I first heard of Husna Bai from Rohit De’s A People’s Constitution. She was a sex worker in a nascent India who filed a writ petition in the Allahabad High Court in 1958 challenging SITA (1956), the prohibitionary anti-trafficking legislation; her central claim: that as a sex worker and citizen of India, she was entitled to the fundamental right of freedom of occupation under Article 19 of the Constitution of India. Husna Bai, in her surreal passion, leaves me incredulous in many senses but chiefly by how she baffled a (for then, still noble) feminist discourse on protecting the Woman and her Honor. Husna Bai’s case was important for many other reasons—boldly representing the woman as a sexual agent (as opposed to an object) in Indian jurisprudence and mobilizing sex workers—but that is not why I have assumed this pseudonym.
Sometimes, on a pensive evening, leaning into my balcony’s grill, as I focus intensely on puffs of smoke vanishing into an ephemeral city beneath and intensely on nothing at all, all at the same time, Husna Bai appears in my mind’s eye. Over iterations, her appearance has changed in my imagination and eventually abstracted away into a minimalist rendering of a faceless woman in a saree. In my daydream, with my jaw wide open, I ask her the question, something along the lines of “how the fuck though?” but my subconscious restricts me for she is always elusive and slips away just as she is finally within reach. Husna Bai fascinates me, and after much thought, I still cannot articulate why in a manner that satisfies me.
Husna was bolder than I have ever been. She is downright cheeky. Maybe that is why. In some ways, Husna epitomizes a worldview I hold dear: she is debaucherous and simultaneously utterly dignified, and so with no place for despites. Maybe that. Husna’s case also represents a world of possibility: the subaltern commanding legalese is an awe-inducing exercise in self-determination. Maybe this. Or maybe, I had just read too much Manto by then.
BBC tells me, “Not much is known about Husna Bai's personal life - and a search of the archives turned up no photographs - apart from the fact that she lived with her female cousin and two younger brothers who were dependent on her earnings.” For someone who yearns to meet Husna Bai, this is terrible, terrible, terrible news. All I want is one session, some cutting chai, and some conversation. To know Husna Bai. Or, if I may so dare, to understand her. Maybe not even a session, maybe just the answer to my one question: how?
Alas, Husna Bai remains elusive.
Good to read!!