Dancing to different tunes

Let me explain. When the honourable deputy chief minister announced his move against dance bars, a flurry of protest ensued in which two issues seemed to gain prominence.

The first was the issue of the threatened unemployment of 75,000 bar girls.

Assuming this is an accurate figure, and some doubt has been expressed on that score, it is indeed a matter of concern.

A couple of things bother me though. For instance, why is it at a time when women8217;s issues find scant mention in the media, the plight of the bar dancers has received such wide and sustained coverage? Is it because of the salacious and quasi-glamorous nature of their profession? This at least seems the inevitable inference from the images used. One cannot imagine disempowered rag pickers for instance getting the same sort of treatment.

The other puzzling question concerns the exclusive focus on bar dancers. Why is nobody talking about the equal or greater number of men waiters, bouncers, etc who will be unemployed? Or bar owners who will lose crores? Could it be that making it a 8220;women8217;s issue8221; rather than a general economic one has a better chance of scoring brownie points?

The second clear issue raised against the ban was the issue of the citizen8217;s right against moral policing by the state.

The protest against the deputy chief minister8217;s announcement was immediate. Dance bars were perceived as the latest in a long line of threatened items: obscene hoardings, explicit videos, provocative plays, American burgers, etc, etc. 8220;Dance bars are our right and we shall have them8221; was the thread running through the various statements protesting the ban. Well, okay. But who is making this demand?

Bar owners. Film makers. Writers. Celebrities. The media. But where, in all this is the patron of the dance bar?

Calculating the clientele at a conservative ten times the number of people expected to lose their jobs one gets the sizeable number of twenty lakhs. Now, if even 10, or even 5, per cent, of these about-to-be disenfranchised souls were to take to the streets, write letters of protest, stone a car or two, the repeal of the ban could be a done deal, right? Yet we all know this will not happen. And we will not ask for it.

Why not? Why the skewed emphasis on the first issue and silence in the second? Only one answer seems to suggest itself, which is: we wish to avoid pain. The pain that would come if we were to acknowledge certain harsh truths.

Truths such as the fact that however glamorous, kitschy and endearing an image we draw of dance bars, we know they are sleazy places based on a retrograde, exploitative system which thrives on women being objects of the lustful male gaze. Those who routinely frequent dance bars are not likely to wave a banner for their rights because there is shame involved. And the women who work there are the weakest cogs in the wheel as last year8217;s study by the Womanist Party and films such as Madhur Bhandarkar8217;s Chandni Bar revealed.

And truths such as the fact that in a consumerist economy there are bound to be victims. If dance girls are the objects of desire in this particular corner of the market, then there will be those who will try to afford what they cannot and fall by the wayside. R.R. Patil is not wrong when he complains about the ill effects of the bars on people. There are harrowing stories of families which have been ruined by a member8217;s weakness for dance bars. And there are women in those families too.

Growing up means taking responsibility. We need to look these truths in the eye, examine them in their full horror and then still defend our right to choose to retain the dance bars. Then, and only then, can we claim to have earned our right to be treated as adults.

Merely demanding rights without acknowledging the implications of those rights has the ring of an eighteen year old demanding the keys to daddy8217;s Merc. He8217;s old enough. But is he really up to it?