The term dance bar is used in India to refer to bars 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 150,000 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 Eastern countries and trafficking centre shifted to New Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad, while other simply shifted into Mumbai's red-light districts.
Read more about Dance Bar: Clothing, Dancer Protocol, Monetary Rewards, Social and Economic Aspects, Controversy, Legal Action, Aftermath, In Popular Culture, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words dance and/or bar:
“What do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat, sleep, loaf around, flirt a little, dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall. No one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed. That’s the end.”
—William A. Drake (1900–1965)
“O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandolin
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)