{"id":9206,"date":"2016-06-17T13:01:19","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T07:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak?p=9206"},"modified":"2018-08-22T16:24:06","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T10:54:06","slug":"voices-illegally-adult-strange-case-alisha-major","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/voices-illegally-adult-strange-case-alisha-major\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegally Adult: The Strange Case of Alisha Major"},"content":{"rendered":"

She was 17\u00a0when\u00a0she was rescued from a dance bar. Now she’s 18\u00a0and\u00a0she wants to go back. As an adult. And dance again. That’s what Alisha wrote in a\u00a0letter to the Child Welfare Committee<\/a><\/u>.<\/p>\n

Alisha\u2019s letter may be one of a kind. It doesn\u2019t matter. It may even be a scam of sorts, in that she was pushed to write it. Doesn’t matter. What\u2019s interesting is the jumble that it throws up, if you look at her choices through eyes that are not hers.<\/p>\n

First, the whole jumble around dancing as a minor. In which box should we put this in our heads? In the \u2018age of consent\u2019 box where we place girls who marry before the legal age of 18, even if they elope with their boyfriends with full consent? Or a separate box, which disregards legal terrain, simply because we understand late teens as being capable of both desire and consent?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. I understand \u2013 and accept \u2013 that adults should legally be treated differently from children, although I do feel that 18 years is too late. Many years after teens have acquired the \u2018actual\u2019 capacity to consent.\u00a0Specially in an age when exposure, aspiration and choice-making come much earlier.<\/p>\n

Alisha’s just as clear at 18 as she was at 17. She’d rather be a bar dancer than a beautician.\u00a0She was enrolled in a beauty course during her rehab, but she’d rather dance for her pocket money. So that\u00a0she can get the cellphones she wants, the clothes, the holidays. The\u00a0life<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is where many narratives start to come unstuck. The narrative that bar dancing is fine to buy life’s bare necessities, not it’s fripperies. The narrative of the poor, traumatised bar dancer; Alisha says rehab was a trauma, not bar dancing. The narrative of contingent choice-making. Meaning that bar dancing \u2013 or sex work or being an escort \u2013 is okay only if there\u2019s no other option.<\/p>\n

But not as an option in itself.<\/p>\n

Art or obscenity?<\/em><\/p>\n

As if this isn’t ‘bad’ enough, Alisha equates dancing in bars with art. “I do not see anything wrong in dancing in front of customers,\u201d she wrote in her letter to the Child Welfare Committee. \u201cI equate it to any artist performing live in front of an audience”.<\/p>\n

Now where to place this equation, specially if we assume that bar dancing is more punishment than pleasure, or something a woman drags herself through to eat her nightly meal?<\/p>\n

When overturning the 2005 ban on dance bars in Maharashtra, the Supreme Court had said that \u201cit\u2019s better to dance in bars than to beg<\/a><\/span>.\u201d Which makes it sound one step more appealing than lifting food from dumpsters. Not that appetising. But later in the same judgement, the Supreme Court went on to refer to bar dancing as an artistic act.<\/p>\n

The Maharashtra government doesn’t agree with this. It finds bar dancing ‘obscene’, so much so that it has tried to\u00a0invent a whole new class of obscenity<\/a><\/u>\u00a0\u2013 just for bar dancing. Full of ‘lascivious movements’ and ‘exposed genitals’. And the Maharashtra government calls the shots where Alisha, a Mumbaikar, is concerned.<\/p>\n

Art. Obscene. Lascivious. All these words are subjective, so let\u2019s dump them for a moment. (Of course, dance can be all of these at the same time.)<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s consider that dance has also been called the \u201cvertical expression of a horizontal passion.\u201d And what\u2019s wrong with that, except the limited characterisation of said passion?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s wrong with dancing sexy, whether or not it\u2019s artistic or culturally pure? How about our divinely sexy dancing apsaras? How about Bharatnatyam, which emerged from dance forms such as\u00a0Sadir Nautch<\/a><\/u>\u00a0and\u00a0Dasiyattam<\/a>?<\/u>\u00a0When the devadasis<\/em> who performed Bharatnatyam went on to become royal concubines, the form itself broke with its past in search of respectability.<\/p>\n

And bigger question: is bar dancing automatically obscene? Is there a space to be sexy without being obscene? Can one be both a subject and an object \u2013 of pleasure \u2013 at one and the same time? Can one dance for one\u2019s own pleasure and that of the viewer, never mind all that \u201cdance as if no one\u2019s watching\u201d stuff?<\/p>\n

Labour or stigmatised labour?<\/em><\/p>\n

As part of her application to the Child Welfare Committee asking to be released from rehab, Alisha attaches a gynaec\u2019s report \u2013 showing she\u2019s a virgin. That she has not been \u2018sexually exploited.\u2019<\/p>\n

I don’t know how to think about this but it doesn\u2019t feel right. First, the phrase \u2018sexual exploitation\u2019 seems like this is a test for prostitution, not assault. Is this a test of morals, or a test of lack of consent? It doesn\u2019t even matter whether or not the Committee mandated this, or Alisha chose to send this. Why should any working woman need to prove she\u2019s a virgin?<\/p>\n

We know why, of course. When lifting the ban on dance bars, the Supreme Court had said that it\u2019s better to dance than to beg. Or to \u201cearn livelihood through unacceptable means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unacceptable means is often code for sex work, a code that many bar dancers used when asking that bars be re-opened. \u201cOtherwise we will have to turn to sex work,\u201d they said. I understand why this argument was used, but for me, it\u2019s immeasurably sad.<\/p>\n

Bar dancers perform one type of stigmatised labour, not recognised as labour. Sex workers perform another kind of stigmatised labour, even less recognised as labour (except by a few trade unions in India, including the\u00a0New Trade Union Initiative<\/a><\/span>.) When one stigmatised labour group has to put down another to get it’s rights, it\u2019s sad.<\/p>\n

Dignity or indignity?<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in Maharashtra. As Alisha awaits the Committee’s decision, the state government is hellbent on preventing dance bars from re-opening.<\/p>\n

It files\u00a0cases against orchestra bars<\/a><\/u>.\u00a0Suspends cops<\/a><\/u>\u00a0for licensing a few dance bars. Pushes to install\u00a0CCTV cameras<\/a>, <\/u>privacy be damned. And three-foot-high touch-me-not railings on the dance floor. And imposes a bunch of other conditions that make dance bars unviable.<\/p>\n

All in the name of protecting the\u00a0dignity of women at the workplace<\/a>.<\/u><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Child Welfare Committee turns down Alisha\u2019s application, even though she\u2019s an adult. She\u2019s probably still stuck in rehab.<\/p>\n

I hope not. I hope she\u2019s dancing in a Mira Road bar somewhere, even though she’s\u00a0surrounded by the cops\u2019 hidden cameras<\/a><\/u>. Without her consent. As they digitally surveil her swaying form to establish that what she\u2019s doing is obscene. Under the new\u00a0Maharashtra Prohibition of Obscene Dance in Hotels, Restaurants and Bar Rooms and Protection of Dignity of Women Act (2016)<\/span>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mouthful, that. Forget that dancing in a bar doesn\u2019t automatically equate to an indignity. Forget that the 2013 Supreme Court decision reversing the 2005 ban on dance bars in Maharashtra established\u00a0\u201cdancing for livelihood as a fundamental right.\u201d<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Tell me how stalking a dancer with a hidden camera she doesn\u2019t know about, to gather footage she doesn\u2019t know about, to be used in a way she doesn\u2019t know about, protects her dignity. Tell me. Please.<\/p>\n

Alisha\u2019s story is based on<\/em>\u00a0this<\/em><\/a>\u00a0Times New Network article by Sandhya Nair published on 27 May 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Cover image courtesy Indianroots<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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She was 17 when she was rescued from a dance bar. Now she’s 18 and she wants to go back. As an adult. And dance again. That’s what Alisha wrote in a letter to the Child Welfare Committee.
\nAlisha\u2019s letter may be one of a kind. It doesn\u2019t matter. It may even be a scam of sorts, in that she was pushed to write it. Doesn’t matter. What\u2019s interesting is the jumble that it throws up, if you look at her choices through eyes that are not hers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":9208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8,688],"tags":[695,60,658,696,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-9206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-voices","9":"category-work-and-sexuality","10":"tag-bar-dancer","11":"tag-law","12":"tag-maharashtra","13":"tag-obscenity","14":"tag-sex-work"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9206"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14928,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9206\/revisions\/14928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}