Missing the pawn for the smut

What a relief! Just when we thought this cosmopolitan city would drown in the quagmire of middle class morality, we have been rescued by a progressive legal lifeguard.

The irony is that both our chaste babus and our gabby Fabians seem to be suffering from the same affliction: double vision, probably why neither can quite see the Dance Bar Drama in its proper perspective.

Let8217;s start with the defenders of our collective chastity, who, I think, need to be reminded that any service exists only because there is a market for it. So if 8216;8216;depravity8217;8217; is on offer, presumably there are enough takers. Consumer profile: male, across age groups and socio-economic strata.

I may be wrong but, if this service is indeed as objectionable as our politicos will have us believe, wouldn8217;t it follow that its consumers are as capable of corrupting society as its providers? If they are not, it is simply because our leaders reflect the popular belief that libidinous men are no more to blame than helpless flies, trapped in the female spider8217;s seductive web.

Unfortunately this is just one example of our country8217;s sexual hypocrisy. Here is another: while the Government seems inordinately concerned about the 8220;exploitation8221; of 75,000 dance bar girls, Mumbai alone has over two lakh prostitutes, despite the fact that prostitution is illegal, and Maharashtra has over 10,000 registered rape cases languishing in courts. Worse, these figures do not even include the thousands of other women who suffer the daily indignity of sexual harassment on trains, streets, even in government offices.

Why don8217;t they count? Again, because, when it comes to morality, laundered sheets are more important than what lies under. As long as our public life is pristine, what we do in private doesn8217;t really matter, even if it is exploitative and obscene. That8217;s why, while the government was quick to ban dance bars last August, hotels, clubs and individuals were quietly allowed to keep their private dancers.

That is also why television and newspapers routinely get away with barely sanitized smut 8212; an observation, not a moral opinion 8212; respectably sandwiched between wholesome cooking shows and cutting edge news. To be respectably devoured, of course, in the privacy of our drawing rooms. Because, make no mistake, our oh-so-liberal media is as exploitative as those it sneers at.

Nonsense? Why else would national dailies devote entire front pages to jubilant nautch girls and the politics of moral cleansing, while Mumbai waits patiently for a basic garbage disposal system, serviceable roads and enough water for citizens to clean themselves? Why do only dancers deserve this outpouring of media sympathy while twice as many mill workers also face unemployment and despair after the state government decided to commercialize the city8217;s mill lands?

And if the media indeed played a role in ensuring that dance girls enjoy their fundamental rights, why doesn8217;t it do the same for the country8217;s 100 million domestic workers who are still denied basic rights like minimum wages, weekly offs and paid leave?

Quite crudely, because sex sells. Because bar dancers, like models with malfunctioning wardrobes, provide more eye candy than housemaids, mill workers or the scores of men and women rendered unemployed by slum eradication schemes and development projects. And because voyeuristic footage of women dancing grabs more eyeballs than suicidal farmers.

Besides, what can be more seductive than sex gift-wrapped in the cellophane of 8220;progressive8221; reportage? By the way, although granting dancers their right to livelihood is unarguably enlightened, I still haven8217;t figured out how the idea of women gyrating for a crowd of lascivious men is 8220;progressive8221;, as many newspapers suggest. At best, its just another profession.

Don8217;t get me wrong. Mumbai8217;s bar dancers represent an important cause. Their victory has sent out a clear signal that the public will not take kindly to moral policing. But, believe me, they are not the only ones celebrating. After the initial setback, Patil and his puritanical comrades are already gearing up for a fresh chance to juice a nearly forgotten issue and take it to the Supreme Court.

The Page Three types are delighted to air their broad-minded sound bytes. As for us newswallahs, we8217;ve covered every itsy-bitsy angle, trailing our heroines to temples, powder rooms, even local gyms, to capture their triumph and lament about how an unfair edict forced them into and prostitution.

Touching. Yet I can8217;t help the uneasy feeling that the attention we give these women is suspiciously prurient. More disturbingly, we are playing into the hands of wily politicians and encouraging them to deflect attention from more real issues. The unsavoury truth is that politics and the media have both used the dance bar girls to maximize their mileage and serve their own agendas.

Where does this leave our ladies? As usual, at the bottom of the chess box, with the pawns.