THE BROTHEL AS A SITE OF RESISTANCE: SUBALTERN AGENCY AND MORAL HYPOCRISY IN SAADAT HASAN MANTO’S SHORT STORIES

Abstract

Saadat Hasan Manto’s unflinching portrayal of prostitution in colonial and postcolonial South Asia challenges binaries of victimhood and immorality, positioning brothels as heterotopic spaces that expose the hypocrisies of nationalist, patriarchal, and colonial ideologies. Through close readings of stories like Boo, Kali Shalwar, Dus Rupiya, and Hatak, this article argues that Manto’s sex workers embody subaltern agency through embodied defiance, spectral silence, and transactional pragmatism. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of heterotopia and Spivak’s theory of subaltern speech, the study reveals how Manto’s characters—such as Sultana, whose laughter mocks masculine authority, and Sarita, who demands her “price, not pity”—subvert bourgeois moral norms and reframe sex work as labor. While critics like Kamran Asdar Ali warn of voyeurism, Jill Didur’s concept of “strategic opacity” supports Manto’s refusal to overexpose subaltern trauma. By bridging postcolonial theory and feminist praxis, the article situates Manto within contemporary debates on sex workers’ rights, revealing his brothels as spectral sites of both resistance and indictment.