MUMBAI DANCE BARS VS GOVT

[Guest guest]

Dance bar ban threatens govt now

MUMBAI: The home minister of Maharashtra and his colleagues in the

state government are a harried lot today. Apart from the usual

contingent of men in khaki guarding them from assorted criminals,

they now have women cops in civvies at their offices and homes.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1085140,curpg-

1.cms

 

No, this is not because the state government, controlled by Sonia

Gandhi's Congress and Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party, both

partners in the United Progressive Alliance that rules India, has

adopted a progressive, equal opportunity security drill.

 

It's because they are scared of being accosted by professional

dancing girls whose livelihood has been threatened with the closure

of 'dance bars' in Mumbai and its suburbs, down market licensed

watering holes where cheap liquor is accompanied by 'Indian dance

with recorded music'.

 

Like most of India's arcane civil and criminal laws that remain

caught in a time warp, the one governing the granting of licence for

bars with live entertainment allows owners to stage 'Indian dance'

performed to 'recorded music'.

 

In real life, it means young, twenty-something women, their wardrobes

borrowed from the latest Bollywood chartbuster, swaying and swinging

to remix versions blaring from ghetto busters. The bars are ill-lit,

often no more than wooden chairs and tables arranged around a

garishly lit floor where the women perform.

 

For daily wage earners, lowly paid white-collar workers and foot

soldiers of ganglords who patronise these bars,...

 

....this is tinsel world's high life come true. They scoff their

drinks, hoot in delight when a dancing girl blows them a kiss and

those who down one too many, throw currency notes at the girls - the

ultimate gesture of a poor man pretending to be carelessly rich.

 

 

Over the decades, 'dance bars', have become a part of Mumbai's low

life - they are to India's financial capital what Soho pubs are to

London. Their success - profits run into billions of rupees - spawned

similar bars in the suburban areas outside Mumbai's municipal limits.

 

Legend has it that Mumbai's notorious mafia dons, who are invariably

from the lowest economic strata of society, hatch conspiracies and

strike deals at these 'dance bars'. Many of the bars are said to be

convenient fronts for the nefarious activities of the underworld.

 

But that is not the reason why Maharashtra's Home Minister R.R. Patil

has decided to shut them down. He is motivated by the lofty desire to

restore moral values in society and "save young men from going

astray".

 

Justifying its action, the state government says that the dancing

girls are a "threat to society" because they entice working class men

into parting with their money while their families starve and also

because many of the performers are sex workers. A third reason that

has been put out is that many of the dancing girls are a "security

threat" because they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and could

have "ISI connections".

 

The truth is less fanciful. An overwhelming majority of the 45,000

young women who make a living by performing at these 'dance bars'

arrive in Mumbai from small towns with stars in their eyes, hoping to

make it big in the world's biggest film industry. When they find that

Mumbai's streets are not paved with gold, they look for alternative

employment.

 

Unskilled and uneducated, their only cashable assets are their looks

and the dancing lessons they took while growing up. It's easy to

snatch a job at one of the ubiquitous 'dance bars' where identities

can be fudged in dense cigarette smoke and flashing strobe lights.

The money is good. Nobody back home is the wiser.

 

The good days are now over,...

 

....though the 'dance bar' owners are threatening to take the ban to

court. The government, mindful of the fact that licence conditions

have not been breached - copycat dancing based on song-and-dance

routines from Indian films is an 'Indian dance' form and the music

is 'recorded' - is now working on a law that will plug possible

loopholes and ensure legal compliance with the ban order.

 

 

But it's not 'dance bars' alone that the state government's moral

police led by the home minister is targeting. Cinema posters are

being ripped off, filmmakers are being charged with promoting

obscenity and television programmes are being closely scrutinised.

 

The moral policing is being done by invoking Sections 292 and 294 of

India's penal code whose antiquity dates back to 1860. And, it is not

the Maharashtra government alone that is setting itself to the task

of cleansing society of minor vices like frothy booze and steamy

flesh.

 

India is beginning to discover MaCarthyism with a big M. Recently,

the central government's ministry of information and broadcasting, a

relic of the Soviet era and whose counterpart does not exist in any

modern democracy, has served private satellite television channels

with notices for telecasting 'obscene' programmes fit for 'adults'.

 

The minister who heads this monster of a ministry has promised a 'law

against obscenity' - if such a law comes about, it will ensure media

becomes an extension of India's pathetic and hugely corrupt public

broadcasting system. More importantly, it will make a mockery of

freedom of expression.

 

The ministry of information and broadcasting has tried to sanitise

media of all 'offensive' and 'adult' content. Hence, television does

not air advertisements promoting the use of condoms. Nor does it air

liquor ads - booze companies have beaten the law through surrogate

advertising by promoting soda that carries popular brand names of

whiskey, rum and beer.

 

Pretentious, preachy morality in the land of Kamasutra has become a

major roadblock in health programmes. Section 377 of India's penal

code prohibits 'unnatural sex' that is interpreted as homosexual

activity. Rather than confront reality, the government of India

chooses to pretend the problem does not exist.

 

As a result,...

..condoms cannot be distributed in Indian jails although rape of young

prisoners by hardened criminals is a common practice. Government's

refusal leads to exposing the hapless prisoners being exposed to

sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.

 

 

Similarly, rather than use its scant police resources to fight crime,

especially crimes against women which have been increasing with

alarming speed, state governments are now deploying policemen to raid

cyber cafes to catch teenagers watching internet porn.

 

While the import of printed or audio-visual pornography is

disallowed, the bar is raised when the material is listed

as 'erotology'. Tourists can gawk at fornicating couples frozen in

stone at the famous Khajuraho temples and at the Sun Temple in

Konark, but art galleries are reluctant to display nudes lest they

attract the wrath of the moral police.

 

For a country that aspires to be counted along the advanced nations

of the world, India's authorities suffer from blinkered vision that

prevents them from taking a look at the world at large and learning a

few lessons on how free societies are built - not by putting dancing

girls out of their jobs or through media censorship, but by

encouraging people to behave in a mature and responsible manner.