Mahishasura row: National Network of Sex Workers writes open letter to JNU students

The way the word 'sex worker' has been freely thrown around in the whole imbroglio over sedition and protests at JNU, has led to Meena Seshu of the National Network of Sex Workers writing a strongly worded open letter to the students of JNU ahead of International Sex Workers’ Day observed on March 3.

The letter points out, “why using the term sex worker in the alleged pamphlet in JNU on Mahishasura Martyrdom Day is a concept fraught with the ‘whore stigma,’” and adds, “The use of the politically correct sex worker instead of 'prostitute’ does not take away from the fact that it is used to depict what is looked down upon as insalubrious.”

The letter further explains: “Sex worker is the term used by the sex worker’s rights movements to claim dignity for work adults do consensually by providing sexual services for money. Its now being used to supposedly strip the 'goddess’ in this instance, of any dignity,” and laments: “The term since then has taken a life of its own. From a politically correct term it is now being used to describe anti-nationals, anti-goddess people even those anti- patriarchy! But the thinly veiled contempt for the sex worker is huge in every utterance.”

The letter refers to the October 2014 pamphlet allegedly issued by student groups in JNU to mark Mahishasura Martyrdom Day which the Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani read out on February 24, 2016 in the Parliament and questions why Irani asked forgiveness of the House. “Would it have been better for the pamphlet not to have used the term sex worker? Because I cannot see what else the minister could have to ask forgiveness for, a fair skinned woman enticing Mahishasur and killing him is already a well-accepted concept among tribals.”

Alluding to the tweet February 13 by former Officer on Special Duty to the Chief Minister of Haryana Jawahar Yadav, which said prostitutes who sell their body are better than girls protesting in JNU because they don't sell their country, the letter points out how the clarification was worse since it continued to hold sex work in contempt. The letter also questions author and mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik’s analysis in his piece 'How patriarchy makes ‘sex worker’ a term of abuse', and accuses him of falling into the trap of interesting analysis without addressing why the term sex work can’t be used interchangeably with the ‘stigmatising’ concept of the 'prostitute’.

According to Seshu, “This constant reference to sex work and women in sex work in particular is made to stigmatise and put down the woman it is describing. It is used to depict sleaze, disgust, distaste and revulsion. Mere use of the politically correct term has not taken away the whore stigma attached to the term 'prostitute’ if it is used to divide women into the 'good and the bad’.”  

The letter finally says: “The sex worker rights movement would like to bring to your notice the fact that it is the randi [whore] stigma that pushes sex workers outside the rights framework, effectively cutting them off from privileges and rights supposedly accorded to all citizens irrespective of what they do for a living. Stigmatization, which has its roots in the standards set by patriarchal morality,” and points out how sex workers too want azadi. “We also demand azadi from discrimination, from the violence of a judgemental attitude, from the multiplicity of injustice meted out to sex work and from the loose use of the politically correct but deeply stigmatised use of the term sex worker.”