All the entry points to Kolkata’s biggest red light district of Sonagachi look like a shopping mall. Customer service kiosks have been set up and volunteers armed with thermal guns and sanitisers can be seen everywhere. Every customer is being handed out hand sanitiser and those with body temperature above 98.5 degree F are not be allowed to step into the area.

“It is a challenge for us to maintain a clean slate during the coronavirus outbreak. So far we have succeeded in keeping the virus away from the entire community –an especially vulnerable community – with not a single case reported from these quarters,” says Dr Smarajit Jana, epidemiologist and community medicine expert, who in 1992 founded Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Samiti (DMSC), the NGO to work for the prevention of HIV in the community but later branched out in different welfare sectors for sex workers.

Out of bounds for Corona

DMSC that is run by sex workers and their children and swear by “collective strength and solidarity” has distributed ration for the women during the lockdown. Before July, when they are expected to start entertaining customers, its workers will visit the women and brief them on ways of how to guard against possible infection, one of which is taking a bath after every intercourse.

The lanes and bylanes of Sonagachi have around 5,500 sex workers – a number more than anywhere else in the country.

Another 2,000-2,500 girls come here every day on an average from the districts of Bengal, conduct their business and leave, estimates Jana.

Something that seems to come straight out of the pages of Dickensian squalor, Sonagachi is an essential part of Kolkata and witnessed its evolution down the past couple of centuries, says urban historian Debasish Basu.

Pilgrim and traders

The location of Sonagachi, too, traces the history of the city. Even before Job Charnock – a withdrawn employee of East India Company who married a woman rescued from Sati – landed on the banks of the Hooghly river on August 24, 1690, there were two main thoroughfares in the region. One of them connected Bagbazar in the north to Kalighat in the south – a route through which the pilgrims moved. The other ran from the banks of the river to Baithakkhana, a spot near what subsequently became Sealdah station. Boats brought goods from what is now Bangladesh to Kolkata by the river and after being unloaded the goods were carried by bullock carts to Baithakkhana, where the traders congregated. So between the river bank and Baithakkhana ran the trader route.

Sonagachi was located at a spot which is virtually on the pilgrim’s road and not far from the trader’s route. The location helped the women to get customers who had disposable income to spend.

Subsequent to the battle of Plassey in 1757 when nawab Siraj–ud-Daulah was vanquished by the army of Robert Clive, and East India Company made deep inroads in the country, Kolkata (then Calcutta) gradually turned into a seat of political and military power. “The swelling number of troops guaranteed the women of Sonagachi an ever increasing clientele. The nautch girls and free-flowing alcohol failed to provide them sufficient entertainment,” says Jana.

With dwindling demand for the “baijis” or “nautch girls” who enjoyed immense popularity throughout the 19th century, they gradually disappeared from Sonagachi and other red light areas of the city. A somewhat similar service is offered by a few who would do strip tease acts to Bollywood numbers.

The economic machine

In the 19th and 20th century a number of buildings in the area were owned by some of the city’s wealthiest and “noblest” families, some among whom themselves kept ‘harems’ here. “A lot of land and property were owned by the most respectable families of Bengal too, who enjoyed rental income from the women,” says Jana.

Once upon a time, the spoilt brats of wealthy Bengali families would spend a lot of time after sundown in these lanes. Horse-drawn carriages and phaetons would often arrive at the doorsteps with babus decked up in fine dhoti and kurta, with a heavy splash of perfume and garlands wrapped around their wrists.

But the women always operated from the shadows. Directories and almanacs published in English did not have the names of the occupants of these buildings. However, the Bengali directory published in 1915 had the names of the occupiers.

Recalling an experience of the mid 1990s Basu said, “Back in the mid-nineties, a woman told me straight on the face that they are “khandani randi (sex workers down generations)”. I was thrown off my feet. One of them also told me that her ascendants had been in Sonagachi since the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857.”

Though he can’t prove it, Basu suspects some of the women from the harems of kings and emperors such as Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775-1862) found their way into the brothels of Sonagachi after the empires of their masters disintegrated.

Down the centuries sex trade flourished here, surviving British imperialism, world wars, Independence and even the information age.

Doctors who have run clinics in the area say that on an average a woman entertains four clients a day. The unsavoury drill is so draining that it is difficult for a woman to keep enduring customers at a stretch after ten years down the line.

But poverty and trafficking keep up the supply of women in this profession ensuring a constant flow. Interestingly, domestic work and construction projects are the two other major sectors employing poor women migrating from the villages to the cities in search of a living. And when opportunities dry up in a plummeting economy the hapless lot falls back on sex trade which is the only available option to ward off hunger.

Though there is an effort from some quarters to rescue the minors, it is difficult for sex workers to move out, even if they want to. Aloka Mitra who runs an NGO Women’s Interlink Foundation, recalls how she imparted six-month’s training in beautician’s course to a group of 15 women in 2013. “We gave them training at a local club with the help of the state government. But when we planned to set up a salon for them to work outside the area, there was resistance from the locals and pimps, who live off their income,” says Mitra.

Over the past few years, business in Sonagachi has taken a beating with demonetisation dealing the first blow, when customers vanished due to lack of cash. Then came the coronavirus lockdown that has sent many women back to their homes in the villages. “Since end-March there is virtually no business,” rues a 20-year-old who could not make it to her village in north Bengal.

Push for recognition, and rights

However, there has been a gradual shift in the customer profile of this area. Earlier, men from many noble and wealthy families used to patronise women of Sonagachi. But now in the age of free mixing and subsequent explosion of the Internet one does not need to limit their choice to this area.

Earlier, wealthy men used to have women who were meant for their captive entertainment. They used to provide for their entire upkeep. Such patronage has almost vanished in the past few decades.

However, earlier the women were often tortured to accept more customers than their tired limbs would permit and they would be frequently beaten into submission if they resisted. That menace has almost ended, admit the women.

As the twentieth century rolled on to its last decade, there was a conscious push to shift from the moral-immoral binary and push for the recognition of sex workers. As rights groups kept pushing for reforms, the women too started bold “experiments”.

Take the case of Kajal Bose, a 47-year-old sex worker, who also doubles up as the secretary of DMSC. This stocky woman who hails from Burdwan district used to live with her husband in the same space where she carried on her business, till her husband died of cancer a few years back. ”He used to work in the Metro railway. We had a blissful 20 years of marriage here,” recalls Kajal, who resorted to sex-trading at the tender age of 17, after all efforts to singlehandedly bring up a 3-year-old daughter failed.

At a collective level, DMSC has even negotiated with the Election Commission for issuance of voters’ card for the women. In the absence of proof of address, the passbook of Usha, a credit cooperative society created by the NGO, was offered as the proof, enabling a considerable number of women to exercise their voting rights, say DMSC office bearers.

A stratified world

The women of Sonagachi live in a stratified society. “About 20% of them are referred to as Agrawalis, who form the apex of the pyramid. Their charges are so high that they can afford to pay a monthly house rent as high as Rs 60,000-70,000. Among the women who constitute the B and C categories, 25% of them have been trafficked from Bangladesh and about 10% from Chhattisgarh,” says Basu. A considerable share of women is also of Nepali origin.

A lot of women also belong to North 24 Parganas district. Many among them are from the families who migrated to Bengal from erstwhile East Pakistan during the Partition but could not rise above poverty. Besides, a sizeable number of women come from a belt that stretches from Kandi in Murshidabad district and Sainthia in Birbhum district, says Basu, who has done some research into the women visiting the area.

At the bottom of the pyramid are women who commute daily and ply their trade for Rs 300-350 per customer in rented rooms and leave.

Agrawalis, usually from the Hindi heartland, charge Rs 2,500-3,000 per customer but the rates escalate up to ten times if the customer stays overnight. The B-grade sex worker charges anywhere between Rs 500 and Rs 700 for the same act.

There are about a thousand Agrawalis and they are concentrated in the buildings lining Abinash Kaviraj Street that has earned the label of the premium quarter, thanks to these women. The buildings housing Agrawalis are suggestively named like Night Lovers and Prem Bandhan.

Earlier this street used to attract members of the city’s landed and aristocratic class. This is also the section where pimps are the most active.

Jounopallir Chaalchitra, a book on Bengal’s red light areas, states that in the seventies, a few Naxalite leaders took shelter in this area to escape the police of the Siddhartha Shankar Roy government.

The B grade women are mostly concentrated in Durga Charan Mitra Street, Nilmoni Mitra Street (Mitra was a famous architect of the 19th century), Joymitra Lane and Gaurishankar Lane (named after mathematician Gaurishankar De). The buildings, dark and dingy, on Imam Baux Lane, Maniruddin Lane are occupied by C grade sex workers.

The entire area is characterised by a squalor that has largely survived improvements in municipal services. Overflowing vats that were visible even a few years ago have vanished, but storm drains struggle to suck in water during the rains. There is an all-pervasive stench in the area and used condoms are strewn around the buildings.

Sonagachi owes it names to Sona Gazi, a Muslim saint, who, according to legend, was a dacoit infamous as Sanaullah. The entire area has a number of temples dedicated to Hindu gods and goddesses like Shiva and goddess Sitala. “In the locality Durga puja, Kali puja, Jagaddhatri puja, Sitala puja, Kartik puja and Dol jatra (Holi) are organised every year with much fervour. Masjids and majars also attract devotees from the sex workers,” says Pintu Maity, who works in an NGO in the area.

Beyond the squalor

“The women of Sonagachi have collectively achieved a lot including a dramatic reduction of sexually transmitted diseases, building a credit cooperative society of their own, and zilch cases of corona infections in a city where the graph is steadily rising. But all these are recent times phenomena, all within a span of less than 25 years,” reflects Kajal, who worked as a sari weaver before turning into a sex worker.

“The earnings from weaving were not sufficient to keep my head above water. So I sought help from a woman in our locality, who was already earning a living out of sex trade,” remembers Bose with a hint of pride in her profession.

There is also a perceptible change in the mindscape of the women in this trade. Earlier, the sex workers would make sure not to board a bus from the nearest stop, fearing identification by any acquaintance. “But such inhibitions do not exist anymore for many,” said Gouri Das, a woman in her thirties.

“I have married off my daughter and her in-laws know all about my profession. I did not conceal anything,” adds Basu, who never went to school but managed to earn enough to buy land in her village, something that many can’t.

She also says that the role of strongmen in the area has diminished and excesses by the police have gone down.

“Our aim is to establish that sex workers are like any other worker, who sells her skills and deserves the same respect and dignity of labour,” explains Dr Jana. In fact, Jana and his army of volunteers, who went to work for prevention of HIV in the area in the early nineties, used this pitch to earn acceptance within the community.

Since then, a lot has changed and the women here are not “detained’ against their wish, claims DMSC members.

The dream of a room

Despite the changing attitude of society towards sex workers, the one factor that has not changed in these quarters is the dream to have one’s own room. A room in a brothel is a passport to personal space as well as business. When the last of the lustful eyes leave, it becomes a peaceful space to meet one’s lover, or make a telephone call to a child who is left back in a faraway village or to let one’s hair down and hum a favourite tune. And if one can manage to “buy” an additional room, it means owning an economic machine that can be sublet for further income.

About 20% of the fortunate women have their own room, says Jana.

A 10 feet X 10 feet room in the area can easily net a rent of Rs 9,000 per month, says Basu, who once had two rooms but sold off one a few years ago.

The living conditions, however, are quite appalling. The buildings – typically three-four storeys – are built to maximise occupancy and revenue. There are rows of rooms, most of them small and without ventilation, along a verandah and the women have to share toilets with a score others in each floor.

In many rooms have cheap ply partitions to accommodate two customers simultaneously.

“We don’t have proper kitchens and make do with the space along the verandah to cook,” elaborates Das.

Till late in the morning, the verandahs are lined with heaps of unclean utensils with rats feasting on the last bit of stale food stuck on the plates.

In a sense the rodents serve as a metaphor of Sonagachi – surviving in the shadows and scampering for cover when the heavy boots stomp.

The endgame is, however, often difficult. The money that the women send to the villages is often spent to buy land and property but in the name of her father or brother. “When the body gives up and she wants to return to her village, it often happens that her own family members, consumed by greed, spread a bad name around so that she can never come back,” says Debasish Bose.