Bar barred...

Another dictum by a democratic government and more than 100,000 rendered jobless. Yes, the state govt. has decided to ban all the dance bars in the state of Maharashtra including Mumbai, stating that they promote crime and prostitution. The decision has directly affected not only the bar girls (75,000) but also the managers (1500), waiters (20,000), bouncers (6,000) and cooks (6000). The figure easily crosses the astonishing mark of 100 thousand! At least bar girls are lucky enough to have an association of their own which is desperately fighting for them. Rest all are not as privileged and they will have to find the alternative jobs over night.

The very ground on which they are banned is stupid enough to justify that the government here reacted in a hurry and pushed the accelerator a little too early. They reacted without any plan of their rehabilitation! Afterall one lakh is not a small number by any means.

According to the govt, they are promoting crime. How come? I don’t think that the murder mysteries and robbery plans are hatched there in dance bars with a dozen females dancing around you and where you find it difficult to hear even your own voice! I would be highly surprised if the crime chart shows a dip of even one percent after the ban on dance bars. My only question is..If they are talking about promoting crime, why only dance bars? Why not all the public bars? Infact they provide more conducive ambience for making devilish plans and they are the breeding ground to criminals more than the dance bars. Food for thought Mr. Deshmukh.

Secondly, according to them, they are the routes to prostitution. May be. Or I should say it’s partially true. But do you think it is justified to crush each and everybody on the road if 10% are guilty? And forget about Mumbai, each and every city has a well-defined ‘red light area’ where you can find prostitutes. Nobody bother to raid them or close them. Infact by banning the dance bars, there is every probability that these girls will take the route of prostitution and the govt. adventure of stopping it will only increase the prostitution in the city. Remember, most of these girls come from very poor families of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar & West Bengal and it’s very easy to coax them into the hell as they are vulnerable enough and they have to support their families back home.

The problem does not end here? It is more grave than it seems. Look at the bigger picture The question is..For how long we will have to bow ourselves to the moral policing of the government or of the certain section of the society. For how long Hallmark and Archies will bear the brunt of a certain political outfit on every 14th Feb? For how long we will be forced to accept that FTV and the likes should not be a part of our TV channel list? After all, Liquor shops are there all over the places but still teetotalers exist in this society. Same applies for lotteries and all. The point that I am trying to drive is simple. In this era when the society is getting more open with each passing day, you just cannot force anybody what to drink, what to see, where to visit and what to wear. Even a conservative nation like china with communists in command does not come up with such mind-boggling decisions and laws.

Probably the reason of our current mindset lies here. We are in a transition phase. At present, neither we are having a totally conservative society nor we are having a completely open or westernized one. Hence, when these dance bars comes up, we get afraid of loosing our moral values and traditions. But remember, 15 years back, when only DD national channel was in place, even a glimpse of scantly clad female was rare. And 15 years hence, we have a total collection of Sherawats and Dhupias…

I am not saying wherever we are heading to is the only way to progress. But my simple point is, in today’s world, moral policing is as bad as keeping a slave and I think we have progressed enough to make our own mind on what’s correct and what’s not. Still, the transition of our mind set is not complete. It’s happening. It will take sometime before we will realize that one cannot and should not keep a vigil as far as deciding moral values is concerned. And I don’t think in the era of my grandchildren, anybody will be bothered to burn Valentine’s Day cards or any government will take such drastic steps like the ban on dance bars without even blinking their eyelids about the future of 1,00,000 citizens.