THE BRITISH IN INDIA

In the 1890's, Fanny Epstein, from Manchester, ran a brothel.

The brothel was on Bazar Road, in Mumbai (Bombay).

The British in India

"Fanny Epstein blazed a trail from Warsaw to Bombay and Buenos Aires."

From Bombay Brothel Owner to Yiddish Star

Mumbai brothel street.

"A certain number of prostitutes of East European and Russian origin found their way to the sea-ports of India in Bombay, Karachi, Madras, Rangoon etc. via their sojourns in cities like Constantinople, Cairo, Alexandria, Baghdad etc.

"The male procurers or pimps, who were responsible for bringing them hither, belonged largely to the Jewish faith who advised women in Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere of vacancies in the Indian and Far Eastern brothels, arranging with the brothel-keepers for their reception, if they desired to start in a new country, and often advancing the money for their steamer tickets, if they were short of funds."

Prostitution in Colonial India and Jewish Role

Mumbai brothels.

In the hill town of Simla, the summer capital of British India, one popular hostess was known as ‘Bed and Breakfast’, another as ‘The Passionate Haystack’.

Men often took Indian mistresses - vastly superior in erotic skills to European women, according to the writer and adventurer Richard Burton - and sometimes married them.

Behind the formal dress and polite smiles

British India.

"In the 1880s, the Anglican bishops of India and Ceylon denounced the registration of brothels and compulsory medical treatment of prostitutes on the basis that the suppression of vice was more important than the diminution of suffering caused by that vice. 

"The lock hospitals that specialised in treating syphilis and cantonment military brothels were closed, with an inevitable surge in venereal disease. 

"Soon almost half the British troops were being treated for venereal disease, with an even higher proportion in parts of Bombay. 

"The viceroy Lord Elgin lamented the moves which had led to 'even more deplorable evils', by which he meant an increase in homosexuality.

"The brothels were discreetly reopened."

The British in India



India has always been bisexual.


The famine genocide of 1876-1878

The British treated the Indians with contempt.



Mountbatten liked young Indians.