Thread by @nrithyapillai

Thevadiyal: You may have heard this word from your surroundings, from your peers, from your parents, from cinemas or anywhere else. This can be called the most offensive term used to disgrace a female in the Tamil language.

Thevadiyal comes from the word, 'Devar Adiyar'(தேவர் அடியார்) in which 'devar' means god & 'adiyar' means servants of god. DevarAdiyars (also) Devadasis ( a term that became universal during reform discourse) were female artists who performed dance& music in royal courts& temples

There were different names given to dancing women/courtesans all of which had a sense of othering/stigma in the largely caste ordained society .They were the owners / propagators of the dance form 'sathir' more popularly known as Bharathanatyam today.

From chola historical anecdotes, there are references to 'thalicheri pendir' where some of them have had relationships with members of the royal family.They had courtly patronage and  were conferred with inams and manyams, Thanjavur big temple has inscriptions to validate this.

I mention chola history here so as to nullify claims of a celibate past,for as long as there were kingdoms, dynasties and rulers, there were courtesans and dancing women. They often had relationships with men of power and had patronage to pursue their arts.

But a reductionist narrative of equating these women to prostitutes happened predominantly because of the societal changes that happened around the time of colonisation and with the advent of victorian moralilty into the ethos of the newly educated Indian society .

By mid 19th century performances by Tamil and Telugu-speaking courtesans had come under public surveillance and critique in the Madras Presidency. Despite their own protests to the Madras Government, their lifestyles were first criminalized in 1927.

Calls for abolition & reform were taken up by upper-caste nationalists & proponents of the Self-Respect mvt, Annie Besant,Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy,E. Krishna Iyer, Rukmini Arundale, Periyar, Muvvalur Ramamirtha- history tells us they were instrumental in making the bill a reality.

What they do not tell us about is the protests and campaigns against the bill led by women from the community. The bill and act criminalised the hereditary dancers for practising their profession and definitely paved the way for brahminic appropriation of the art by upper-castes

Reform and Reinvention (of Bharathanatyam) are both two sides of a coin and are the cause for the disenfranchisement and erasure of hereditary pasts from Bharathanatyam history. The Act in a manner legitimises their/my exclusion from performance and practice of Bharathanatyam

The trauma of this oppressive history is still being carried by members of these formerly courtesan castes. This needs reparation . This is a brief introduction to the complex history of this word. Next time when you hear this word, remember the casteist history behind it.

While I write all of this, I am aware of being branded as an apologist for caste oppressive practices, but I believe it is important to bring about a critical ,nuanced understanding of the beginnings of cultural nationalism in India.