Many details must be worked out if Mumbai’s famous dance bars are to reopen, but a key principle has been established in the Supreme Court order: that the government cannot impose its notion of morality on society. The threat to public morality from dance bars, or their equivalent in “orchestra bars”or “cabarets” as they are euphemistically called, is more imagined than real. In large cities with a diverse population, some earn a livelihood from the fringes of the entertainment industry like dance bars. The imposition of morality in a blanket manner, particularly when we know of the hypocrisy involved, can destroy livelihoods, as we have seen in the lives of at least 75,000 women and the male staff who help run the bars, imposing some discipline on customers and providing security to the dancers.
Social activists have noted that a large part of the dancers’ income went into educating their children. One of the effects of the ban and other restrictions in place for nearly a decade and a half in Mumbai is that not only some dancers but their young children too have been pushed into prostitution, which activity the State curiously recognises and tries to regulate as a kind of social safety valve. The sharp focus of judicial thinking alone could have led to the recognition that such dancing, a part of our history with princely and feudal patrons, should be seen as just another mode of employment. The truth is that many destitute women, who may not be fit for any other type of work, were the principal players and they have been out on a limb after the present government added its moralistic stance to the one already taken by its predecessor.
The prohibition on “showering” dancers with money is a significant part of the court’s ruling. Such acts were probably more vulgar than any dance form that tends to objectify women. Obscenity is quite routinely shown in our films. However, cinema is one segment where we have now accepted that morality standards have changed over time, and Indian audiences are free to view content that would have been unimaginable in times when the idea of morality was far more rigid. In sum, dance performances in dignified forms are now socially acceptable and the Supreme Court believes it is time to draw the curtain on restrictions. Things may pan out differently at the ground level as dance bars have to deal with greedy policemen and bureaucrats. What is, however, more important is the principle of allowing women dancers to earn their living, provided they do so safely and do not indulge in obscenity. The court has noted how changes have emerged in perceptions of morality and it’s now up to Maharashtra to try and make it work rather than hark back on ancient morality.
