Divine Music-Evil Women Caste, Gender and Music in the making of Modern South India

<strong>Centre for the Study of Social Systems School of Social Sciences</strong> CSSS Colloquium <strong>Krishna Menon</strong> (Professor, School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi) presented a paper on <strong>Divine Music-Evil Women Caste, Gender and Music in the making of Modern South India</strong> Date :<strong>&nbsp;November 17th, 2016</strong> <strong>Abstract:&nbsp;</strong>The community of Devadasis who were the repository of the grand south Indian tradition of music and dance was patronized by the royal courts and the feudal landlords. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the days of Devadasis in their traditional setting were over. These women had scholarship and artistry, but were denied the 'dignity' of domesticity and marriage. With feudal land arrangements fading away, property and land were no longer in abundance to be gifted away to Devadasis and their progeny. New middle class sensibilities structured around monogamy and nuclear families with clear inheritance norms spelt the end of sexual economies structured around feudal norms. By the 1870s and 1880s the fury of the new Madras upper caste educated elite against the tradition of the Devadasis gained enough momentum to spearhead a legal campaign for reforms that would ultimately equate Devadasis with prostitutes and ask for a ban on the practice. These reformist groups were not interested in either the artistic treasures that these traditional performing communities had or the material pressures that they faced as a consequence of the drying of their sources of income. The attempt was to open up the performance space for respectable women from middle class, upper- caste families. But the artistic heritage of the devadasi was too precious to be forgotten, the Madras elite went about systematically reclaiming the devadasi tradition for the project of cultural reconstruction of the new nation, and the re-definition of womanhood in independent India. <strong>Bio:&nbsp;</strong>Krishna Menon is Professor, School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi. Prior to joining AUD she taught at the Department of Political Science at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi for over two decades where she was the Director of the Aung San Suu Kyi Centre for Peace. Her publications include Women and Political Process (2015), Human Rights, Gender and Environment (2009), and contributions to Sentiment, Politics, Censorship- The State of Hurt(2016), Women and Empowerment in Contemporary India ( 2016), Women's Studies in India (2014), Political Theory: An Introduction (2008), Applied Ethics and Human Rights (2010), and research monograph with Sumangala Damodaran titled Gender and Identity: A Case Study of Nurses from Kerala in Delhi (2008). She received the Teacher of Distinction award from the Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi in 2009. She has a long record of performing Bharata Natyam in addition to Odissi and Mohinyattam. She was the classical dance critic of The Indian Express (1993-1996).