Freedom or illusion? Survival in Maharashtra’s dance bars, caste and gender – The journal of Indian Law and SoGietyty

By Nikeeta Singh
(This blog is the fifth in the series of blogs JILS will publish in various vernacular languages as part of its initiative to mark International Mother Language Day.)
This article performs critical examines of the 2005 dance bar ban on Maharashtra, which shows how caste, gender and economic limitations determine the women's son-known "Choice". At the name of moral reform, this restriction, instead of eliting exploitation, strengthens the system of margins. It shows how legal interventions often hide deeply structural inequalities.
When we think of the election, we often imagine the world of open doors, where we walk on, he defines us. But what if the doors have been displeased, and we are already determined by our controls. In the burning dance bars of Maharashtra, the women proceeded, but their lives were set by the hard realctions of caste, gender and poverty. When the state had banned the bar girls in 2005, it was not just the end of music; It was exposed to a truth - these women had never been the freedom of choosing. What does it mean to choose what is the same as the only option? This article tries to break the reality of 'election' women, using the ban on the low-caste women, researching their options in Babby, and how the penis has already set their options.
In Maharashtra, the dance bars were mainly banned by the state government's raised concerns 'ethics, law and order'. They were also claimed that the dance bars were associated with illegal activities, such as smuggling, which confirmed the assumption that they were harmful to both women and widespread society. On the other hand, the dancing bars provided a means of inequalities for many women in the society. However, these women seem to choose this profession, their decisions were made by caste and a strong structure of gender. Many of them came from Dalits or the lower caste, where the mobility above was limited by socio-economic disorder in the caste identity. As Gopal Guru has argued, the caste is not just about social status; This is a source of economic inequality.[1]  This, in alternatives, is long to be tongue to some relationships of certain castes with special types of work - more clearly, low castes are often associated with 'dirty'. For many of these women, the occasion of the labor or sexual work, both traditionally traditionally associated with the lower castes - were very few. Despite all this, the recreational economy offered one of the financial distributions of financial independence, although it was questioned: Was it really a choice?
Range on Dance Bars Who A Purpose to Reverse Women from Exploited forced many people for bad situations like prostitution. The President of the Bar Girls Union, the President of the Girse of India, argued that the ban had ignored the basic reasons for caste-based economic persecution. The call also pollies to how much, after the ban, changed the "Orchestra Bar" where women were singing instead of dancing.[2]  This represents a form of Parupkatic Casteism, where policies or laws are claiming to "protect" the existing power, but the present power limit them and limit their freedoms. By encouraging the singer as an alternative, the government rescued from resolving the main issues of caste and gender-based discrimination. Women worked in twelve, still confused in the face of exploit, and the society was still stigmatized. While the state's actions seemed to be securityly, they eventually strengthened their margins. It shows that when the so-called "option" is offered, they can maintain a social-economic persecution, leaving the women who are trapped by society. The basic issues of caste and sexual persecution was abandoned in one other form of restricted options instead of real empowerment.
This is the concept of agency in the debate. The agency is not only about individual decisions, but in social system is deeply affected by people. For bar dancers, the agency was slight - which was referred to as an option, often the only survival strategy offered some real options. Scholar Sharmila Rambla argued that the "double burden" for caste and gender Dalit women, which "duplicate" facing economic and father-being.[3]  In the dancing bars, their work was less than a blissful decision. He that looked like authenticity, he was just an illusion.
Need to test caste and strimism in order to understand the full effect on the full effect. Scholars have a long time indicated that Dalits are located on the lower part of the women, India's rankings, and the unique form of grated inequality 'both of India. For them, the choice is a distant idea.[4]  Their work, whether in the dancing or other marginal spots, there is no presence but the responsibility of their caste identity, which is generation to generation. It was not salvation to work towards a bar from caste dance but was a new form of the same exploitative labor.
But why will a democracy state government encourage the cycle of this exploitation? As the Kimaha River Kalactiva has emphasized that the liberation of black women will challenge the influx and ethnic violence, the independence of the Dalit women,[5]  There is an similar threat to. The Salody is highlights how the control of the state at the bodies of Dalits, and the grandfathering procurement is more likely to control the behavior.[6] 
Eventually, the story of the bar dancers in Maharashtra is not of a choice but also of defense. Their decisions of working in the dancing bars were not practiced in order to be practiced in order to work but there were answers for a world that had already been determined. The options for women have been shaped by a society who had defined his value. Restriction did not release them; It only reveals the illusion of freedom who they lived. Women danced, the world determined the rhythm to which he went towards.
Nikeeta Singh is a second-year BA LLB student at O.P. Jindal Global University with interests in constitutional law, criminal law, feminist theory, and politics.

[1]  Gopal Guru. (1995). Dalit women communicate differently. Economic and Political Weekly, 30 (41/42), 2548-2550. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4403327.
[2]  Palival, S. (2016). Restrictions on the dance bar: A feminist lawunny experienced study. NLSY Societ-Legal
Review, 12 (1), 15.
[3]  Sharmila ray. (2003). More than adding women in macroopiccher: Femininity contributions to world development conversations. Economic and Paltical Weekly, 38 (43), 4555-4563. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4414189.
[4]  Sovjaina, T. (2020). Who is the woman and who is the Dalit? Broadsheet on Contamperry Politics, 3 (1). Received https://www.anveshi.org.in/broadsheet-on-contemporary-politics/archives/broadsheet-on-contemporary-politics-vol3-no-1/who-is-a-woman-and-who-is-a-dalit/.
[5]Kombaya River Clock. (1977). Kombaya River Cultivist Statement. Received https://americanstudies.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Keyword%20Coalition_Readings.pdf
[6]  Palival, S. (2016). Restrictions on the dance bar: a feminine legal experience. NLSY Societ-Legal Review, 12 (1), 16.