Prostitution and the law: India

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This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

The authors of this page include…

Kaustubh Nandan Sinha, Legal Service India

The Devadasis

A Devadasi is a servant (dasi, feminine) of one of more deity (dev). Goddess Yellamma is the best-known of these deities. She is worshipped mainly in ten districts of north Karnataka, 14 districts of Andhra Pradesh and the adjacent districts of Maharashtra.

By the early 20th century—indeed, much before it—the Devadasi system had degraded into prostitution with a veneer of religious sanction. The Bombay Devadasi Protection Act, 1934, banned this practice. This law was followed by the Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act (later, the Tamil Nadu Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act), the Bombay Protection (Extension) Act, 1957, and the Andhra Pradesh Devadasi (Prohibition of Dedication) Act, 1988. The Government of Karnataka declared the system illegal in 1982.