In the nearly 10 years of being without a job, Pinky remembers one particular phase when she and her three daughters would dress up in their finest clothes every evening, and sit in her Central Mumbai room she had rented at Rs 7,000 a month. The musicians would come on time and dust and tune their instruments. And then the wait would begin for customers to come in — on some days there were three to four of them, on other days none.
“The mujra never really took off. On a good day, I did make Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 from the dancing. But then there were days when I made no money,” she says. The evening often ended with them changing into their regular clothes and washing off their make up; their net earning a fraction of what Pinky earned in tips at dance bars before the state banned it in 2005.
Since the mid-80s, dancing in Mumbai’s bars had become an escape route from prostitution for thousands of girls like Pinky, who belongs to the nat tribe and came to Mumbai from Tonk district of Rajasthan. Similar tribes of traditional dancers include bediya , kanjar , gandharv and beredar .
Dancing in the bars of Mumbai — which the state would later brand as obscene and legally stop the bar girls from dancing — was an opportunity for many from these tribes to make good money from the only skill set they had. Many tried to cling to their jobs – like Pinky did by spending money to host her own mujras – but the dance options outside bars were unsustainable.
Dream run in Bombay
When Varsha Kale, honorary president of the Bar Dancers Union, started working for the rights of bar dancers, she admits she had the same view as that of the rest of the world — that these girls had been forced into the profession; that they were trafficked, and that they were being exploited. “But when I started talking to them, I realised they hailed from tribes of traditional dancers, had joined these bars on their own and, in doing so, had escaped sex work,” says Ms Kale.
Of the 75,000 girls employed with bars in Mumbai in 2005, at least 90 per cent of the 55,000 singers and dancers, were from these tribes. “I learned that these communities had no land, no occupation. I realised this was their right, to do what they know,” says Ms Kale. Her research on the dancing tribes took her to Rajasthan, Bengal, Bihar, where she understood their rituals, and more importantly that they were a tribe of performers.
Pinky’s story merges with Ms Kale’s research at this point. At 13, Pinky had already joined the flesh trade, like other girls of her community. In another two years, she had given birth to two daughters.
“I hated it. I didn’t want to be a sex worker. That’s when a girl from my village bagged a bar dancer’s job in Mumbai. I told my parents that I wanted to go with her. It was only after my sister agreed to take care of my daughters that my family consented to send me,” she says. “I came to Mumbai with that girl and stayed with her. The year was 1990. I cleaned her house, washed her clothes and dishes. She would ask the bar owners to give me a shot at dancing, but they found me unattractive. One day, the owner agreed,” recalls Pinky.
She was asked to dance on one song the first day. “I was leaving the stage after my performance, when the bar manager asked me to stay on. A guest had requested me to dance on another number,” she recalls, with a visible hint of pride. The night ended with a generous tip of Rs 100 in the form of a garland of Rs 10 notes. This, she says, was the beginning of her dream run – of dancing, earning money, buying good clothes, and going back to her village with gifts for everyone.
All that changed in 2005, a good 15 years after she started dancing. With the ban on dancing, the dancers were reduced to props. “It was demeaning. But we did not have a choice,” she says.
Papads and pickles
When Mahek* moved to Mumbai in her late teens in 1986, she was already a known Rajasthani folk singer. She had also recorded a cassette. “We are from the nat tribe and are good in the performing arts. I used to work in a nautanki in my village in Jaipur district, when I heard about bars in Mumbai,” she says. In her village, she earned about Rs 1,000 a month from the nautanki, but after she moved to Mumbai, the tips every night ranged between Rs 200 and Rs 250. “I also got a salary of Rs 5,000, but that was only for talented girls,” she says.
The girls’ talent soon found takers. “Dance bars in Mumbai started in 1980-81 and by 1986, word had spread and girls from these tribes started coming to the city. Girls from the nat community were brilliant performers and had tremendous stamina. They could dance on 10 to 12 songs,” says Bharat Thakur, president of the Dance Bar Association.
So when dancing was banned, neither the girls nor the state knew what to do next. Mahek recalls a rehabilitation suggestion – of involving the dancers in a government scheme for women in distress to make pickles and papads. “The monthly salary would have been Rs 250. Besides, why is making pickles dignified and not dancing,” she asks, adding that she could survive as she is also a singer and continues to sing at a bar in a northern suburb. “But singing is not as much fun,” she says, adding that she sees a window of opportunity now if the state allows the bars to open in compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Unlike Mahek, many found no job options and headed back to their villages and got back into what they had run away from many years ago – prostitution. In Tonk district, for instance, the major centres where the nat community girls have hitched tents are at Negadia village (Deoli), Deoli town, Jaisinghpura and small road side habitations on the Jaipur-Kota highway, says Kanhaiya Puri, secretary of a local NGO, Grameen Vikas Shodh Avan Takniki Kendra. “The bar dancers from nat community do not stay here permanently, only for about three months,” he adds.
These roadside habitations are cause for major concern. “When I visited Rajasthan, I was told about the girls dotting the 100-150 km stretch from Alwar to Bharatpur on the national highway. They are involved in sex work with truckers, and risk contracting HIV. This is a complicated social problem,” says Ms Kale.
“The girls who have come back are either involved in sex work with truckers or are in touch with hotels. Delhi is only 180 km from here so they move frequently,” says Sita Ram Gupta, executive director of Lupin Foundation in Bharatpur, which works on migration issues.
India’s daughters
During her research on the tribes that have traditionally danced for a living, Ms Kale came across references to courtesans in various contexts, the freedom struggle being one of them. “A bunch of tawaifs had gone to meet Mahatma Gandhi during the freedom struggle and told him of their intent to participate in the fight against the British. He told them that they should continue dancing and do their bit in that realm. The courtesans took the advice and went on to form a tawaif sabha and started writing revolutionary songs, which they would then perform on,” says Ms Kale.
The anecdote is significant in the current context to establish the respect dancers once enjoyed and also to drive home the point that for many communities dancing is the only means of earning a living. For this reason, Ms Kale says the art form of these tribes should be protected, like the Maharashtra government has done with lavani.
The suggestion is pertinent given that tribes that thrived on singing and dancing are now steering clear of it. A handful of bar dancers have kept their daughters out of the profession, trying to give them an education. “I didn’t know my mother was a bar dancer. She left home every evening saying she worked in a call center. By the time I understood where she worked, the government had banned the bars,” says Priya*. The closure led to her mother run out of funds and she had to drop out after Class X. She says she was fortunate to have got married into a family (she got married to a bar dancer’s son) that encouraged her to complete Class XII.
“In our community, girls are either kept for marriage or for this work,” says Mahek, but after the ban the girls were on neither side of spectrum – not educated enough to bag a good job and isolated from their community’s profession.
As the reopening of dance bars now hinges on the state government, bar dancers say they have little hope. Mahek questions why isn’t the country rallying behind them like it did for Nirbhaya. “We are also being wronged. Kya main bharat ki beti nahin hoon (am I not India’s daughter),” she questions.
(*Names changed on request)
