If the legal battle on Dance bars ends in a decision that will seem to favor traffickers and pimps, the Maharashtra State Government must blame its own arrogance, non consultative and over confident style of handling this battle and operational and intellectual isolation and a its singular obsession with obscenity. The State Government’s Legal Amendment of June 2014 which enforced the ban on dance bars has been stayed by the Supreme Court of India on 15th October 2015. Although the interim order has kept the hearing for November, the law has little chance of survival as the State government has failed to do its their homework and build evidence to back its premise.
Despite the fact that it has been the anti-human trafficking organizations who had sought the ban, facilitated a conducive public opinion across party lines and actively supported the government, the state on its part has reciprocated with a non-inclusive, non-consultative stance viz a viz the anti human trafficking organizations. The resulting debacle is now for everyone to see.
