The dance bar effect

One and a half years ago the Congress & NCP party ruling the state of Maharashtra (of which Bombay is a part), closed 3,500 dance bars, making over 500,000 people jobless. They took the moral high ground that Dance Bars corrupted people and heartlessly destroyed the lives of half a million families. It was a sham, a politically motivated untruth meant to weaken their political opponents, whom they believed received much of their funding from Dance Bars

When this happened, it was the darkest days of my life. I could not believe that such a crime could occur in Independent India. I could not believe that a functioning democracy could do something like this.

But last week, my belief in the Indian democracy has been restored. In the recently concluded Bombay municipal elections, the people, realizing the injustice of this Congress - NCP government gave them a huge thumbs down, vanquishing them and electing their opponents.

The victory for the Shiv Sena BJP came despite the fact that they have performed poorly in providing and maintaining civic infrastructure and they tend to play communal politics. But the people of Bombay realising the huge crime of the Congress NCP went for the lesser devil.

It is this Democracy that makes India the "superpower" that it is. Not an economic or a military superpower, but a superpower of individual right and voice.