Bar Dancers Case: Talk Show in Hindi
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Summary: This is a Hindi talk show "Humlog" on NDTV on the controversy of proposed ban on the dance bar in Mumbai. This footage was given to Majlis by a member of the bar owners' association. Obviously it was shot off the TV screen on a handycam. Hence the image and audio quality is not very sharp and at many places the audio is lost. Still we think it is an important document as the programme was in Hindi and included politicians of the ruling Congress party and the right wing opposition party Shivsena. Though in other events in PADMA we have elaborately presentated the voices of the bar dancers and their movement, this event covers the agenda of the ruling party and their associates.
Mumbai is one of those cities where dance bars have been thriving and have met no open or big opposition till 2004. To the commoners' eyes, 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) on India's Independence Day. But this programme was made soon after the Govt. proposed a bill to ban the bars. Hence in this programme the panel is still discussing the legal, moral and constitutional validity of such a proposal. 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. Eventually the ban was passed in the assembly with hundred percent support - the centreist ruling parties Congress and NCP, the chauvinist parties BJP and Shivsena, the left parties CPI and CPM and the socialists parties - all unconditionally supported the ban. The cross section of the political parties who are fundamentally against each other, came together in unison on the issue of sexual morality.
The main speakers: Madhukar Sarpotdar, MP and leader of Shivsena (he was proved guilty of rioting and carrying illegal fire arms during '92-'93 riots in Bombay even by the partisan Mumbai police and judiciary); Javed Akhtar, Lyricist and script writer in Bombay film industry; Mr. Kulkarni, Cngress leader; M N Singh, former police commissioner; Vidya Chauhan, a member of NCP party (she has spearheaded many cleansing operation in the city, a former socialist activist she is a morality fanatic); Manjit Singh, President of Bar Owners' Association (later he was persecuted, harassed and jailed many times by the state as the Home Minister R R Patil took it as a vendetta to teach him a lesson for challenging the moral authority of the state), Bar dancers. The Anchor Pankaj Pachori is very impressive with his clarity of thought and skill of persuation.
Kulkarni (member of ruling Congress): They murder their mothers', steal their mothers' jewellery. And that is the money that they spend on bar dancers.
Almost a lakh of money has been found on a bar dancer.
Anchor: So you are saying there is a consensus in NCP. We also have a leader from Shivsena here. Madhukar Sarpotdar, who is not in power currently, but when his government was in power, they supported such...
Madhukar Sarpotdar: We'll speak in the Vidhan bhavan (assembly) and discuss this.
Anchor: Okay, is there a possibility that you can vote against this bill?
Madhukar Sarpotdar: No, it depends on which way this bill is introduced. We'll have to study it, discuss what views to put on it. We'll see if we are for it. If they are doing good work, we have always supported good work.
Anchor: Do you support the ban of the dance bars?
It is good work, so we support it. Now, how they want to close them down, is what we'll have to discuss. Until we know that, we can't really say.
Anchor: But you do think that it is good work and the bars should be shut down.
Mumbai
It seems our source has started recording the show from the middle of it. So we have lost the beginning. As a result this event starts with a dramatic statement by a Congress leader that men kill their mothers to get money to spend in dance bars. Ironically for the speaker was unaware of the rhetorical and metaphorical nature of the statement. A lakh of Rupees that he mentions is something equivalent to 2200 US$. It is surprising that this elderly politician believes that this amount of money can be outcome of a huge criminal network. Madhukar Sarpotdar, the Shivsena leader who has hit the headlines many times for his various criminal activities and nexus with real estate mafia also appear to be a vocal guardian of public morality.
For a change, the state government and the opposition seem to be seeing eye to eye on this issue. The apparent Liberal NCP and the right wing Shiv Sena, both see banning of dance bars as a positive step in 'cleansing' and 'purifying' the society.
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Anchor: We have Javed Akhtar with us. He is not from Bombay but calls himself Mumbaikar. Whenever people want lyrics written in praise of Bombay, people go to him.
People who spoke earlier felt that there is consensus for this. I want to ask the audience, how many people feel that the dance bars should banned?
(Hands raised)
Government says it should be banned, many people here feel they should be banned.
How many here feel they should not be banned?
(Hands raised)
The situation is 50-50. Sir, do you feel that this issue has divided the people of Mumbai in two and why?
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Javed Akhtar must have been invited on two cards - a representative of the main entertainment industry in the country, Bollywood and as a
secular Muslim voice.
While he, as was expected, foregrounded the principle of freedom of choice, also exposes the hypocracy of the state in highlighting dancing in bars as an exploitative industry and yet ignoring all other economic instances of exploitation. But the problem with such talk show format is that the arguments almost always reduce to a populist essentialism. Even Javed Akhtar, while supporting the bar dancers choice of profession, says 'first close down the illegal brothels'. But why? How one kind of censorship can be countered by advocating another kind of censorship. Shouldn't the argument be against the power of censorship itself?
Javed Akhtar: You see, there is no need to shout from the rooftop here, we all need to think very logically and clearly. There are two things. One is that ideally, everyone should have a right to live the way they want. There can be a type of society where everyone has freedom, choose their own morality and live according to them. If you don't like the work, you don't do it.
Yes, if you say that there is a girl who is under pressure to do this work, she is being exploited.... Actually, in this way, carpet making should be banned in India because we all know there is bonded labour in carpet making industry, bidi making should be banned because it also has bonded labour. In India, many things should be banned, because there is a lot of bonded labour in this country. Rather than closing the industry/market, you should ban the practice of bonded labour. That's one. If a girl by her choice wants to be a dancer in a bar, she is a free citizen in a free country. Yes, if the bar owner exploits that girl, that should be stopped. You make such laws, give security, unionise them so that such exploitation does not happen. You are saying that prostitution happens in the bars. Are you giving a guarantee that if the bars are banned, prostitution from this city would disappear? If you give that guarantee, I am with you.
I came to this city when I was 19, today I am 60. I am from this city. There is no area in this city which does not have illegal brothels. Ban those first. 60% of the city's population lives in 8% land area, lives life like animals. The city which is called the finance capital of the country, 60% of that city's population either lives in slums or on pavements. Make that right first. People here don't have electricity, water, medicine or school for children. Ignoring all this, what is this drama of yours of shutting the bars?(Applause)
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Anchor: Politics in being the dominant factor here... We have M.L.Singh with us, he has been the commissioner of Mumbai city. Do you think that the issue of law & order is given less importance than political consideration?
M L Singh: No, I think this is not a political issue, it is a social issue, a societal question.
It should be looked from another perspective. The girls in the bars are exploited. They are used to entertain some men and the bar owners use them for this purpose and all profit goes to them. Today there are also arguments that these girls would be unemployed, they won't get work, their livelihood would be endangered. Who is raising these questions? Bar owners. I want to ask the bar owners if they have any retirement schemes for the girls who won't be fit to dance in the bars 5-10 years later? Are their any post retirement benefits? So many women are working in this unorganized sector. They don't have a representative. The current representatives are interested parties. I think what is happening with the girls who work in the dance bars, is the biggest aspect of human rights violation and it has to be looked more from that angle. Then from there, one can look at avenues of employment. There are many avenues of employment. It's not necessary that for employment, the girls should be put in this business, and the profit of this goes to someone else. I think this issue is being looked at from the wrong perspective. For the employment of the women, the government should do its best, which I agree with. The exploitation should be stopped, and the interested parties who are bringing this issue out in a chorus, should be answered back.
M L Singh, the former police commissioner of police, is a prototype of the Indian middle class who often professes - this country needs a Hitler to straighten it. This kind of people believe that a strong state is a just state. It is true that the dancers are exploited in the bars. But it is also true that the state's wrath against the bars was invoked when the dancers tried to be unionized to protest the police harassment on them. Around the same time, the bar owners went to the court against motivated police raids on the bars. Only when these groups tried to protest against police atrocities and corruption the state woke up to the wrong doing in the bars. It is the temerity of the lowly dancers and their lowly employers to stand against the state agencies that has activated the state into the cleansing mission. All weaker sections - women, migrants, minorities, poor - are often taught a lesson for voicing their rights by exposing their 'irregular' status. Once the irregularity becomes the central issue the question of rights take a back stage. The former police commissioner, obviously, knows it best.
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Anchor: You are right. But, many men and women come to this city with dreams in their eyes about the industry in the city which is the film industry. There is exploitation here as well. Why this is never addressed?
Yes, I'll just come back to you.
Is the question of exploitation meaningless?
When we talk of crime, crime has happened in Jabalpur, Bhopal, Indore and Ludhiana as well, there are no dance bars there.
When we come back, we'll talk whether this move to ban the dance bars that has started in Mumbai, is some kind of moral policing of the city? And Mumbai will discuss this.
We'll come back. Political drama is happening on this issue, but views are still divided whether the bars should be banned or not.
Anchor: People are still divided whether the dance bars should be closed or not. R.R Patil, Home Minister of the State had said that dance bars are the cause of moral corruption and increasing crimes in the State. I'll quickly give some fact on crimes in the country. In Mumbai, the average of crime is 8% while the national average is 18%. People from Mumbai would be happy to know this. Vijaywada has the highest reported crimes against women. After that is Faridabad in Haryana. After that comes Jabalpur and then is Hyderabad. None of these cities have dance bars. So, is there any connection between dance bars and crimes against women?
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The metropolis of Bombay is known as the city of possibility for the whole sub-continent. People migrate to Bombay from smaller cities and villages in search of livelihood. One of the livelihood practices is service industry - dance bar is part of that phenomena. This is one of the few places where uneducated women can have a profession beyond domestic works. The gender friendly ambience of the city too encourages women to migrate. All these prove wrong the claim that crime is high in Bombay. Infact working women prefer Bombay as the safest place in the country.
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Anchor: Javed Saab, you were saying something?
Javed Akhtar: Yes, I wanted to say that Mr. Singh has said something very valid. I agree that in unorganized sector there must be exploitation. There are many unorganized sectors in the country like construction labourers, domestic servants. Now rather than saying that because domestic servants are exploited, they should be gotten rid of, or that construction workers should be thrown out of their jobs because of exploitation...rather than protecting them...I haven't come here to hold brief for the bar owners. I am saying that if they exploit the workers, why don't you make laws that they can't exploit them further. Mr. Singh said something very crucial that they don't have provident fund. Of course, this facility must be there. Yes, there should be insurance and other benefits too. In fact, the owner should be forced to pay minimum salaries according to pay commission, pay provident fund and other security.
Is it simply a case of throwing the baby away with the bath water? Or is it a design to mislead the public by highlighting wrong points in the case?
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Anchor: I agree. I would say that VAT should be put because then entry of black money would be restricted. But the debate here is a debate on morality, and it is said that people go there and get ruined Deepal Shah is with us. She is from the film industry and is an actress. Do you feel that the same argument applies to the film industry as well? That people come here, get exploited and so it should be closed down?
Deepal Shah: Our society is patriarchal. It is wrong to say that exploitation happens only in film industry. In this society, being a woman itself becomes a reason of exploitation. Whatever you do, whether you are an air hostess, or you do a 9 to 5 job, you might get exploited in some or the other way. Self regulation and self censorship is the way to not get exploited. If you are determined that nobody should exploit you then no one can exploit you.
(Applause)
Film industry is the mother industry to the dance bars. Infact the dance bar is part of the brand Bollywood - which comprise of various offshoot business of the film industry, such as fashion, television shows, music industry etc. In dance bars the dancers move and shake to the tune of the popular Hindi film songs. Those films and the songs bring large revenues to the state and also make the only common popular culture in the country. So they are accepted. But a folkish off shoot of that, dancing in bars, is considered a taboo. Is the double standard due to the difference in the revenues generated? Or there is other agenda - related to liquor industry or hotel industry?
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Anchor (to Sarpotdar): You have made this issue wear a mask of morality, which is a stupid debate. This is an unregulated sector. When IT (Information Technology) had come in India, it was also an unregulated sector. The government decided to regulate it, make laws for it. Now people earn money in the sector, they go outside of the country, India has got recognition for this sector now. People are earning various management degrees in this industry. You should look at this (dance bar/entertainment) also similarly. Like other professions, this is also a profession.
Madhukar Sarpotdar: See, when we say profession, the responsibility to run that profession is on the people who are the functionaries of that profession. If any company is started, it is the responsibility of the owners to give the workers in the company insurance, provident fund, security etc. and government looks at its overall functioning. For the dance bars, the owners should publish that they are the owners and that they have so many women as workers with them.
Anchor: Yes, so the law is needed here...make the system... get a solution for this...
Madhukar Sarpotdar: That is the answer I've given you. How law can be brought upon...
Anchor: Sir, here the law is needed to be introduced. But instead you are shutting them down with help of law.
Mumbai
While the political parties are unanimous in their opposition to the dance bars, they are clearly fumbling over the reason to do so. Sometimes, it is the public morality and some other time it is the rights of the women dancers. It does not even strike them that the two issues are very different and almost contradicting each other.
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This Mr. Kulkarni of the Congress seems to be the most rabid among them. He goes on with his own murder flick. For him a mother killed is not the crime which needs to be punished. But what the money is spent on needs to be erased. Would he then ban all the consumers' goods for which the teenagers commit crimes?
There is another strange phenomenon of the talk shows. The same audience claps for an argument and then for the argument countering the previous one. As long the statement is entreatingly provocative they would applaud. Thus the talk shows live on entertainment value of an issue and not on the merit of logic. It rarely resolves any issue.
(sound unclear)
Mr. Kulkarni: Today there is so much anger because there are wrong things happening in these bars. We have to stop the support that these bars have been getting from the state.
Anchor: Mr. Kulkarni, I don't have to remind you that 28 police officials from this State have been arrested under Telgi Scam. So should the police force be banned?
Mr. Kulkarni: No. Like Mr. Singh said that workers are exploited in the dance bars. As I said before, there have been incidents of a son murdering his mother, selling her jewellery and spending the money in bars and on bar dancers. Is that responsible behaviour?
Anchor: Do you think there is a law and order problem? or social problem that is arising from the dance bars?
Kulkarni: It is a law and order problem. If a man today commits several crimes and uses that money to spend on bars, then the responsibility would have to be taken by the State.
(Applause)
Deepal Shah: He narrated this incident of son murdering mother and spending money in dance bars. If this was a common case, then all men should have been going to the dance bars to watch women dance. There is something called self regulation and self control. Secondly, today are such times that people kill parents for money, forget about dance bars. People do anything for money today.
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Anchor: Vidya Chauhan is with us.
Vidya Chauhan: I think that Hindi cinema's nude dances and remixes have reached everyone's homes via television. No one needs to go to dance bars. Bars have become a site of crime, all kinds of people related to mafia come there. Criminals are born in such places, and that's why dance bars should be banned.
Anchor: Should television be banned too?
Vidya Chauhan: See, nude dances on television should be banned, yes definitely. Film industry is destroying the society.
Anchor: Exactly what I was saying that if one stretches the argument, it would reach here.
Vidya Chauhan: A film industry personality, Mr. Shakti Kapoor, himself has said that women are exploited in the industry, and has given so many names of the directors, producers too. Javed saab does not even care, I am amazed.
It would be relevant to know Vidya Chauhan in order to understand her point of view. She was a socialist activist with a distinct moralist trend. Later she joined NCP, an opportunist right of the centre party that came up as an offshoot of Congress and led by Sharad Pawer. She is known as a crusader and like all crusaders she is very opinionated and shrill in expressing her opinion. The Indian politics has reached a point where the social moralism often come very close to fascist ideology. The socialist moralism never distinguishes between the state power and democratic rights. Vidya Chauhan's Victorian morality believes in banning all adult entertainment in the name of dignity of women. She not only has no idea of pleasure as assertion, also don't care about unconventional livelihood options of women. The problem got aggravated as she was hoisted by the ruling parties as the women's perspective on the issue.
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As Mr. Javed Akhtar pleads for liberal view point and women's access to public space, Vidya Chauhan promptly turns the table by claiming that the dance bar practice is curtailing the space for other (read domesticated) women. Initially her argument was about the moral impact of adult entertainment on the society. That impact obviously was concerned only about the men, Then conveniently she changed the argument on behalf of the women who reside in the vicinity of a dance bar. Thus turn the issue into a women vs women debate.
Javed Akhtar: See, film industry can reach inside people's homes, dance bars are at least not reaching people's homes. Let me say that the way many people are talking here is a very dangerous way of thinking. This is Hindustan (India), don't make it Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Vidya Chauhan: We want to save the society. Today, if someone buys a flat in a society, and the ground floor shop is bought be a bar owner, the people in the society have to deal with lot of trouble. Women can't step out of the house. The men outside say to everyone, "will you come with me in the car?" Women find it difficult.
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Anchor: Is Bombay so weak that there is a crack in the society because of 700 bars? Let's discuss that with the people of Mumbai.
Would morality be brought by government's ordinances or the people would bring it themselves?
Please SMS your answers on 6388 whether the dance bars should be banned or not?
Audience: Morality should be spoken about by people who have any morality in them. Yes, close down the parliament.
Anchor: So you are saying, that stones should be thrown only by the people whose moral record is clear?
Is the morality of Bombay so weak that it is in danger because of the dance bars?
Audience 2: What is happening here is an academic discussion. As the police commissioner, Mr. Sarpotdar and NCP MLA said, like alcohol is sold in Coca Cola bottles, mostly prostitution happens in the name of dance bars.
Mumbai
The socalled people's voices start coming in. Within the talk show format people are made to believe that they are important and they have a right to opine about others. Generally the audience laps up that opportunity. This is another illusion of freedom of expression - a la American phenomena! One popular rhetoric is that the bars promote prostitution and so they should be closed. Though prostitution in India is not illegal. So is it only a question of practicing prostitution without licensing? A matter of permit?
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Anchor: Yes, you want to say something.
Audience (woman): I want to say that the figure of 75,000 bar dancers is wrong. The figure is less than 20,000. even if they are 20,000 women in the bars, if they want rehabilitation, if they want to work hard and live with dignity, humanity, without destroying others' homes, come with us, we will give them employment.
Anchor: We have bar owners association representative with us. Would you take her offer of giving jobs to 20000 women?
Manjit Singh: Firstly, we are capable, our women are also capable, they are not going to live on others' mercy. We don't want rehabilitation. We have rights and these rights given by constitution. We have never spoken of rehabilitation. We had lots of hope from the opposition and that's what has hurt us the most. It is opposition's responsibility to stop anything that is unconstitutional. The way Mr. R.R Patil has made announcement, it is dictatorship and not democracy.
Anchor: Just a minute... talk of dictatorship is on. Dictatorship would not work here. It did not work even during emergency, it definitely would not work now.
Mumbai
The woman is a NCP member and colleague of Ms Chauhan. It is amazing with what arrogance she claims to give work to the women who would be rendered unemployed due to the ban. The parallel state, the parallel nation building - the arrogance of moral fascism! But Manjit Singh's reply to that was apt and articulate. Manjit Singh is an interesting person. As a bar owner he was ruthless. His establishment was notorious for showcasing the dancers in cages and other scandalizing services. He was influential enough to bring the bar owners from all over the state under one umbrella - Bar owners' association. When police raids on bars became frequent and extremely vicious he came up as a strong voice against it; in the media, in the courts, in public fora, and so on. His women employees and the bar dancers' association as well as the bar owners started depending on him for their survival. The traditional power struggle between the tyrant employer and the employees was temporarily resolved in the face of the opposition from the state. Then he got marked by the home ministry. He was persecuted, arrested and jailed repeatedly in connection to this. Later in 2005 the state invoked a rare special privilege to arrest him without any criminal proceeding at any point that the assembly wishes. It was invoked for a press statement that he made to the effect of 'if the elected representatives harm the dancers we would make their women dance'. The statement created great furor and Manjit was arrested and kept in jail multiple times for long durations. Though, as an individual, he was influential enough to buy his safety he stood by his people and went through the hard ship. The bar owner Manjit and the dance bar leader Manjit are two different people.
(for more on Manjit Singh please see the event titled "Nar Dancers Case_Television Interview with Manjit Singh")
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Audience 4: Why is this impression... that children steal in order to go to dance bar...I have been to a dance bar with police on a rescue raid. The police took me along...
Anchor: There is no question about that. Even on a half an hour show on our channel, during the investigation by our team - the women in the bar have agreed that there is exploitation. The question is whether this is the only way to stop the exploitation? As he had said there is exploitation in the construction industry so what do we do...
What do you think, should dance bars be banned? Give your answers on 6388 via SMS.
Bar dancers have spoken about objectionable male behaviour at dance bars. But women have also spoken about them being empowered enough to handle it.
State does not recognize empowerment in these women workers. It does not matter to the State that the same women are saying that they want to continue this work and thay will feel victimized when they are unemployed. Seeing them only as victims and replacing livelihood by rehabilitation will only increase the vulnerability of these women.
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sex work
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sexual harassment at work place
sexual morality
sms
state
talk show
unorganized sector
women's rights
Anchor: There have always been various issues around election time. Currently, the issue is whether the dance bars should be banned or not. Are our leaders trying to escape bigger issues by bringing about the issue of dance bars?
I'll start with Mr. Kulkarni.
(sound unclear)
Anchor: Please tell the interested people whether you are trying to distract people's attention by raising the issue whether the dance bars should be banned or not You tell us whether you are raising dance bar issue to distract people from other bigger issues?
Kulkarni: Dance bar has nothing to do with other issues. It is related to Mumbai and the surrounding areas. Maharashtra is very big. This is one Vidhan Sabha (state assembly) issue. We have 288 Vidhan Sabha seats in the State. If we were distracting people, Congress would not have been in power today.
Anchor: Right.The promises that you made to come in power, in your manifesto, it is not mentioned anywhere that "we will close down the dance bars". You mentioned in your manifesto that "we shall give free electricity to the farmers". We have taken that back. (applause)
Kulkarni: There is no connection between these two issues...
But there is one thing in favour of the talk show format - it is an effective platform to expose the politicians. Mr. Kulkarni of the ruling Congress comes up as a vicious fool.
Maharashtra
Mumbai
audience
ban
bar dancers
censorship
congress
dance bars
debate
economic issue
election
electoral politics
expose
issue
manifesto
manipulation
panel
politaking
political game
politician
promises
public
state assembly
talk show
vidhan sabha
Audience 5 (young girl): Should it not be a personal choice for everyone how they earn, what they eat? Do all things have to be weighed according to morality? Also, is morality not a personal subject?
Audience 6 (young girl): Would women's sexual exploitation stop if the bars are banned? Absolutely not.
(Mr. Kulkarni gets very agitated and starts screaming. General chaos)
Anchor: Let's not all talk together. Nobody can be heard this way.
Audience 7 (young girl): You are saying that there was all kind of criminal activity happening in a dance bar. You can't say the same about all dance bars on this basis. If that's the thing, then when a policeman raped a girl, it was called an aberration, that way the whole police force should be banned.
(applause)
Simple question from the young girls in the audience infuriated Mr. Kulkarni. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately we cannot hear what he says. The self employed moral guardian of the society, Mr. Kulkarni and other old men like him, cannot even fathom a situation where women can opine in public.
Mumbai
applause
argument
audience
ban
bar dancer
citizenship right
crime
criminal
dance bars
democracy
excuse
infotainment
issue
livelihood
morality
public debate
state
talk show
Again the same issue of prostitution in dance bars. People feel that prostitution is the lowest denominator and once that is cited it would counter all criticism. But sex work is not illegal in India. It seems there is a huge confusion between moral belief and legal rights - even in the mind of this socalled lawyer.
Audience 8 (woman): I don't want to do any character assassination, neither do I want to speak about morality. This is one year old issue. Initially, I had also taken Manjit Singh Sethi's case. I have gone to the bars myself, and I have seen that in 65% of dance bars, prostitution is happening in an illegal way and notorious activities are carried on. And I have also helped the police to raid it. I was the lawyer...
Anchor: Okay, you are a lawyer? You have a law degree? Would you say that prostitution would stop if the bars are banned?
Audience 8: Precaution is always better than...
Anchor: If Kamathipura (a red light area in Mumbai) is banned tomorrow, would prostitution stop?
(chaos again)
Mumbai
kamatipura
ban
censorship
criticism
dance bar
denominator
irregularity
kamathipura
lawyer
legalise
manjit singh
morality
opinion
prostitution
public
red light area
regulation
sex industry
sex work
M N Singh: It is a very negative way in which this discussion is progressing. It's as if, Telgi should be let off even if he's involved in the scam, it's as if the policeman should be let off even if he has raped. That everything should be allowed. This is a very negative argument. We are discussing a very serious social problem, and we have to address it very seriously. Firstly, it is not a question of morality. In this country and its constitution, prostitution is not prohibited per se. It is not an offense, but if someone is living off the earnings of a prostitute, it is an offence. And I think most bar owners' are doing the same thing. Therefore, they fall in the category of brothel owners' and nothing less than that. You called it dictatorship. There was a discussion about this in the Assembly, if all the political parties have given their consensus to this, how can you call it dictatorship? This is a wrong argument. All examples are have been given here are baseless.
We can trust the former police commissioner to use the 'facts' to create a fiction. Nowhere in the programme anybody said anything about the criminal police to go scot free. Infact they cited those instances to expose the hypocracy of the state. But he smartly uses those arguments in his favour. He also talks about the whole assembly supporting the bill of ban. Obviously he is ignorant of the fanscism of the majority or the simple majoritarianism. Much later, on 12th April 2006, the Bombay High Court has struck down the bill as unconstitutional. The Maharashtra state then goes on appeal and as this event goes online the case is subjudiced in the Supreme Court.
Mumbai
aberration
abuse of authority
argument
authority
ban
brothel
censorship
dance bars
democracy
dictatorship
elected representatives
expose
fact
fiction
hypocracy
illegal
legal rights
majoritarianism
morality
offense
police commissioner
policeman
political party
prostitute
prostitution
rape
sex worker
sexual crime
state agencies
state assembly
statistics
M N Singh: And Manjit Singh Sethi talked by taking my name. I think he's brought this discussion to a gutter. A person who lives in glass house, can not throw stones on others. He should look inwards and not talk about others. In Bombay, wherever there is corruption, I agree there is corruption in the police, it is his kinds to give push to corruption. And if there is a rape on Marine Drive, the environment and the values that are emerging today is responsible for it in someway. You can not ignore it. Amoral people say that this is moral policing. There is nothing like moral policing. This term has been coined by media, interested parties and activists groups. What police does is simply to enforce the law which is by the society, by the legislature, by the parliament. And if you come to think of morality is the basis for all laws, particularly, the laws that deal with public health, public safety, public morality, laws concerning marriages... If you remove or knock down morality, the very edifice of all legal system, legal framework collapses. Why are we attacking this? I think you have to accept that this is not a question of morality, but a social question. There is an attempt to justify it by giving wrong arguments. Many people have given consent to this move. But that is being ignored and the point of view of only interested parties is being considered.
The former police commissioner is quoting a case where a police constable raped a minor girl in the police chowkie in the crowded Marine Drive. His argument is that such fall of public morality, caused by the phenomena like dance bar, is responsible for the rise in such sexual crime. Strangely he chooses to attack the same activists who have brought the Marine Drive police rape case in public purview for corrupting the society just because they also support the bar dancers in their choice of profession and livelihood. It is beyond his comprehension that the 'public' as in public morality, public health is not a homogenized body. Debate comes up only when morality or rights of one sector of public clashes with that of another sector. Unfortunately the police, the legislatures are trained to protect the interest of only one hegemonic sector. But the check and balance of justice system is evolved to protect the people who are not part of the hegemonic majority and who do not enjoy the conventional social support. Looks like our Police top brass needs some elementary course in the structure of democracy.
Marine Drive
Mumbai
abuse of authority
argument
bann
censorship
consent
corruption
crime
dance bars
feminist activist
gender
laws
legal system
legislature
m n singh
majoritarianism
malign
marine drive
minority
moral impact
moral policing
parliament
police commissioner
police force
police station
public health
public issue
public morality
public opinion
public protest
rape
regulation
safety
sexual harassment
values
Again the same old argument about prostitution. Even the venerable Police commissioner seems to confuse between irregular activity without proper license and a criminal activity (in the case of the bars). Or on the other hand between being exploited and being retrenched (in the case of the dancers).
Anchor: Is this really happening? Even in Kalahandi, when people were dying of starvation, it was said that only a group was raising the issue and in rest of the country is not like that, such incidents were only aberrations. Do you think this issue is being misused?
Audience 9: If people are starving does that mean they would start 'dhanda' (nick name for prostitution, literally means business)
M N Singh: I would like to say one more thing, and I would make a very categorical statement. Most dance bars operate on the fringe of criminality. And, as the Police Commissioner of this city a few years ago, I had conducted lots of raids where dance bars themselves were doubling up as pick up joint, providing facilities for short term sexual pleasure, providing all kinds of arrangements, and leading the same girls into prostitution business. How can they deny this? It is a matter of record.
Anchor: You are right, Sir. And like you spoke about the raids on dance bars, in this country, raids also happen on big business houses and on corporates. There is no doubt that in order to make the society function people who would not work according to the law would be raided and stopped. Otherwise the society will not function. But the method that has been adopted to ban the bars, is that right? How can there be a consensus on this matter? The consensus definitely can't be seen here.
We'll talk more about this. We'll come back.
Kalahandi
Mumbai
aberration
ban
censorship
choice
consensus
control
corporate sector
criminal
dance bar
dhanda
illegal activity
irregular activity
livelihood
m n singh
news worthy
panelist
police commissioner
profession
prostitution
punishment
raids
regulation
rights
sex industry
sexual pleasure
society
starvation
validity
Anchor: If you go on Marine Drive, many people... (Many in the audience speaking)
Audience 10 (man): If there is theft happening, wouldn't there be a law to prevent that?
Anchor: You are saying that women's bodies are misused.
Javed Akhtar: You said exactly what I was referring to some time back. After some time you would say that women should wear black chador (veil) when they get out of their houses, that they should be in burkha, in purdah. Taliban says exactly what you are saying. Let me finish what I am saying...
Who are you to decide that? Who has given you the right? It's that woman's right to decide. You don't have that right. It's the women's right. If she wants to, she can do it, if she does not, she should not. If she is being pressurized to do the work, it is wrong. You continue to say the women are being used. Who are you to say? Her body is not your property.
(General chaos. Kulkarni says something which cannot be heard)
Javed Akhtar represents the liberal voice in the show. It is interesting how he draws example of fanaticism from the Islamic extremists. Being a secular Muslim he might have been under a moral obligation to condemn the right wing within the Islamic society at the first opportunity. However it makes a clear connection between all fanaticism - religious, social, moral and ideological. It was also funny to watch Madhukar Sarpotdar and gang, the celebrated Muslim baiters, being equated with the Taliban, in public.
Marine Drive
Mumbai
authoritarian
ban
bully
burkha
capital
chador
choice
condemn
dance bars
democratic rights
extremist
fanaticism
ideological
islamic world
javed akhtar
job
liberal
livelihood
moral
moral guardians
muslim
oppression on women
parda
patriarchy
professional choice
public debate
public morality
religious
right wing
secular
social
taliban
veil
women's body
women's rights over their bodies
Audience: Should people take support of various constitutional articles and say that being naked on the street is my fundamental right.
Anchor: Just a Minute. Madhukar Sarpotdar you are a lawyer - you tell us what does the constitution say about it and what is the method to bring changes in the constitution.
Sarpotdar: Look, I have already told you how we feel. We are discussing in a wrong way. We have not bothered about constitution, about procedures, we are only interested in how to do business, how to make money, fill up our belly. That's the only concern. We should think what is in constitution. Any foreigner comes to our country, they do not have any proper documents - they should not be allowed to live in our country. So many Bangladeshi girls are in this business - Manjit Singh can tell us how many percentage - 96%... are we taking about that?
One interesting thing about democracy is that it can never be a given format. There can be a few pre-decided principles. But the details of it are to be developed and fine tuned constantly. In this case one ordinary member of the audience expressed concerned about mis-interpreting the constitutional rights for personal whims. But the champion of chauvinist politics, Madhukar Sarpotdar, took the opportunity to turn the discussion on the issue of migration. Sarpotdar and his party came to prominence with their chauvinist slogan of 'Mumbai belongs to the sons of the soil'. Here too he adds the point of most of the dancers being migrants to Bombay and hence are not eligible for citizenship rights. But in most cases of sexuality oriented services - the workers are mostly migrants. The women find it difficult to work in their own neighbourhood because of the stigma attached to it. It is likely that girls from Bombay or Maharashtra are working in similar profession in some other cities.
Bangladesh
Mumbai
argument
ban
bangladeshi
border
chauvinist politics
constitutional rights
country
dance bars
democracy
domicile
fanatic
foreigner
immigration
madhukar sarpotdar
migration
principles
procedure
rabid
right wing
shivsena
trafficking
whims
witch haunting
Again the disparity between the clarity of Manjit Singh's argument and the rhetorical statements of the political leaders become obvious.
Anchor: I would like to ask you that there is an allegation that you or your other bar owner colleagues - you may not be among them - are misusing this, giving it a bad name and doing illegal things.
Manjit Singh: Firstly, this is not a moral issue but a legal one. The license that we have, is the same license that Tamasha ( a traditional Maharashtrian form of dancing, singing and performance) organizers and Belly dancing organizers have. Tamasha is part of the culture of Maharashtra, it has never been banned. I am talking legally. Under the constitution...
Kulkarni: Legal position is going to be like this. Government, cabinet has issued the ordinance... assembly is not in session. Now the ordinance would be issued by the Governor. If Mr. Singh wants to challenge it in court of law, let him and go and file a writ petition under Article 276... (not clear) You are free to oppose. But then don't go on talking about State of Maharashtra and R.R.Patil said this and that...
Maharashtra
Mumbai
anchore
argument
article 276
ban
bar owners' association
bombay high court
constitution
court
dance bar
folk form
government
governor
home minister
illegal
lavni
legal rights
license
ordinance
pankaj pachori
performing art
permit
political leader
popular culture
r r patil
rhetoric
shrill
state
state assembly
state of maharashtra
talk show
tamasha
traditional culture
writ petition
Anchor: Mr. Kulkarni, please stop for a while. We are going in the end to the people who are at the centre of the issue. We have amidst us people who earn their livelihood through dance bars. What do they have to say? You have heard this for an hour. What do you think, should the bars be closed or not? Or do you feel that their argument mean something.
Bar dancer1: We don't want to talk badly about anyone in front of the public, society. According to us what we do is not wrong, it is right. The customers who come in our hotels are of 35, 45 ages. Our parents have also let us out to work. They are uneducated. We have 10 members in the family, no one works, they live in a village. So what can I do? I am earning my livelihood from this. If the bars are banned, would things that happen on streets stop?
Bar dancer2: They talk in terms of illegality ...
Maharashtra
Mumbai
There are four young girls sit in the middle of the gallery. They have not opened their mouths during the entire show, nor have the camera focused on them. Though this issue matters to them much more than anybody else in the audience. They are the dreaded, maligned and criminalized bar dancers - petit yet confident young girls.
(for more about the bar dancers please see events titled "Bar Dancers Speak_Testimonies at Public Hearing" in this site)
artist
assertion
audience
ban
bar dancer
bread earner
citizenship
criminalized
dance bars
dignity
dreaded
freedom
independence
issue
livelihood
maligned
migrant
performer
profession
prostitution
public debate
public hearing
rural
sex work
skill
village
vocation
working women
Mumbai
One woman screams across the gallery: Why do you dance covering your face?
Anchor: Where do you work?
The woman: I don't work. I stay at home.
Anchor: One minute, one minute... Ok, let him speak. Are u are a Mumbaikar?
Viewer 11 (a man): No. I am from Delhi, but live in Bombay. I respect Javed Saab, but he said that everyone should have a right to do as they wish. Political and moral pressures are two levels in which things work today. If children of the house decide that their father should be humiliated, should it happen? If 50 boys in a class decide that the teacher should be punished, should it happen? Let me complete.
I think morally this is wrong. Our government has been sleeping for 16-20 years. You have a child of 5 years, you don't send him to school. When he is 21, you want him to have a Masters degree. You have to plan logically and step by step. You have many thousand dance bars. You provide for alternative employment for all the workers. You impose morality on the state. How can you have an uneducated child get a masters degree? This is where government's lacuna can be seen.
(applause)
The poor girl either lost her nerve or her answer was edited out. But the answer to the middle class 'family' (as they prefer to call themselves in order to differentiate from the fallen women) woman (Why do you dance covering your face) should have been "so that people like you don't see our beautiful faces".
Another member of the audience suggests gradual rehabilitation and gradual closure of the dance bars. He has no doubt about invalidity of the dance bars, he is merely suggesting a more relevant method. India is not only over populated, it is over opinionated too.
accusation
arm twisting
ban
bar dancer
dance bars
government
housewife
invisibility
livelihood
logic
middle class
morality
musk
opinion
populism
rehabilitation
social pressure
state
stigma
taboo
talk show
validity
vulnerability
Actually the Govt. was over enthusiastic about issuing license to dance bars since '70s. Many political leaders of all colours own dance bars in Bombay and also in other parts of Maharashtra. The dance bars increased the sell of alcohol and thus increase the excise revenue. The police too milked the bars and earned extra bucks. But something has gone wrong in the last few years. The picture is not clear yet. As the authority wants us to believe it could be one righteous man, the home minister R R Patil and his crusade. But there has been file pictures published in the media of Mr. R R Patil holding celebration programme in dance bars. Second guess is that it is a rivalry between the beer lobby and the newly emerging wine lobby. It could also be a design of aggressive globalization where small enterprises are killed in favour of global giants. The UN sponsored pressure from the US to stop trafficking, of labour and sexual labour, could be another reason. Whatever it is, it cannot be only a simple logic of public morality. The actual picture will get clearer in the coming years. Meanwhile dancing in bars remains closed. The dancers either work in other less paying jobs in the bars itself or have joined the over populated sex industry. Many of them committed suicide. All of them have become much more vulnerable, economically and sexually, than they were as bar dancers.
Anchor: There is also an allegation on the government – not only on today's congress-NCP govt. but also the all previous govts - about being unaware for 20-25 years while the industry was taking shape, and what is the reason why it has woken up to dance bars only now. Hopefully this show would force you to think about which side of the fence you are on. Do you want dance bars or no?
Congress
Dance bars
Maharashtra
Mumbai
NCP
R R Patil
Shivsena
UN
US
United Nation
alcohol
appeal
authority
ban
beer lobby
desparation
economics
excise duty
franchise
global trafficking
globalization
government
home minister
industry
license
migration
morality
opinion
permit
political leaders
political party
poverty
principle
real estate
revenue
righteous
sexual labour
state
subjudiced case
sugar belt
suicide
supreme court
unorganized sector
vested interest
vulnerable
wine lobby
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