Dance bar
Encyclopedia
The term dance bar is used in India
to refer to bar
s in which adult entertainment in the form of dances by relatively well-covered women are performed for male patrons in exchange for cash. Though dance bars were banned in the Maharashtra
state, in August 2005, with the passing of the Police (amendment) Bill, 2005, subsequently government enforced shutting down of dance bars. However, many continued to flourish even as late 2011, although in a clandestine way in Mumbai
and its outskirts.
Mumbai alone at their peak, in April 2005 when the ban first came in, had 700 dance bars, though officially only 307 dance bars existed, the rest were illegal, while the figures for rest of the state was 650. In all they employed 1.5 lakh people, including 75,000 bar girls. These bars in turn functioned as fronts for prostitution
and human trafficking
, and after the ban was enforced, no proper rehabilitation program was initiated for the nightclub dancers, known as bar-balas, subsequently many migrated to Dubai
and other Middle East
ern countries and trafficking
centre shifted to New Delhi
, Chennai
and Hyderabad, while other simply shifted into Mumbai's red-light districts.
, part of the back, and bare arms. Therefore, the erotic aspect of bar dancing is mostly achieved through suggestion. In Maharashtra
, bar dancer attire is often ethnic Indian (sari
or lehenga-choli
), whereas in some other places, such as Bangalore
, it may include Western garb. The bar dances are often compared to the mujra
s of yore, wherein women would dance to live classical Indian music, traditionally performed by tawaif
(courtesan
s) during the Mughal era
.
and Indipop numbers on a colorfully lit dance floor, in the central focus of a dance bar's seating arrangement. Most of the time, they will be reservedly swaying to the music until they find some patron whose attention they wish to attract, or are called upon by a patron. They then dance in front of the patron, making fleeting eye contact
, pointing, gesturing, or generally making their targeted patron "feel special". No bodily contact between the two is allowed http://www.dancewithshadows.com/dance_bars_mumbai.asp, and the bar dancers often stay within the confines of the dance floor. Male waiters hover over patrons and dancers who get too close to each other, both to oversee transactions between the two as well as ostensibly to prevent sex-for-money deals being made.
s. He does this either by handing over nominal denominations of cash (10 or 20 rupee
notes), or through an act known as "scratching", where he holds a wad of currency notes above his dancer and rubs notes off the wad down upon the dancer. In some cases, he would even garland
the dancer with rupees. Many bar dancers are able to make hundreds of rupees a night in this way, thanks to generous, well-off, and possibly inebriated patrons. In one scandalous story, Indian scamster Abdul Karim Telgi
spent nearly a of rupees on a single dancer in one night . At the end of the day, each girl's earnings are counted and split in some predetermined proportion between the dance bar and the girls. The dance bars also make money through the sale of alcohol
and snacks. Most women earned up to a month, this attracted women from all over India and even as far away as Nepal and Bangladesh, especially as dance bars was considered by them as a safer way to make a living, than working in the Mumbai's red-light district.
but are now spreading across the country in cities. It is estimated that in Mumbai alone, there are hundreds of dance bars, although what makes it difficult to estimate the number is that many of them are not very accessible. Some of these remain open till late at night.
They are a source of revenue
for the government
and they employ thousands of bar girls. Some policemen and local thugs
also make money off regular hafta
s from the dance bars http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/feb/25fird.htm.
The bar girls are, in many cases, sole support their families through their earnings http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2209/stories/20050506001104700.htm. They often live together by renting out dwellings in housing colonies, where inexpensive associated services such as makeup shops, dress
shops and the like are at hand.
Bar girls and dance bar owners have formed associations to protect their interests http://www.hindu.com/2005/04/02/stories/2005040211320300.htm. Most bar girls in Maharashtra are believed to be from outside the state http://www.nswp.org/rights/bargirls/letter-governor.html, some even from outside the country. Maharashtra government has banned ladies dance bar in his state and sometime police action is also carried out.
. They have been charged with morally corrupting society, exploiting men and siphoning money away from the latter's families, having connections with criminal elements http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050430/saturday/main1.htm, as well as being fronts for prostitution
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4394277.stm. The dance bars and their supporters have countered with the demand that dances by women as performed in elite hotels, clubs, public shows, and gymkhana
s, presently exempted from the government's list of targets, be tarred with the same brush http://o3.indiatimes.com/gov/archive/2005/08/28/234982.aspx. Some have even pointed out the racy item number
s of Bollywood
films as examples of hypocrisy on the part of the state and their other opponents.
s, but were being misused. Eventually, the ban became legalized on July 22, 2005, when "Police (Amendment) Bill 2005" was adopted by the Maharashtra State Assembly banning dance bars across the state.
In April 2006, Bombay High Court
, lifted a ban on dance bars, imposed by the state government, saying that the ban was discriminatory and violated the right to equality. The state government has been given eight weeks to appeal against the judgment in the Supreme Court.
, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Muscat, frequented by top executives, and expatriate Indians, and which were experiencing a rise in demand for Bollywood dance numbers (item number
s); other overseas destination were the South-East Asian countries,, Malaysia and Singapore. Some moved into other Indian states like Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, where in cities like Chandigarh, Shimla, Ambala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and Bathinda, they even started making a living by dancing in marriages and private functions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4275922.stm.
Many started waiting tables
as some of the former dance bar opened as regular bars, and employed them as waitresses although with sharp drop in income , some started dancing at mujras For example, by November 2005, some 5,000 former bar girls from across Mumbai leased out rooms with the help of brothel madams and brokers in and around Foras Road, near Kamathipura, and started performing improvised versions of the mujra every night. Another hub that crept up during this period was Congress House near Kennedy Bridge, on Grant Road
, which has been city's oldest address of mujra performers, which embraced the bar girls' into their folds.
In many cases though, girls who could find other modes of income, moved to outright prostitution in order to survive, in Mumbai's red-light districts, like Kamathipura
Some have even committed suicide
in despair http://www.dailyindia.com/show/16729.php/Maharashtras_dance_bar_girls_see_ray_of_hope, as rehabilitation by the state has not been forthcoming http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=Dancebars&slug=Ordinance+issued+against+dance+bars&id=16926&callid=0. The dance bars themselves had to attempt to make ends meet by hosting live singing troupes or live band
s.
However, on April 12, 2006, a Maharashtra state high court
ruled the ban unconstitutional and gave the state eight weeks to file its case with the Supreme Court.
In the coming years, most known dance bar were either demolished or shut down by municipal corporation, but they moved into the outskirts of the main Mumbai city, into areas like Kashimira on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad
National Highway 8, Vasai and Mira Road
in Mira-Bhayandar
suburb, where numerous illegal dance bars mostly in residential areas also serve as pick-up joints, were demolished in an extensive drive in late 2010, and numerous arrests were made including bar girls, customers and employees of bars. Many bar owner experiencing a drop in revenue started sending former bar girls on ‘assignments’ overseas. Agents continued to solicit out-of-work bar dancers from hubs like Congress House (Banarasi slum) Congress House near Kennedy Bridge on Grant Road
, Mira Road, Banaras ki Chawl, Thane
and Oshiwara. As a result, by 2011, bars in the Middle East, which were once dominated by girls from Russia and East European countries now replaced by bar girls from India, and mostly Mumbai.
Gradually immigration officials in Mumbai stepped up their vigilance against allowing single, unaccompanied girls with passports now had Emigration Check Required (ECR) stamped, this made travelling out of Mumbai increasingly difficult, thus the transit point for trafficking bar girls, shifted from Mumbai to New Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad.
(2001), directed by Madhur Bhandarkar
.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to refer to bar
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
s in which adult entertainment in the form of dances by relatively well-covered women are performed for male patrons in exchange for cash. Though dance bars were banned in the Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
state, in August 2005, with the passing of the Police (amendment) Bill, 2005, subsequently government enforced shutting down of dance bars. However, many continued to flourish even as late 2011, although in a clandestine way in Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
and its outskirts.
Mumbai alone at their peak, in April 2005 when the ban first came in, had 700 dance bars, though officially only 307 dance bars existed, the rest were illegal, while the figures for rest of the state was 650. In all they employed 1.5 lakh people, including 75,000 bar girls. These bars in turn functioned as fronts for prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
and human trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
, and after the ban was enforced, no proper rehabilitation program was initiated for the nightclub dancers, known as bar-balas, subsequently many migrated to Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
and other Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern countries and trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
centre shifted to New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
, Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
and Hyderabad, while other simply shifted into Mumbai's red-light districts.
Clothing
Bar dancing in India, however, markedly differs from erotic dancing and nightclub dance in the Western world and some parts of the Eastern world and even parts of India. In a way, it is more similar to bellydancing performed as entertainment. The dancers, known as bar girls, remain significantly clothed throughout the performance, showing at most some midriffMidriff
Midriff is a particular term to denominate the section of the human body between the thorax/chest and the pelvis/hips. It is used as a genteel avoidance of synonymous belly ; as a synonym for waist; and as a name for the area around the diaphragm Midriff is a particular term to denominate the...
, part of the back, and bare arms. Therefore, the erotic aspect of bar dancing is mostly achieved through suggestion. In Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
, bar dancer attire is often ethnic Indian (sari
Sari
A sari or sareeThe name of the garment in various regional languages include: , , , , , , , , , , , , , is a strip of unstitched cloth, worn by females, ranging from four to nine metres in length that is draped over the body in various styles. It is popular in India, Bangladesh, Nepal,...
or lehenga-choli
Choli
A choli , is a midriff-baring blouse shell garment in the Indian sari costume worn in India, southern Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and other countries where the sari is worn. The choli is cut to fit tightly to the body and has short sleeves and a low neck...
), whereas in some other places, such as Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
, it may include Western garb. The bar dances are often compared to the mujra
Mujra
Mujra is a form of dance originated by tawaif during the Mughal era. incorporated elements of the native classical Kathak dance onto music such as thumris and ghazals or poems of those from other Mughal cultures such as Bahadur Shah Zafar. Mujra was traditionally performed at mehfils and in...
s of yore, wherein women would dance to live classical Indian music, traditionally performed by tawaif
Tawaif
A tawaif was a courtesan who catered to the nobility of South Asia, particularly during the era of the Mughal Empire.The tawaifs contributed to music, dance, theatre, film, and the Urdu literary tradition.-History:...
(courtesan
Courtesan
A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
s) during the Mughal era
Mughal era
The Mughal era is a historic period of the Mughal Empire in South Asia . It ran from the early 15th century to a point in the early 18th century when the Mughal Emperors' power had dwindled...
.
Dancer Protocol
Bar girls dance to BollywoodBollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
and Indipop numbers on a colorfully lit dance floor, in the central focus of a dance bar's seating arrangement. Most of the time, they will be reservedly swaying to the music until they find some patron whose attention they wish to attract, or are called upon by a patron. They then dance in front of the patron, making fleeting eye contact
Eye contact
Eye contact is a meeting of the eyes between two individuals.In human beings, eye contact is a form of nonverbal communication and is thought to have a large influence on social behavior. Coined in the early to mid-1960s, the term has come in the West to often define the act as a meaningful and...
, pointing, gesturing, or generally making their targeted patron "feel special". No bodily contact between the two is allowed http://www.dancewithshadows.com/dance_bars_mumbai.asp, and the bar dancers often stay within the confines of the dance floor. Male waiters hover over patrons and dancers who get too close to each other, both to oversee transactions between the two as well as ostensibly to prevent sex-for-money deals being made.
Monetary Rewards
The patron in turn showers his favored dancer with currency notePaper Money
Paper Money is the second album by the band Montrose. It was released in 1974 and was the band's last album to feature Sammy Hagar as lead vocalist.-History:...
s. He does this either by handing over nominal denominations of cash (10 or 20 rupee
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
notes), or through an act known as "scratching", where he holds a wad of currency notes above his dancer and rubs notes off the wad down upon the dancer. In some cases, he would even garland
Garland
A garland is a class of decoration, of which there are many types.Garland may also refer to:-Places:*Garland, Arkansas, a town in Miller County*Garland County, Arkansas*Garland, Maine, a town in Penobscot County...
the dancer with rupees. Many bar dancers are able to make hundreds of rupees a night in this way, thanks to generous, well-off, and possibly inebriated patrons. In one scandalous story, Indian scamster Abdul Karim Telgi
Abdul Karim Telgi
Abdul Karim Telgi is a convicted counterfeiter from India. He earned money by printing counterfeit stamp paper in India.-Early life:...
spent nearly a of rupees on a single dancer in one night . At the end of the day, each girl's earnings are counted and split in some predetermined proportion between the dance bar and the girls. The dance bars also make money through the sale of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
and snacks. Most women earned up to a month, this attracted women from all over India and even as far away as Nepal and Bangladesh, especially as dance bars was considered by them as a safer way to make a living, than working in the Mumbai's red-light district.
Social and Economic Aspects
Such dance bars used to be present only in MumbaiMumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
but are now spreading across the country in cities. It is estimated that in Mumbai alone, there are hundreds of dance bars, although what makes it difficult to estimate the number is that many of them are not very accessible. Some of these remain open till late at night.
They are a source of revenue
Revenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
for the government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
and they employ thousands of bar girls. Some policemen and local thugs
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
also make money off regular hafta
Hafta
Hafta is the word for week in Hindi, Persian and Turkish languages.Hafta is also slang for the protection money collected periodically by gangsters and corrupt policemen. It is named so because the most common collection period is one week. The practice is highly prevalent in India and a refusal...
s from the dance bars http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/feb/25fird.htm.
The bar girls are, in many cases, sole support their families through their earnings http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2209/stories/20050506001104700.htm. They often live together by renting out dwellings in housing colonies, where inexpensive associated services such as makeup shops, dress
Dress
A dress is a garment consisting of a skirt with an attached bodice or with a matching bodice giving the effect of a one-piece garment.Dress may also refer to:*Clothing in general*Costume, fancy dress...
shops and the like are at hand.
Bar girls and dance bar owners have formed associations to protect their interests http://www.hindu.com/2005/04/02/stories/2005040211320300.htm. Most bar girls in Maharashtra are believed to be from outside the state http://www.nswp.org/rights/bargirls/letter-governor.html, some even from outside the country. Maharashtra government has banned ladies dance bar in his state and sometime police action is also carried out.
Controversy
Dance bars have also drawn the ire of the infamous Indian moral police in recent years, especially in the state of MaharashtraMaharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
. They have been charged with morally corrupting society, exploiting men and siphoning money away from the latter's families, having connections with criminal elements http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050430/saturday/main1.htm, as well as being fronts for prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4394277.stm. The dance bars and their supporters have countered with the demand that dances by women as performed in elite hotels, clubs, public shows, and gymkhana
Gymkhana
Gymkhana is a typical Anglo-Indian expression, which is derived from the Hindi-Urdu word for "racket court," is an Indian term which originally referred to a place where sporting events take place. The meaning then altered to denote a place where skill-based contests were held...
s, presently exempted from the government's list of targets, be tarred with the same brush http://o3.indiatimes.com/gov/archive/2005/08/28/234982.aspx. Some have even pointed out the racy item number
Item number
An item number or an item song, in Indian cinema, is a musical performance that has little to do with the film in which it appears, but is presented to showcase beautiful dancing women in very revealing clothes, to lend support to the marketability of the film...
s of Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
films as examples of hypocrisy on the part of the state and their other opponents.
Legal Action
In early 2005, as the local protests against the dance bars increased, dance bars in Mumbai were banned, thereafter on March 30, dance bars in the rest of Maharashtra were also banned, after complains from local state assembly members. In April 2005, state cabinet unanimously supported the home department's proposal to revoke all dance bar licenses. Most of dancing bars at the time, according to a statement made deputy Chief Minister, in the legislative assembly, were only licensed to operate as eating houses, restaurants or to run permit roomPermit room
A permit room in India is that section of a restaurant where it is permitted to serve alcoholic drinks....
s, but were being misused. Eventually, the ban became legalized on July 22, 2005, when "Police (Amendment) Bill 2005" was adopted by the Maharashtra State Assembly banning dance bars across the state.
In April 2006, Bombay High Court
Bombay High Court
Bombay High Court at Mumbai, Maharashtra, is the High Court of India with jurisdiction over the states of Maharashtra & Goa, and, the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli...
, lifted a ban on dance bars, imposed by the state government, saying that the ban was discriminatory and violated the right to equality. The state government has been given eight weeks to appeal against the judgment in the Supreme Court.
Aftermath
Starting August 15, 2005, the ban was implemented across Maharashtra. In Mumbai alone 1.5 lakh people, including 75,000 bar girls went out-of-work. However due a lack of a rehabilitation program, within a few short months hundreds of bar girls (bar-balas) mostly illiterate young women sending income back to their families, were out of work, and were forced to turn to Gulf countries like DubaiDubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Muscat, frequented by top executives, and expatriate Indians, and which were experiencing a rise in demand for Bollywood dance numbers (item number
Item number
An item number or an item song, in Indian cinema, is a musical performance that has little to do with the film in which it appears, but is presented to showcase beautiful dancing women in very revealing clothes, to lend support to the marketability of the film...
s); other overseas destination were the South-East Asian countries,, Malaysia and Singapore. Some moved into other Indian states like Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, where in cities like Chandigarh, Shimla, Ambala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and Bathinda, they even started making a living by dancing in marriages and private functions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4275922.stm.
Many started waiting tables
Waiter
Waiting staff, wait staff, or waitstaff are those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers — supplying them with food and drink as requested. Traditionally, a male waiting tables is called a "waiter" and a female a "waitress" with the gender-neutral version being a "server"...
as some of the former dance bar opened as regular bars, and employed them as waitresses although with sharp drop in income , some started dancing at mujras For example, by November 2005, some 5,000 former bar girls from across Mumbai leased out rooms with the help of brothel madams and brokers in and around Foras Road, near Kamathipura, and started performing improvised versions of the mujra every night. Another hub that crept up during this period was Congress House near Kennedy Bridge, on Grant Road
Grant Road
Grant Road , named after Sir Robert Grant, the Governor of Bombay between 1835 and 1839, is currently a suburban railway station and former terminus of the erstwhile Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway...
, which has been city's oldest address of mujra performers, which embraced the bar girls' into their folds.
In many cases though, girls who could find other modes of income, moved to outright prostitution in order to survive, in Mumbai's red-light districts, like Kamathipura
Kamathipura
Kamathipura is Mumbai's oldest and Asia's largest red-light district . It was first settled after 1795 with the construction of various causeways that connected the erstwhile seven islands of Bombay, initially known as Lal Bazaar, it got its name from the Kamathis of Andhra Pradesh state, who as...
Some have even committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in despair http://www.dailyindia.com/show/16729.php/Maharashtras_dance_bar_girls_see_ray_of_hope, as rehabilitation by the state has not been forthcoming http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=Dancebars&slug=Ordinance+issued+against+dance+bars&id=16926&callid=0. The dance bars themselves had to attempt to make ends meet by hosting live singing troupes or live band
Band (music)
In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...
s.
However, on April 12, 2006, a Maharashtra state high court
Bombay High Court
Bombay High Court at Mumbai, Maharashtra, is the High Court of India with jurisdiction over the states of Maharashtra & Goa, and, the Union Territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli...
ruled the ban unconstitutional and gave the state eight weeks to file its case with the Supreme Court.
In the coming years, most known dance bar were either demolished or shut down by municipal corporation, but they moved into the outskirts of the main Mumbai city, into areas like Kashimira on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...
National Highway 8, Vasai and Mira Road
Mira Road
Mira Road is one of the suburbs in the city of Mumbai, India. It is located to the north of Mumbai, on the western line of Mumbai Suburban Railway and is governed by the Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation .-Geography:...
in Mira-Bhayandar
Mira-Bhayandar
Mira-Bhayander is a suburb of Mumbai city, located to The North of Mumbai administered by Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation .-History:...
suburb, where numerous illegal dance bars mostly in residential areas also serve as pick-up joints, were demolished in an extensive drive in late 2010, and numerous arrests were made including bar girls, customers and employees of bars. Many bar owner experiencing a drop in revenue started sending former bar girls on ‘assignments’ overseas. Agents continued to solicit out-of-work bar dancers from hubs like Congress House (Banarasi slum) Congress House near Kennedy Bridge on Grant Road
Grant Road
Grant Road , named after Sir Robert Grant, the Governor of Bombay between 1835 and 1839, is currently a suburban railway station and former terminus of the erstwhile Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway...
, Mira Road, Banaras ki Chawl, Thane
Thane
Thane , is a city in Maharashtra, India, part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, northeastern suburb of Mumbai at the head of the Thane Creek. It is the administrative headquarters of Thane district. On 16 April 1853, G.I.P...
and Oshiwara. As a result, by 2011, bars in the Middle East, which were once dominated by girls from Russia and East European countries now replaced by bar girls from India, and mostly Mumbai.
Gradually immigration officials in Mumbai stepped up their vigilance against allowing single, unaccompanied girls with passports now had Emigration Check Required (ECR) stamped, this made travelling out of Mumbai increasingly difficult, thus the transit point for trafficking bar girls, shifted from Mumbai to New Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad.
In popular culture
The life of women working in dance bars was portrayed in film, Chandni BarChandni Bar
Chandni Bar is a 2001 Hindi film directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. It depicts the gritty life of the Mumbai underworld, including prostitution, dance bars and gun crime. The film stars Tabu and Atul Kulkarni in lead roles. It also stars Ananya Khare, Rajpal Yadav, Minakshi Sahani and Vishal Thakkar...
(2001), directed by Madhur Bhandarkar
Madhur Bhandarkar
Madhur Bhandarkar is a National Award-winning Indian film director, script writer, and producer. He is best known for his films such as Chandni Bar , Page 3 , Traffic Signal , and Fashion...
.