DANCING IN A CAGE
After an 11-year wait, the ban has been lifted and Mumbai’s bar dancers should be celebrating. But a new law is set to shrink earnings, endanger their livelihood, and offers little by way of advantages, they say
Their biggest complaint is that they’ve been treated like children.
The fixed salaries, say Mumbai’s former bar dancers, are the equivalent of a petty allowance. After all, even waiters make half their earnings through tips.
The new law that there must be a railing 3-ft-high between them and the customers is absurd. And as for the rule about no alcohol, what do they expect people to drink at a dance bar — tea, asks Natasha, a former dancer who now sings at an orchestra bar in the city.
Many dance bars turned into ‘orchestra bars’ after the Maharashtra government ban of 2005. Now, following repeated directives from the Supreme Court striking down the ban, the orchestra bars look set to turn back into dance bars.
This has become a political minefield for the BJP-led state government, given that the moralistic ban was announced and enforced when the Congress-NCP were in power.
A kind of face-saving compromise has now been worked out. When the bars do reopen — and they will, the SC has repeatedly declared — they will be governed by a law passed two weeks ago, called the Maharashtra Prevention of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Bar Rooms and Protection of the Dignity of Women Act, 2016.
The name says it all, but the rules are even more strident (see graphic). And any violations by customer or owner could end in prison time and fines.
Trapped in the middle are the former bar dancers, who have already lost 11 years in a career with a relatively short shelf life.
“The rules just show that the government has no understanding of our problems and issues. Rather than throttling us like this, why don’t they just say it: they won’t allow our bars to function,” says former bar dancer Sonia.
Actually, they have. Cornered by the SC order, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis admitted in March that the state’s intention in passing the new law was to ensure that dance bars don’t survive.
“Where a fresh beginning could have been made, we have had only moral pontification,” says activist Varsha Kale, honorary president of the bar girls’ union that has been fighting the ban in the courts. “Neither were the women consulted, nor were their voices heard.”
Take the clause banning direct tipping and mandating fixed salaries for the bar dancers.
“Clearly, the government has no idea about the 1997 agitations by dancers. We used to give them fixed wages till then, but it was the girls who rose in protest, asking to instead share the tips,” says Bharat Thakur, head of the Association of Hotels & Restaurants (AHAR)’s subcommittee on dance bars.
What the women fought for, and won, was a 60:40 tip-sharing in favour of the women. For them, the new legal clause is a step backward.
“As soon as the industry started booming, we realised that customers were spending many times our monthly wages on us in a single night, all of which went to the owner. We demanded a share of these tips, and the arrangement still stands in the orchestra bars,” says Jonelle, 31, a dancer-turned-singer at a Koparkhairane bar.
Ignoring the bar dancer, the government, in its haste, also ignored key recommendations made in a 2005 study conducted by Mumbai’s SNDT Women’s University along with the Forum Against Oppression of Women (FAOW). They had suggested the government fix norms for minimum wage, improve sanitation in their workplaces, make sure they got dropped home after their night shifts.
“The new rules have none of it. They have no real intent. Instead, the Act is transparent in its intention to shut the bars down,” Sujata Gothoskar, a researcher with FAOW who was part of the study. “The government must stop treating these women like infants while simultaneously showing complete disregard for the real issues they face.”
The bar owners are a disappointed lot too. Battle-scarred after repeated raids, Thakur, who also owns a Chembur bar, says it would be ‘suicidal’ to reopen dance bars under these rules. “Instead, we will continue to operate as orchestra bars, even if it means less money.”
The saddest part, Gothoskar adds, is that the government has wasted a real opportunity to regulate and improve the industry. “The whole mess reeks of a government and a society that hates the fact that vulnerable women had managed to assert themselves.” (Former bar dancers’ names changed on request)
THE SADDEST PART IS THAT THE GOVT HAS WASTED A REAL CHANCE TO REGULATE AND IMPROVE THE INDUSTRY. CORNERED BY THE SC ORDER, CM DEVENDRA FADNAVIS ADMITTED IN MARCH THAT THE STATE’S INTENTION IN PASSING THE NEW LAW WAS TO ENSURE THAT DANCE BARS DON’T SURVIVE