Bar Dancers Case: Report on NDTV
Director: Shai Venkataraman
Duration: 00:19:56; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 20.176; Saturation: 0.172; Lightness: 0.364; Volume: 0.101; Cuts per Minute: 25.686; Words per Minute: 144.030
Summary: This is an NDTV “Special Report” on the controversy of banned dance bars in Mumbai. Mumbai is one of those cities where dance bars have been thriving and have met no open or big opposition for years. To the commoners' eye, they are invisible, yet they are starkly a part of the Mumbai folklore. Dancing to the beat of popular Hindi numbers and entertaining a male audience of a diverse age group, these girls and women earn their livelihood. Dancing at beer bars started in Maharashtra in the ‘70s. They were recognizable by the heavy door at the entrance and by the uniformed bouncers. In order to increase the revenue from alcohol sale the govt. kept issuing licenses for the dance bars and over the three decades these bars sprouted all over the state and specially in Bombay. In 2005 the Govt. proposed a bill to ban dancing at the bars on the pretext of public morality. But by then around 75,000 women were employed in the unorganized sector of bar dancing. Most of these women were migrants from the other parts of the state, country and the subcontinent. The bars though have been part of the cityscape for a long time, always maintained a low profile in terms of social visibility. It seems invisibility was a kind of shield for them.
So, the silent existence of these bars was thrown into turmoil when a ban was proposed. (It got implemented on August 15, 2005, ironically (or maybe not) India's Independence Day. But this programme was telecasted in the intermediary period of passing the bill to ban the dance bars and implementing it). The Govt. proposal sparked a huge public debate on the issues of morality, sexuality and livelihood. The home minister in the state govt. R R Patil took it as a mission and persuaded it till the end. The civil society got vertically divided on the issue. While all the right wing outfits supported the ban, some old school women’s organizations too were vocal against bar dancing based on the argument of commodifying women’s body. Some feminist groups and other social movements campaigned against the ban foregrounding issues of right to livelihood, validity of sex based works and against moral policing. As the campaign progressed other issues and agenda – such as migration and regional chauvinism; nexus between police, politician and crime world; hypocrisy of public morality; interpretation of women’s rights and dignity etc. became part of the debate. In some sense the issue mirrored the contradictions of contemporary urban life.
The speakers: Geeta Shetty, bar dancer and spokesperson of the Bar dancers’ union; Simran: Bar dancer; Preeti Patkar: Social worker, founder of Prerana, a night school initiative for the children of sex workers and faculty of TISS; Sanjana: Bar dancer; S Balakrishnan: Journalist; R R Patil: Leader of ruling NCP party and home minister of Maharashtra who spearheaded the campaign against dance bars with a missionary zeal; A N Roy: Police commissioner of Mumbai; Vilasrao Deshmukh: Leader of ruling Congress party and chief minister of Maharashtra; Uddhav Thackrey: President of the Marathi chauvinist party Shivsena; Manjeet Singh Sethi: Bar owner and president of Bar Owners’ Association; Middle class men; middle class girl; Flavia Agnes: Women’s rights advocate and founder of Majlis, a centre for rights discourse and inter-disciplinary art initiatives, Anonymous bar dancers.
Reporter (R): Welcome to Special Report. Perhaps no other issue has polarized opinion as much as the decision to ban dance bars. But will shutting them down cleanse the city of sin and corruption or will it push thousands of dancers into prostitution?
Streets of Mumbai
The ban has brought visibility to the bar dancers. The dance bars existed in Mumbai / Maharashtra since '70s. Since late '90s and early 2000 the media, film industry and the literary worlds started portraying this phenomena. In 2004 the dancers started getting unionized and resist abuses from the police. In early 2005 the Govt. proposed the ban and implemented it on 15th August, 2005. Suddenly the whole populace and the media recognized the existence of the bar dancers. So finally they are discussed, sought after, quoted and argued about – but they became jobless. Visibility at the cost of livelihood?
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R: Whatever is the view, the issue has brought into intense focus the shadowy face of Mumbai's night life and the women who work here.
Voice-over (VO): At Karishma Bar in Dadar, Simran, the lead dancer, gets ready for the night.
Simran (S): According to you, what will happen? So many girls… where will the poor things go? It's wrong.
Karishma Bar, Dadar
Simran was just a prototype of the thousands of girls who frequent these bars as dancers. With families to support, and no alternative source of employment, these rural-to-urban migrants or small-town -to-big-city migrants came into the city with the singular aim of livelihood and survival. Yet the issue of rendering 70,000 dancers jobless could never merited to be a labour issue.
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VO: On a good night, she would make about one thousand rupees. But now-a-days, with the threat of being shut down, she makes about three hundred. Most of that is sent to her family in Ludhiana.
S: I had to come into this line because of my siblings. Because of my father. He is a heavy drinker. He doesn't care about the family. My mother is ailing. So, I came into this line. I don't like it, but I have to work due to my responsibilities.
S: It is incorrect that we earn ten thousand rupees everyday. If we did, we would not be here; we can build bungalows, have a good bank balance. It really depends on the customers. The collection depends on whether the girl really dances well, is well-dressed and is glamorous.
VO: In popular imagination, and now part of the Government's rhetoric, Mumbai's nearly one lakh bar dancers earn thousands of rupees every night. That, in fact, many of them could have got regular jobs, but chose the easy way out. The reality is quite different. Behind the seedy veneer of glamour, lie mostly stories of hardship and desperation. Most of these girls are from India's poorest states, UP, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. Even the girls from Mumbai like Geeta belong to families of mill workers, now out of work because the mills have shut down.
Women outside the four walls of patriarchal family system are suspects. Economically independent women in entertainment industry are doubly suspected. Single migrant women in a big city working at dance bars are obviously suspected hundred times over. This discomfort, suspicion and unfamiliarity ensures absurd folk lore about their wealth and life styles. The popularity and acceptance of these tales are also due to a curious mixer of envy and attraction.
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G: My family (we) used to work in (cloth) mills. The mills shut down. And so, now I'm working here. A job is a job. It doesn't matter what one does, what I did there, what I do here, its all a job. I don't find anything dirty or demeaning about it.
A retrenched mill worker can become a bar dancer. A domestic servant can become one too. An under aged girl from commercial dancing families (mujra dancers or courtesans) must become a bar dancer. A mother of two can. Bar dancing obviously is an option for a wide range of women. In the true nature of the media this report is trying to cover all angles in order to get the coveted recognition of being 'objective'. So for every respected Geeta, the retrenched mill worker and a mother of two children, there is one Sanjana whose mother sold her to a bar owner. Mothers sold children in Kalahandi and Sonalia too due to hunger. It is important to note at this point that illegal human trafficking and bonded labour is considered as an issue of labour migration all over the world. Only in South Asia it is equated to flesh trade and sexuality. While all non-consensus transaction of human beings are criminal activity why should a Mujra dancer to be condemned more for sending her daughter to dance bar at the age of 15, than an agricultural labour sending his teen age boys to the field? This is an instance of making a sensational issue where there is none.
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Bar girls: we have to work hard. We work hard, that's why we get the money.
Reena: Back in my village, my husband died. I have two children. To support them, I came to Mumbai. This was the only job available. So, to take care of my kids and fulfill my responsibilities, I have to do this…
VO: Then, there is the more disturbing reality of trafficking. Most of the girls, especially in unlicensed bars, are sold to bar owners. Many of them are as young as 13, children of prostitutes or Mujra dancers from Agra and Rajasthan.
Anonymous bar dancer (Anon): Young girls who come into the profession come through lineage. When the mother gets slightly older. The point is that these girls get married early. And if they don't, since bar girls don't get to be married, they retain the child from their first customer. If it's a girl, celebrate. If it's a boy, mourn!
Dhanda hai, sab Ganda hai yeh
VO: Like, 25-year old Sanjana Savant, a dancer in a bar in the suburb of Kandivili, who was bought to a bar by her mother, when she was 15 years old.
Sanjana: Mother worked, but after her, there was no one to manage things. Problems cropped up at home, and so I started working. This is through lineage, so I knew I had to do it. Because if I didn't there would be no one to manage the household. So, I do it.
Bar dancer (BD): I studied till the 10th standard, and wanted to go further, but then I had to follow this art. There is nothing bad in this line actually. I have been managing the household by this art, ever since my father died eight years back. Since then, I have handled the family. I have a son too. So, I don't look down on this line, whether the Government agrees or not.
The Hobson's choice. This interviews were taken in the early days of the bar dancers' movement against the ban. In those initial days they were wary of exposure and many of them appeared in press and public events wearing some sort of veils. They did not want their family or neighbours to know about their real profession. It was part of an effort to gain respectability on the society. But true to their skill and innovativeness the bar dancers managed to make the veils part of the charm and which infact often enhanced the enigma.
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Journalist (J): Your sisters are in this line too?
BD: No, not my sisters. They go to school.
J: But, would they like to come?
BD: No. I wouldn't like them to come.
J: Why? You said it's perfectly fine... then?
BD: It's fine. But, when we work in a place we get to know about it, right? The rules and all that.
The stories of horrible atrocities in the dance bars. It is a criminal act. But how by illegalized the bars these atrocities can be countered. In the guise of being illegal the girls will be even more vulnerable to such atrocities. Would the state consider making marriages illegal since there are instances of marital violence? This is an example of throwing the baby with the bath water.
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VO: There's not much time to learn the ropes. It's a fiercely competitive world and a few days, is all most girls have.
Anon: I had experience in dancing, but had not idea how to make the customers give me money. And the senior girls who have been working since before, they taught me. For a couple of days, I observed them and learnt how to get money, what to do, how to seduce the customers.
VO: Once the night is over, the focus is on the collection box. Each girl gets to keep 40% of what the bar owner claims she has made. But then comes a harder choice, which the girls have to make.
Anon: There is pressure, someone grabs your hand or does something. Sometimes, even the bar owners are helpless. So, she has to go. No one spends so much money on her without motive, right.
R R Patil: There are no such differences. The decision on the dance bars of Bombay was announced with the consent of the CM. The whole cabinet unanimously agreed to shutting down the dance bars. It's not the decision of an individual party. The whole cabinet, after much discussion, arrived at this decision.
The politician-police-business world nexus which always balance between two boats of populist public morality and unscrupulous was a amassing wealth. The beer bars in Maharashtra started in '70s and were indiscriminately given licenses by the Govt. in order to increase the state revenue and also to extract personal money from the bar owners. There were many theories for the Govt.'s motive to ban dance bars. Some says that it was a ploy to decrease the sale of beer and boost the outreach of wine as the wine industry had just started picking up in Maharashtra and many senior politicians were stake holders in wine industry. Some other claim that it was a populist measure to woo the middle class voters. Another theory ascribed the operation as an exercise to evict smaller eateries and pubs to make space for big franchises and multi-purpose eateries. It could also be a simple act of gentrifying the city. Whatever maybe the reason, once made public by the home minister of Maharashtra, R R Patil; the proposal to ban the dance bars could not be opposed by any member in the assembly, due to the public image issue related to it.
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VO: This is the man behind the crusade against dance bars in Maharashtra, Deputy Chief Minister, R R Patil, today protected by plain-clothes lady constable to ward off possible attack by bar girls.
R: He may talk of political consensus, but already R R Patil's crusade has hit a roadblock, with his own coalition ministers and politicians speaking out in defence of bar girls. The real reason, many people believe, is that the same establishment that is trying to ban the dance bars also has business interests in it.
VO: Night Clubber, located in Andheri (E) one of the biggest dance bars in the suburbs, partly owned by a former Minister in the Congress-NCP Government. It's a favorite destination for visiting VIPs from Delhi who are offered special packages. Drums Beat, in Tardeo, reported to be owned by the daughter-in-law of one of the prominent leaders from the opposition. Sun 'N' Sheel, also in Andheri (E) is said to be owned by a former Minister in the democratic front Government.
VO: Like politicians, top police officers in the state are also said to have a stake in the business. One of the most prominent attractions of upper class night life, South Mumbai's Topaz, is said to be part-owned by a former police officer. Pali Presidency in posh Bandra, is apparently owned by DCP in the state CID.
VO: Chembur's Bulbul bar is believed to be owned by a syndicate of cops. Ownership for senior policemen and for local cops with lucrative potential of enforcing, or rather not enforcing the 1:30 am deadline. (Night clubs in Mumbai have to abide by a 1:30am deadline, and there have been surprise raids and checks to see if any joints stay open beyond this. Police patrol who ignore joints flaunting the rule in their jurisdiction can obviously expect and get monetary benefit for their leniency)
VO: From our sources, we were given this unofficial rate card. The local Assistant Commissioner of Police who gets seventy five thousand rupees a month as hafta (weekly bribe) to senior inspector who make about fifty thousand rupees a month, to constables who get rupees three thousand a month. Just the bribes from bar owners runs into crores, and cops in turn pay officials to be transferred to dance bar neighborhoods like Chembur, Mulund and Andheri.
Slogans: Victory to our union! Victory to our union!
VO: Dance bar owners say that the police should set it's own house in order instead of targeting the dance bar industry.
The bar owners association, of which Manjit Singh is the president, is the most interesting party in the story. They, in the fashion of any unorganized sector employers, have exploited the illiterate migrant girls and made a fortune. The police tormented them to an extent but it was also a mutual co-existence of the corrupt police and the unscrupulous bar owners. The dancers never had any work contract, job security or medical and any other benefit. The newly formed bar dancers union had just started consolidating their base and negotiate with the bar owners for regularizing the bar dancers' jobs when the ban struck. We should note that the bars were allowed to run with the dancing programme. The bar owners, threatened with the lose of business without the dancing, realized that the issue of the rights of the bar dancers' can be their only saving. They promptly allied with the bar dancers' union.
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Manjit Singh Sethi: A sub-inspector, Inspector, whose salaries are 7000-10,000 have crores in riches. How did they amass so much in about five years of service? It's the dance bars they invest in, they don't have it in their own names, they use benami (undercover name). But the whole world, the whole department knows such-and-such place belongs to so-and-so officer. Even the Commissioner sir knows it. Then, why isn't any action taken?
VO: Allegations senior police officials say they are aware of...
A N Roy (Mumbai Police Commissioner): I have heard such things, that the police officers could have some interests or partnership in these dance bars.
(Dance bar scene from Chandini Bar, Bollywood film directed by Madhur Bhandarkar)
VO: Also swimming the same murky waters as the politicians, corrupt police officers and bar owners, is the underworld, harder to establish, but an essential part of dance bar folklore.
S Balkrishnan (Journalist): It is a fact that the bars are one of the important sources of income for the underworld. In an area like Byculla, the local gang is the one which collects hafta (weekly bribe)from all the ladies bars (dance bars are popularly called ladies bar – bars where the ladies serve). To such an extent, the bars contribute to the underworld activity, in terms of financing them partly. But, their problem is that they can't operate if they don't give some protection money to these gangs.
Anon: Hooligans are regulars. It's not like only people of a certain stature come. I have often seen guns being fired in bars. Right before me, hooligans have taken girls forcibly, through threats, paying up or otherwise. So, girls face problems from all sides.
In the multi-party democracy of India the political parties are falling over each other in their chauvinist rhetoric in order to woo the middle class vote bank. The insignificant citizens, that the bar dancers are, could never imagined that they would become such an important spoke in the wheel of politics.
Political statements made otherwise, in a different context, too seem to suggest that this ban is just a small part of the Government stand. Immigration is a big issue in Mumbai, and the dance girls are no exception..
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R: Perhaps, the most interesting aspect of the entire controversy is that the idea of enforcing the ban comes from a Congress-led Government. By accusing the dance bars of corrupting the youth and posing a security threat, the Government has usurped the agenda of the Shiv Sena.
VO: The Sena's rhetoric on migrants was reflected in what the Maharashtra Chief Minister had to say just a few weeks ago.
Vilas Rao Deshmukh: Look at the nameplates of the Maharashtrian ministers. Maharashtra must be the state with so many non-Maharashtrian ministers. That's the condition of the state today.
(The Shiv Sena under Bal Thackrey rose to its zenith in political power through a continous policy of being anti-migrants, emphasizing on keeping the culture of the state, the "Maharashtrianism" alive and safe from being diluted by migrants. Current Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress toeing a similar line on a public platform seems a danger sign for migrants and the Sena alike. It is to be noted that most of these dancers are migrants and it is the Deshmukh Government that has set the ban in motion.)
R: No wonder, the Sena now feels that this is an attempt by the Government to poach on its constituency.
Uddhav Thackrey: They are raising the issue of Bangladeshis and outsiders now. But, these are the issues Balasaheb Thackrey has been raising for years now. But, these incompetent people have understood it only now.
Bar girl: Whoever ordered this to be shut down, will never find peace.
Bar owner: It's ok.. it's ok...
VO: In fact, the debate over dance bars is a microcosm of the larger turmoil in Mumbai. Issues in morality, corruption and who belongs to this city are merging. Just within days of announcing the ban on dance bars, R R Patil claimed that most of the bar girls were illegal migrants from Bangladesh who posed a security threat to the city. A view that was soon reflected in raids like this one carried out in a Government colony in Central Mumbai a week ago. Police claim that the colony was home to a large number of Bangladeshi bar dancers.
Girl 2: What will we eat in our villages? As if there's something worthwhile back there! We stay back here for survival. We survive by whatever we get in the beer bars and also feed our families. I have just this to say that whoever has shut them down, please restart them.
Moral policing has taken on new definitions with the middle-class voting in favor of the ban. With the police, politicians and the general public for the ban, the dancers find the odds stacked against them. The political myopia seems to have spread under the cover of conservatism! Only then the logic of moral censorship can even extend to people's personal life. All instances of fascism starts with the agenda of cleansing the society. Bar dancers, then the Hindi films, then the television, then the couples at the public place, then working women, then people who abort or have more children, then people who do not subscribe to particular ideology or religion…..
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VO: While some see the Government stand as an attempt to divert attention from real issues, the rhetoric of morality seems to have the support of the conservative middle class. Unlike earlier, when they were located in Mumbai's so-called red-light areas, now dance bars have found their way into residential areas.
Middle-class man 1: It's right. Young boys go out of the way to squander their fathers' hard-earned money. Our culture is also affected. The dance bars cause lots of worries to people too.
Middle-class man 2: 15-year old boys go and have alcohol at dance bars. It's ruining their future and spoils their lives.
Girl: We are decent people and these girls ruin the atmosphere. There are kids here, decent girls and women here. We have been here for 15 years and have been seeing them here since. No change at all. I keep saying they should not be here, but no action has been taken.
VO: But, in a society where sex is freely available, whether it's in films, music videos or prostitution in guest houses, the ban on dance bars is seen as a major response to a larger social problem.
Flavia Agnes: Sex is the currency that sells in every aspect. You are selling a tyre, you have a woman's body. You are selling a car, you have a woman's body. And women are vying to be there, to be exhibited in semi-nude postures. But, they come from a different class and these girls come from a different class. You don't mind an Aishwarya Rai number or a Madhuri Dixit "Choli Ke peeche" (a sexy dance number from a popular Bollywood flick), you have no problems. These girls are merely imitating those kinds of dances and those kinds of costumes.
Bar dancer: They dance similarly in films. They do, right? They show it on all TV channels; they have fashion shows on TV. How are those girls dressed? The public enjoys those, right? Our clothes are not that bad, you can see that, right? Then, what's wrong in watching us? And we don't go to homes, right? People say we ruin homes, but we don't invite anyone, right? They come of their own accord, and this is our profession. We work hard too. No one pays us for standing still.
Compulsory ghettoisation of people who do not fit the standard bill – minority community, women in entertainment industry, homosexual people, migrant poor…
VO: But, if this is sexual hypocrisy, then the girls find themselves targeted not just in the bars, but where they live. Pushed together because their presence is resented, they mostly live together in cramped rooms. Like this one in Chembur. In fact, most of this colony is home to bar girls.
Off-screen reporter: Doesn't it feel lonely, so far from your family?
Bar dancer tenant (Simran): It does, but we call each other over phone. If there's a problem in the village, my brother comes over, he takes money back home. Earlier, when I was new at the bar, it didn't feel good about dancing in front of men. Then as the money-flow is so regular, I have made peace with the public, this city and the hotel line.
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VO: But, now, the battle lines are drawn. On one hand, the Government that says it is determined to enforce the ban, but is under pressure to first offer the girls some other job.
With only around 307 bars out of the 1300 actually legal (Source: Article by Flavia Agnes, Manushi, Issue 149
published October 2005 in India Together,
http://www.indiatogether.org/manushi/issue149/bardance.htm), the ban cannot go a long way in stopping dance bars from operating, since most of them operate on the sly anyway. And if by banning the bars, the Government hopes to curb prostitution, they seem to have misjudged the whole problem. In fact, the ban only increased chances of clandestine dancing in bars and desperate prostitution. What is important to remember at this point is that prostitution not illegal in India.
With their lives being decided by the political, personal, monetary and social agendas of others not even remotely connected to these dancers, the girls could only wait for their invisibility to be back. (Much later after this programme was televised the Bombay high court struck down the ban as unconstitutional. The govt. still did not allow the bars to reopen and appealed in the Supreme Court. The case is pending in the Supreme court since last two years. Meanwhile a few dancers tried to find alternative jobs in the bars as waiters or orchestra singers. Some have gone back to their villages to whatever fate. Some of them tried to enter sex work. But the women in the already over populated trade felt threatened by the sudden rush of new comers and there were instances of violent clashes. Yet a few others committed suicide in this city itself.
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VO: On the other, the bar owners and their own union who oppose the ban and instead say, regulate the dance bars. The issue has also polarized women's groups in the city, with two very distinct views emerging.
Preeti Patkar: Ultimately what is given to them is that, you dance in these bars or you get nothing else. So, this is the only option and the entire argument that we have here is that when you give no options to these young women and girls how can you call it a livelihood option? Because, the only option you have kept in front of them is dance in these dance bars, scantily dressed and then entertain these customers.
Flavia Agnes: I am not saying that anything is above-board. But, here, when a girl is into a legitimate, needy activity which is being unionized, you stop that and she will go back to being a prostitute, in a brothel situation. No one wants to be in a brothel situation, nobody wants to be a bonded labour.
Flavia Agnes: So, you have the power, you lay down the code of conduct, you lay down the rules and regulations, and monitor it much more strictly, so the bar girls have a negotiating power, both vis-a-vis the state, vis-a-vis the police as well as vis-a-vis the bar owners.
Flavia Agnes: But, if you put it underground, the girls will lose their voice. The bar owners and the police nexus will continue, and they will do exactly what they want.
VO: For the moment, all Simran can do is watch with anxiety the unfolding debate.
R: And so it is, with so many like Simran, who lives are caught up in a debate that is being played out in an arena that is far beyond their control. That's all in Special Report this week. Do write to us with feedback at
ndtv.com, or SMS us at 6388. Good bye.
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