Again, there seems to be some confusion with what we are discussing. My ONLY contention is that British rule was in fact better than Muslim rule for India. I never said British rule was good for India as such. However, I DO believe that compared to the 800 years of Muslim/Afghan rule in India, British rule did better. It is just relative that's all.
I think the cult of the devadasi system originated during the pallava or the later chola era itself. Can some one tell the life style of these women those days? Were they also concubines / sex workers?
Recently Sun TV ( or K TV ) aired a movie starred by actress Ramya Krishnan who was portraited as a devadasi. In this story, the marriage of the daughter of a devadasi to lord shiva ( lingam ) was shown. It was merciless, indeed. I dont remember the name of the movie now.
Families nominating young girls as devadasis and the social justice that daughers of devadasis are also devadasis was perhaps not desired by any god, I guess.
The reduction of the devadasis into mere prostitutes might have begun with the moghuls conquering S.India and nawabs / zamindars taking over ruling of the country.
a system when women were financialy left at the mercy of society at large would definitely degenerate. but most of the ancient socities had them called the vestal virgins. devadasi system was rampant and lusty to the core for years. Uma should rather talk about the respectability the arundales got bharatha natyam.