"What is important to note for our purposes here, in tracing the debate in post-Partition Pakistan about the '[im]proper' place of the musical arts and within those, of women performers such as Malka Pukhraj and others, is that there is a delicious irony in the fact that the derogration of the "tawaif" - synecdoche for a whole way of life (Muslim Mughal culture), as embodied in the singing and dancing arts, which in turn were embedded in North India's Muslim-led classical traditions - actually began in the Hindu national imaginary emerging in the decades leading up to Independence of India from the British and the resulting Partition. Why? Because the "tawaif" had become a symbol of Muslim glory in the Hindu psyche, given its Mughal roots. What irony, then, that this self-defeating position, originating as part of the Hindu national project, was adopted post 1947, by the Muslim state of Pakistan!"

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– From The Respectable Courtesan