(Pic: The Hindu)No dancing. No live music in places that serve alcohol. No partying beyond 11:30. No smoking in restaurants and bars. No very loud music.
Welcome to Bangalore, 2008.
Here's a story that Lalitha Kamat and I wrote, on the moral politics behind the protests and the laws, and how they take place upon the imagesof women's bodies, but also looking at the urban politics framing the background to the issue:
IT, BT and Bangalore's Moral Economy
A bit here:
The suggestion of a Shanghai-Singapore framework as a discretionary model that presumably discourages "sleazy girlie bars" while retaining the "stylish," "hip" nightclubs is another step along the pathway that has carved out the growth of Bengaluru along a deepening faultline. Since the liberalisation policies of the 90s at least, Bangalore has grown unevenly along a cleavage situating the Information Technology and Biotechnology (IT and BT) "corporate" boom on the one side, and the slower, older, more staid city on the other. The issues surrounding the imposition of these regulations are poised along this crisp divide, and occurring repeatedly in different ways with varying permutations (of class, dress and occupation) are images of women, stuck in this very verbal and angry tussle between various interest groups.
