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RIGHTS-INDIA: Mumbai’s Bar Show Goes On – For Now

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jun 23 2005 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of women who sing and dance in the bars of the western Indian state of Maharashtra are likely celebrating the survival of their means of livelihood. On Thursday the governor returned unsigned an ordinance intended to ban the dance bars.

At least for now, "dance bar girls," concentrated in the bustling port metropolis of Mumbai, are saved from certain and immediate destitution.

In his decision, Governor Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna may have considered a study conducted by the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Women’s University in Mumbai, which said that rather than being rehabilitated into "respectability" the women likely would have to turn to sex work to survive.

Based on interviews with 153 of the 60,000 girls working Mumbai’s dance bars, the study, released earlier this month, indicated that more than 60 percent were the sole bread-winners of families with typically five or more dependants.

But the findings of the study, which seemed to indicate that more than 80 percent of the women came from outside Mumbai and Maharashtra state, may only encourage the state’s politicians – already caught up in competitive regional chauvinism – to pursue the ban even more vigorously.

It was after all a "Maharashtra-for-Maharashtrans" attitude which led the state’s leaders to carry out ruthless slum clearances in January, leaving more than 400,000 people who lived and worked in the city for years suddenly without a roof over their heads.

Thursday’s reprieve from Krishna, a non-Maharashtran himself, was welcomed by the Bar Girls Union (BGU), whose president Varsha Kale told IPS in a telephone interview that said would now focus on extracting "an effective rehabilitation package for the girls when Maharashtra’s provincial legislature discusses the issue."

As governor, Krishna can stop an ordinance (bureaucratic fiat), but not legislation duly passed by the majority of members in the state legislature, which may yet happen because both opposition and ruling members are anxious to be seen as pro-Maharashtran, although Mumbai itself is rated as India’s most cosmopolitan city.

Sensing the drift, the feisty Kale said her efforts from now on would be concentrated on rehabilitation rather than opposing the ban head on with demonstrations, litigation and political lobbying in the national capital as BGU has been doing.

"What people do not realise is that many of these girls have children who are attending schools in Mumbai and face disruption in their studies because their mothers are being asked to vacate rented accommodation – thousands have already left Mumbai," Kale said.

The study by the SNDT University, which received support from the Forum Against Oppression (FAO), a well-known rights organisation, found that half of the girls had no education and almost none of them spoke any English or possessed a practical skill – findings which cast doubt on the viability of rehabilitation.

Mumbai has more than 700 dance bars where the girls do dance routines timed to catchy tunes churned out by the city’s popular film industry. The study confirmed that many of them earn an average of 2,000 dollars a month.

But the girls also support a whole industry that hires thousands of bar attendants, bouncers, chefs, janitors and support staff who are also likely to be unemployed if the ban comes into force. Conservative estimates say at least a million people face unemployment as a result of the ban.

Many of the respondents to the SNDT survey said they were seriously looking at turning to sex work since they had little other option if they wanted to continue living in Mumbai. This city of around 18 million people is known as much for its sleaze and organised crime as for its glamorous film industry.

The study rubbished the stated ideas of Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil, the driving force behind the ban, that the girls could be trained for alternative work and rehabilitated. Patil was careful to say that only girls from Maharashtra would be rehabilitated, while the others would be sent back to the states they came from.

Patil did not cite any study or survey before pursuing a policy that has the potential to leave hundreds of thousands of people unemployed. He merely says he is convinced that dance bars were a "corrupting influence on youth."

Among those who have openly opposed the ban on dance bars is Julio Ribeiro, who earned the nickname of "supercop" for the relentless crusade he led against organised crime in the 1970s as Mumbai’s police chief.

"There is little doubt that the girls will gravitate into the hands of pimps and brothel owners who operate from residential areas," Ribeiro said in earlier interviews.

Among other public figures who oppose the ban is Poornima Advani, former chairwoman of the National Commission for Women (NCW), a statutory body. She recently wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking his intervention against the "shocking victimisation of young girls."

"The sudden closure of the dance bars which were (previously) licensed by the government of Maharashtra… has again brought to light an example of victimisation of the powerless, poverty-ridden young girls of our country, as well as the struggle between the haves and the have-nots," said Advani.

"The gravity of the matter is underlined by the fact that an estimated 75,000 bar girls have been thrown to the streets by the decision to close dance bars," she said in her letter.