The recent Supreme Court decision to strike down Maharashtra government ban on dance bars has led to a debate of Economics Vs Morality. However, the real issue is the sheer lack of accountability of the Maharashtra government

Sucheta Dalal

In 2005, the diminutive RR Patil, projected as the upright, angel-protector of Mumbai’s morality, made it a personal issue to shut down the 1,200-odd dance bars in Maharashtra, more than half of which were in Mumbai. Like Bollywood dancing, Mumbai’s dance bars had become a unique, though seamy, feature of Mumbai’s nightlife. Official revenue earned from these dance bars was over Rs1,500 crore, while the black money showered on the dancers, brought its own unaccounted economic benefits. Prominent politicians and policemen were rumoured to be among the bar-owners but the RR Patil-inspired legislation, with its hypocritical moral garb, was unanimously passed by the state assembly. Nobody questioned the fact that the ministry did not care to clean up the frighteningly exploitative fleshpots of Kamathipura-Falkland Road, or the goings-on in star hotels. Or that the raunchy gyrations and clothes of Bollywood starlets, which enter our living rooms through television sets, are often more obscene than anything happening inside a dance bar.

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