This study investigates the historical and social mechanisms that relegated professional female dancers in India to the status of illicit performers following the moral reforms of the 1930s. Anna Morcom, an ethnomusicologist and scholar of Indian performing arts, utilizes historical archives and ethnographic fieldwork to analyze how the transition from traditional courtesan culture to modern respectability marginalized specific groups. The book argues that the stigmatization of these performers was not merely a byproduct of social change but a deliberate exclusion that stripped them of their cultural agency and economic stability.

Scholars and critics recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of Indian cultural history and the sociology of performance. Readers frequently note the academic rigor and the depth of the author's research into the lives of marginalized communities.