SYMBOLOGY AND SUBALTERN RESISTANCE IN HĪRA MANDIMOHALLA

Policing native pleasures: a colonial history

“…Foucault's alternative explanation of domination without the sanguinary ritual, of sex without the law is how utilitarianism likes to see itself; the goal is to rid oneself of value judgments based upon an emotional reaction, a useful attitude in an alien society. Colonialism, however, is an ‘exceptional circumstance’ in one specific sense: the mechanisms of disciplinary control over human sexuality evident in the brothel districts of South Asia today, in Lahore's Hīra Mandi or Diamond Market have a pedigree that goes back over a century and a half (Jabbar : 95–119). Let us pretend to share the same ideal of scrupulous neutrality at the proscriptive nature of traditional morality the colonial official was expected ideally to cultivate.…”

“…That would still not be reason enough. But exploring how the contours of resistance might inform the reaction of subaltern groups of women to their exploitation by men forced to render sexual service in ‘two minute rooms’, how these native women rationalize their marginality from the rest of conservative society, we should examine the instrumental power of the structures that continue to inhibit their autonomy (Jabbar ). These were not wholly derived from a native patriarchal social order.…”

Sex Work and the Karmic Wheel: How Buddhism Influences Sex Work in China

“…For comparison, sex work in Islam is not condoned. In the case of Hira Mohalla Mandi, a brothel quarter in Pakistan, Naheem Jabbar (2011) illuminated how subaltern women professing Sh’ia Islam chose to participate in prostitution as a means of resisting patriarchy. Writing from a postcolonial perspective, Jabbar (2011) explained how prostitution emerged as a form of resistance from the very normative religious order that stigmatized women.…”

“…In the case of Hira Mohalla Mandi, a brothel quarter in Pakistan, Naheem Jabbar (2011) illuminated how subaltern women professing Sh’ia Islam chose to participate in prostitution as a means of resisting patriarchy. Writing from a postcolonial perspective, Jabbar (2011) explained how prostitution emerged as a form of resistance from the very normative religious order that stigmatized women. Although his work was about the profanity ascribed to the self-confessed religious Muslim prostitutes who deployed symbols associated with Islamic rituals to resist oppression, it is an example of work that examined how religious women appropriated prostitution as a means to finding a voice in their society.…”