The term dance bar is used in India to refer to bars in which adult entertainment in the form of dances by relatively well-covered women are performed for male patrons in exchange for cash. Though dance bars were banned in the Maharashtra state, in August 2005, with the passing of the Police (amendment) Bill, 2005, subsequently government enforced shutting down of dance bars. However, many continued to flourish even as late 2011, although in a clandestine way in Mumbai and its outskirts.[1]
Mumbai alone at their peak, in April 2005 when the ban first came in, had 700 dance bars, though officially only 307 dance bars existed, the rest were illegal, while the figures for rest of the state was 650. In all they employed 1.5 lakh people, including 75,000 bar girls.[2][3] These bars in turn functioned as fronts for prostitution and human trafficking, and after the ban was enforced, no proper rehabilitation program was initiated for the nightclub dancers, known as bar-balas, subsequently many migrated to Dubai and other Middle Eastern countries and trafficking centre shifted to New Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad, while other simply shifted into Mumbai's red-light districts.[4][5]
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Bar dancing in India, however, markedly differs from erotic dancing and nightclub dance in the Western world and some parts of the Eastern world and even parts of India. In a way, it is more similar to bellydancing performed as entertainment. The dancers, known as bar girls, remain significantly clothed [2] throughout the performance, showing at most some midriff, part of the back, and bare arms. Therefore, the erotic aspect of bar dancing is mostly achieved through suggestion. In Maharashtra, bar dancer attire is often ethnic Indian (sari or lehenga-choli), whereas in some other places, such as Bangalore, it may include Western garb. The bar dances are often compared to the mujras of yore, wherein women would dance to live classical Indian music, traditionally performed by tawaif (courtesans) during the Mughal era.[5][6]
"The dance, per se, is not pernicious, but it's the dance in that particular place, where liquor is served and clients are sitting getting boozed. Then the whole atmosphere becomes conducive for men to tease girls, or to book girls for further prostitution."
Bar girls dance to Bollywood [7] and Indipop numbers on a colorfully lit dance floor, in the central focus of a dance bar's seating arrangement. Most of the time, they will be reservedly swaying to the music until they find some patron whose attention they wish to attract, or are called upon by a patron. They then dance in front of the patron, making fleeting eye contact, pointing, gesturing, or generally making their targeted patron "feel special". No bodily contact between the two is allowed [1], and the bar dancers often stay within the confines of the dance floor. Male waiters hover over patrons and dancers who get too close to each other, both to oversee transactions between the two as well as ostensibly to prevent sex-for-money deals being made.[5]
The patron in turn showers his favored dancer with currency notes. He does this either by handing over nominal denominations of cash (10 or 20 rupee notes), or through an act known as "scratching", where he holds a wad of currency notes above his dancer and rubs notes off the wad down upon the dancer. In some cases, he would even garland the dancer with rupees. Many bar dancers are able to make hundreds of rupees a night in this way, thanks to generous, well-off, and possibly inebriated patrons. In one scandalous story, Indian scamster Abdul Karim Telgi spent nearly a 1 crore (US$190,000) of rupees on a single dancer in one night.[8] At the end of the day, each girl's earnings are counted and split in some predetermined proportion between the dance bar and the girls. The dance bars also make money through the sale of alcohol and snacks. Most women earned up to 10,000 (US$190) a month, this attracted women from all over India and even as far away as Nepal and Bangladesh, especially as dance bars was considered by them as a safer way to make a living, than working in the Mumbai's red-light district.[2]
Such dance bars used to be present only in Mumbai but are now spreading across the country in cities. It is estimated that in Mumbai alone, there are hundreds of dance bars, although what makes it difficult to estimate the number is that many of them are not very accessible. Some of these remain open till late at night.
They are a source of revenue for the government and they employ thousands of bar girls. Some policemen and local thugs also make money off regular haftas from the dance bars [2].
The bar girls are, in many cases, sole support their families through their earnings [3]. They often live together by renting out dwellings in housing colonies, where inexpensive associated services such as makeup shops, dress shops and the like are at hand.
Bar girls and dance bar owners have formed associations to protect their interests [4]. Most bar girls in Maharashtra are believed to be from outside the state [5], some even from outside the country. Maharashtra government has banned ladies dance bar in his state and sometime police action is also carried out.
Dance bars have also drawn the ire of the infamous Indian moral police in recent years, especially in the state of Maharashtra. They have been charged with morally corrupting society, exploiting men and siphoning money away from the latter's families, having connections with criminal elements [6], as well as being fronts for prostitution [7]. The dance bars and their supporters have countered with the demand that dances by women as performed in elite hotels, clubs, public shows, and gymkhanas, presently exempted from the government's list of targets, be tarred with the same brush [8]. Some have even pointed out the racy item numbers of Bollywood films as examples of hypocrisy on the part of the state and their other opponents.
In early 2005, as the local protests against the dance bars increased, dance bars in Mumbai were banned, thereafter on March 30, dance bars in the rest of Maharashtra were also banned, after complains from local state assembly members.[3] In April 2005, state cabinet unanimously supported the home department's proposal to revoke all dance bar licenses. Most of dancing bars at the time, according to a statement made deputy Chief Minister, in the legislative assembly, were only licensed to operate as eating houses, restaurants or to run permit rooms, but were being misused.[3] Eventually, the ban became legalized on July 22, 2005, when "Police (Amendment) Bill 2005" was adopted by the Maharashtra State Assembly banning dance bars across the state.[1]
In April 2006, Bombay High Court, lifted a ban on dance bars, imposed by the state government, saying that the ban was discriminatory and violated the right to equality. The state government has been given eight weeks to appeal against the judgment in the Supreme Court.[7]
Starting August 15, 2005, the ban was implemented across Maharashtra. In Mumbai alone 1.5 lakh people, including 75,000 bar girls went out-of-work.[3] However due a lack of a rehabilitation program, within a few short months hundreds of bar girls (bar-balas) mostly illiterate young women sending income back to their families, were out of work, and were forced to turn to Gulf countries like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Muscat, frequented by top executives, and expatriate Indians, and which were experiencing a rise in demand for Bollywood dance numbers (item numbers); other overseas destination were the South-East Asian countries,, Malaysia and Singapore. Some moved into other Indian states like Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, where in cities like Chandigarh, Shimla, Ambala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and Bathinda, they even started making a living by dancing in marriages and private functions.[9][9].
"The girls are very vulnerable now, pimps are selling the bar girls to other countries, because they don't have any work."
Many started waiting tables as some of the former dance bar opened as regular bars, and employed them as waitresses although with sharp drop in income,[5] some started dancing at mujras [6] For example, by November 2005, some 5,000 former bar girls from across Mumbai leased out rooms with the help of brothel madams and brokers in and around Foras Road, near Kamathipura, and started performing improvised versions of the mujra every night. Another hub that crept up during this period was Congress House near Kennedy Bridge, on Grant Road, which has been city's oldest address of mujra performers, which embraced the bar girls' into their folds.[6]
In many cases though, girls who could find other modes of income, moved to outright prostitution in order to survive, in Mumbai's red-light districts, like Kamathipura [5] Some have even committed suicide in despair [10], as rehabilitation by the state has not been forthcoming [11]. The dance bars themselves had to attempt to make ends meet by hosting live singing troupes or live bands.
However, on April 12, 2006, a Maharashtra state high court ruled the ban unconstitutional and gave the state eight weeks to file its case with the Supreme Court.
In the coming years, most known dance bar were either demolished or shut down by municipal corporation, but they moved into the outskirts of the main Mumbai city, into areas like Kashimira on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad National Highway 8, Vasai and Mira Road in Mira-Bhayandar suburb, where numerous illegal dance bars mostly in residential areas also serve as pick-up joints, were demolished in an extensive drive in late 2010, and numerous arrests were made including bar girls, customers and employees of bars.[10] Many bar owner experiencing a drop in revenue started sending former bar girls on ‘assignments’ overseas. Agents continued to solicit out-of-work bar dancers from hubs like Congress House (Banarasi slum) Congress House near Kennedy Bridge on Grant Road, Mira Road, Banaras ki Chawl, Thane and Oshiwara. As a result, by 2011, bars in the Middle East, which were once dominated by girls from Russia and East European countries now replaced by bar girls from India, and mostly Mumbai.[4]
Gradually immigration officials in Mumbai stepped up their vigilance against allowing single, unaccompanied girls with passports now had Emigration Check Required (ECR) stamped, this made travelling out of Mumbai increasingly difficult, thus the transit point for trafficking bar girls, shifted from Mumbai to New Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad.[4]
The life of women working in dance bars was portrayed in film, Chandni Bar (2001), directed by Madhur Bhandarkar.
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