Bar dancing get-in-sync as ban on dance bars lifted

Mumbai - The city of dreams and celluloid conceals numerous gritty tails behind it’s glamour & fad. Mumbai's enticing dance bars which have become synonymous with slums, sleaze and sex courtesy city's film fraternity are infact the only option for many women dancing to make ends meet. The two-judge division bench of the Bombay High Court, comprising Justice FI Rebello and Justice Roshan Dalvi, in a 260-page ruling this week, quashed the Maharashtra government's law banning dance bars on grounds of discrimination under Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The court ruled that that the ban violated the fundamental rights and constitutional right to equality of bar dancers and bar owners.

The dance bars in Mumbai were banned with the amendment in the Bombay Police Act coming into effect and the girls who made their living working in the dance bars were thrown out of their profession and along with them, their families pushed into a future of uncertainty, where they are not even sure where their next bread would be coming from. In the meantime the “great” politicians-the moral guardians of the society were busy patting their backs on the “commendable” step they have taken to purge the society of the harmful influence of the dance bars and the dance bar gals. Dancing in bars pays well; the sex work is optional. By emerging as their ‘savior’ last August, the government pushed many of these women straight into prostitution and some into suicide. Nearly half a million persons, including dancers, restaurant staff and other self-employed people had been rendered jobless following the Maharashtra government’s ban on dance bars. As a result of the ban, nearly 50,000 bar girls were rendered jobless. Varsha Kale-President, Bar girl’s association tried to get work for 55 percent of the out-of-work bar girls by placing them as waitresses. Yet, 15 per cent of the girls went into sex trade. "It was very difficult to trace them, as they were not brothel-based but in the floating sex trade, whereby they did not stay at one place," says Varsha. She tried to track some of them by visiting railway stations. "You would be shocked that I also discovered them soliciting outside temples at Dadar. They also frequented tourist places like Goa," said Varsha.

Bombay High Court’s verdict scrapping the controversial Maharashtra government notification banning dance bars brought an atmosphere of festivity in several localities of Mumbai yesterday. The slums and shanties in the pockets of Mumbai where the bar girls live were upbeat and in a festive mood. The girls were dancing and bursting crackers. They smeared left-over holi colours, on each other and rejoiced. The ban was enforced on August 15 last year by amending the Bombay Police (Amendment) Act 2005. While prohibiting all dance performances in dance bars, it exempted 3-star and above graded hotels from this ban. Immediately afterwards, a set of public interest petitions by bar owners, bar girls, activists and NGOs were filed challenging the government legislation. This law is a perfect example of moral policing targeting the most vulnerable. The legislation wanted to prevent ‘obscene, vulgar or immoral’ dances, which are ‘derogatory to the dignity of women’.

Instead, the government should have laid more focus on creating conditions that enabled every gal to lead a decent life? After all no parent dreams that his/her gal would grow up to become a dance bar gal. As it is, its extreme poverty which forces these gals to leave the so called “moral values” behind and dance infront of total strangers...haggle for money from the customers who are more than willing to extract the maximum pleasure out of condition of these hapless girls. Also, Who gives the government the right to decide what people should choose for their entertainment, or how professionals are supposed to view their own professions? After all the people who willingly visit such places are considered part of the same “moral” society whom the legislation seeks to protect from the immoral influences of the dance-bars.

However, the Maharashtra government plans to approach the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court order. The high court here has given the state government eight weeks time to approach the apex court. According to government sources, the Mumbai police would not entertain fresh applications for dance bars. New licenses are issued at the beginning of the financial year (April 1), and most establishments had not paid their license fees because of the ban on dance bars The relief of the jobless women and their employers is tempered by the fear of what the appeal might bring forth. The high court has not seen the women’s case from the perspective of fundamental rights. Instead, it has ruled that the ban on women dancing in bars is discriminatory, because dancers in places like theatres, sports clubs and hotels have not been banned. That is, were this discrimination to be removed in an amended ban, the women in the dance bars and their employers would be back to square one.