupta explains that this is because the Bedias fear being documented by the government. "They prefer to visit private hospitals and this makes it difficult for us to intervene. However, we are aware of the high prevalence of STDs," he adds.

Previous efforts to look into the issue have created controversy. Last year, the United Nations Children's Fund had to apologise for a government study it funded on HIV/AIDS among the Bedias in central Madhya Pradesh state, after the community and rights groups said it portrayed the group as inherently being given to prostitution and thus, exacerbated discrimination.

Still, Vijay Kumar Yadav, a city magistrate, reports frustration in his attempts to explain to Bedia girls the risks they run from HIV/AIDS: "I could counsel these girls for an hour and they would go right back to their relatives and parents who tell them to ignore the counselling."

Apart from providing Bedia girls with a regular education, Yadav thinks it is also important to keep the children separated from their parents. (END/IPS/AP/CR/PR/SB/RDR/AAG/JS/02)

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