Azizun of Lucknow Extended Biography
Azizun of LucknowExtended BiographyYou may wish to share this biography with students, or just to read it for your own information.Though we do not know much about her early life, historians believe that Azizun was born sometime around 1832 in northern India. According to myths that continue to circulate throughout India today, Azizun became motherless at a very young age and was taken in by a courtesan living in Lucknow—a city located between Delhi and Calcutta in present-day India. During her youth and early adult life, Lucknow was the flourishing political capital and cultural center of the Kingdom of Awadh, which had been ruled by Nawabs (Muslim rulers) since the eighteenth century. These rulers were major patrons of the arts and intellectual life, and as a result, Lucknow became an important cultural and artistic hub. Under Nawab rule and patronage, female courtesans, or Tawa’ifs, emerged as a powerful female elite class that become a crucial component of political life and culture in Awadh. Such patronage created new pathways toward upward mobility for women like Azizun in an otherwise rigid gender and caste system. However, not all Tawa’ifs were considered equal. Within this group there also existed a formal hierarchy, in which older courtesans that had earned reputations as particularly skilled dancers, singers, and entertainers over the course of their careers were situated at the top as “managers.” This higher class of courtesans used their fame, success, and specialized knowledge to recruit and train other women to entertain courtiers and even the king himself. While female managers were sometimes charged with bringing women into court for the sole purpose of providing sexual services for noblemen, Tawa’ifs represented a unique class of courtesans that engaged in a wide range of relationships and activities. Some Tawa’ifs engaged in non-sexual relationships with men, in which they were expected to simply provide companionship and hospitality. Others were solely entertainers as highly skilled dancers and singers. Moreover, those who did engage in sexual relationships usually did so in long-term, monogamous relationships with just one courtier patron. Though British colonizers understood these women as oppressed and “backward” prostitutes, Tawa’ifs did not see themselves the same way. Indeed, unlike most other women, Tawa’ifs had access to education as they were expected to be knowledgeable about history and local culture in their private conversations with courtiers and as guests of larger salons. They also had the power to negotiate the terms of their relationships and payments (that continued until the relationship ended). They must have been quite successful in negotiating high wages because during the nineteenth century, several Tawa’ifs, including Azizun, appear in tax records in which they were placed “in the highest tax bracket.”1 These records indicate that such women owned property and luxury items like gold, precious stones, valuable furnishing, and embroidered cashmere, to name a few examples.2However, in 1856, the power and autonomy of both Tawa’ifs and the kingdom of Awadh came under serious threat. That year, the British annexed the region and deposed the king, Wajid Ali Shah, which ended over a century of royal patronage for Tawa’ifs, thus effectively eliminating the entire cultural institution. In an attempt to both ensure her own well-being and defend her kingdom against imperial rule, Azizun used her skills and powerful connections to undermine and even violently resist British colonial authority. According to British colonial records, Azizun participated in the famous Indian rebellion of 1857 against the British East India company. She used her intimate 1 Veena Talwar Oldenburg, “Lifestyle as Resistance: The Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow, India,” Feminist Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2, (Summer, 1990), pp. 259-287: 259.2 Oldenburg, “Lifestyle as Resistance,” 259
2Azizun of Lucknow - Extended Biographyconnections with soldiers serving under British orders (sepoys) to get information about the imperialist’s military position and strategy, and to help organize a revolt. She opened up her home to sepoys to use as a secret meeting place both before and during the rebellion. Azizun also recruited and rallied other women around her to cheer on and boost morale among male soldiers. During battle, these women then served as nurses for the wounded. Perhaps most importantly, Azizun actually participated in the rebellion alongside male soldiers. She was said to have been seen riding on horseback in male attire during battle, literally fighting for independence in what historians have considered one of the most bloody rebellions India’s history. And Azizun was not alone. Several women took up arms to contest and resist British political, economic, and cultural impositions. Azizun’s actions show how notions of “modernity” differed between India and the west, and the ways in which these ideas were contested on the ground. Though British colonizers might have seen her merely as a prostitute and the victim of a “backward” cultural institution, Azizun saw herself as an important, empowered woman. From her perspective, British imperialists were the “oppressors” that needed to be eliminated.