Disciplining the Dasi: Cintamani and the Politics of a New Sexual Economy

Abstract

This article analyzes the representation of the figure of the dasi in early Tamil film. Against the backdrop of the abolition of the devadasi system in the Madras Presidency and the reformist activity associated with it, the article attempts to look at how the figure of the dasi underwent a strong repression in the cinematic discourses of the 1930s and 1940s. This was part of nationalist modernity, a project that sought to secure a new sexual economy in which the dasi was eventually narrativized out of Tamil film and pushed to the cultural margins of Tamil society. The article focuses on one film, Cintamani or Bilvamangal (1937) and shows how in this text the repression of the figure of the dasi was accompanied by an irruption of the real, the “uncanny.” It argues that there existed a nexus between sexuality and vision in early Tamil film, and that cinema itself acted as a safeguard against the trouble of the excessive sexuality embodied in the dasi.