Now that the Indian film industry has left its infancy, many people are talking about whether respectable women should be allowed to participate in it or not.  Many believe that they should be strongly encouraged to join in order to cleanse the film world of “impure” women, but there are also those who believe that to let such women participate for even one second would be an unpardonable sin.

The delightful irony is that the former who with the best intentions want to purify the silver screen—are forgetting that while they can clean up the film world, the real world won’t change at all.  They can run prostitutes out of the studios, but this won’t eliminate them from the world outside where they will still be seen working the streets.  Then the latter are against letting honorable women experience the film studios’ debauched atmosphere.  But once they get worked up into a state by thoughts of cleanliness and purity, they forget that actresses—whose acting they enjoy in the films they watch—were once respectable as well.

If a woman leaves a brothel and joins a film company and proves to be a wonderful actress, then no one has any right to complain.  Society produces prostitutes, and its wide-reaching laws foster their existence.  So why are they stigmatized, why is their collective death wished, when they too are part of society?  If we want to transform them into something good, then we will have to work to improve society as a whole.  As long as we don’t think with new vigor about how our society operates, then in this so-called era of culture and civilization there will continue to be prostitutes everywhere and this “impurity” will never disappear.

A factotum works all day in an office laboriously balancing accounts just so he can live, and another sells liquor for just the same ends.  Although their means are different, they share the same purpose, and it’s possible that if the peon could, he would start selling alcohol.  Why is it then that prostitutes are viewed with such surprise and hatred when the fact of their existence isn’t surprising and their lives aren’t really despicable?

Respectable women owe their good name to the atmosphere in which they were raised—they pass from the affectionate protection of their father to the prosperous house of their husband and never know how complicated life can be.  But women deprived of their father’s love and concern, who grow up illiterate, and who have to feed themselves, they are another matter.  They are forced to face all of life’s difficulties:  some can’t overcome them and they die; some take to begging; some fall ill and are admitted into hospitals; some do manual labor; and some encounter trials so severe that they become prostitutes, a fate that is itself an endless agonizing trial.

Women aren’t born prostitutes but are either forced to become them or choose to be them on their own.  Demand always spurs supply—because men lust after women without regard to who they are, you’ll find prostitutes everywhere.  If men stopped desiring women, then prostitution would disappear by itself.

Our so-called honorable citizens hold fundamentally flawed opinions about prostitutes in that their posturing is essentially no more than a way for them to insist upon their respectability and dignity.  Men control society and take advantage of the power this bestows on them.  Society says that men always remain men, regardless of whether they commit sins at each and every step of their way, but a woman no longer remains a woman if she succumbs even once to a youthful desire or some other impulse, or if she loses her way for a moment due to a man’s forceful demands.  She’s viewed with contempt and hatred, and doors close for her that would remain open for men.

I wonder, if women can be chaste, can’t men too?  If women can be promiscuous, can’t men be too?  Then why do we direct our wrath only at women?

It is said that studios should refuse to hire prostitutes, but doesn’t this imply that men can’t control themselves and so this serves as an admission that compared to women men are in fact much weaker and liable to err?

The film industry has to have both men and women, and disagreements between them are often fruitful.  If people didn’t think that acting lasciviously was part and parcel of being in the film world, and if men were able to control themselves, then women couldn’t ruin things even if they tried.

I want to ask those men who plan to invite respectable women into the film industry what they mean by “respectable.”  Aren’t prostitutes who don’t cheat anyone also respectable?  If they mean “chaste,” then I want to ask whether they think that acting requires this.  Does it seem likely that in order to act you must be chaste?  If they really believe this, they’re completely wrong and their reasoning is suspect.

In order to act well, actors and actresses must know life’s ups and downs.  It’s impossible for an actress to portray a woman separated from her lover if she hasn’t already experienced this several times, because how can a woman portray grief if she has never known it?  But if actresses want to succeed, they should know about more than love.  They need worldly experience if they want to be able to act in character.

Reality is right before us and we cannot cover it up.  If we want to make better and more artistic films (ones that really sparkle), and if we want to avoid going down the wrong path, then we should demand more of ourselves.  Humans are capable of both behaving with great character and with great error, but this has nothing to do with art.  Whether the film world has respectable women or dissolute ones, the only thing that matters is that films mirror reality.

I’m not saying that prostitution is good, and I’m not advocating that film companies should hire prostitutes in droves.  What I want to say and have said is clear:  to be a good actress, a woman must be experienced in the ways of the world—in both its pleasant aspects and its unpleasant ones—because if she can’t call up a painful memory when it’s needed, she won’t be convincing.  Really, I just can’t stress enough how important it is for an actress to be widely experienced.

Whether an actress is a prostitute or an exemplar of chastity, in my eyes she is only an actress.  I don’t care about her “honor” because it doesn’t impact her ability to act.  Similarly, a prostitute can become a writer of the first caliber and society can benefit from her thoughts and perspective, and untold harm can come from listening to an educated married woman.  A Parisian prostitute was the first shot in the French Revolution, and at Jallianwala Bagh a prostitute’s son was the first to die.

Don’t look down upon the wayside vagabonds.

Who are you to know if there isn’t a nobleman among them?