The Bombay High Court on Wednesday brought a smile to faces of hundreds of former bar dancers, bar owners and patrons when it lifted the state-government's ban on Mumbai's dance bars, which was imposed on Augst 15, 2005. The court said that the government order banning dance bars violated equality before law and right to work. State home minister RR patil, who was instrumental in spearheading the campaign against dance bars leading to their closure, expressed shock at the judgment.

The state government has eight weeks to appeal the HC verdict in Supreme Court. The court has directed the state government to issue fresh licences to dance bars within eight weeks. The dance bar ban was unconstitutional, said the court, striking it down.

For dance bars and their dancers, this must be a second chance at life. Many of the dancers were driven to poverty and prostitution when their means of livelihood were turned off by the state government. The ban order followed a witch-hunt of all shady joints. Dozens of dance bars which remained open on the sly were shut down and their bar licences revoked. The police arrested hundreds of bar girls on charges of immoral traffic and ticked off their patrons.

The state government had said that the dance bars were a menace to the society's ethics and bred corruption, prostitution and exploitation. Patil's lack of interest in rehabilitating the affected dancers added to the bargirls' pain.

Dance Bar Owners' Association president Manjeet Singh Sethi expressed happiness at the High Court verdict. A state minister was quoted as saying that the government will make an announcement after studying the verdict.

Patil can remain in shock for some more time. When he emerges from it, he would do well to abandon the ill-advised move to target dance bars, when the state is facing numerous issues of importance. A few weeks before the dance bar ban, Mumbai drowned in an unprecedented flood, and the state government was left gaping while people died. Farmer suicides in Vidarbha over unpaid debts has become so commonplace that it has lost all news value. At last count, 423 farmers were dead.

Maharashtra is facing its worst-ever power crisis, and the summer is only heating up. The white elephant of Dabhol Power has been given a rebirth as Ratnagiri Gas and Power, but it does not have fuel to run for more than a month. Bajaj Auto and Mahindras, traditional Maharashtra businessmen, have already announced their new assembly lines in Uttaranchal and Himachal, since the state has no tax incentives to offer them.The state has no clue, or is thoroughly disinterested in tackling the problems faced by its showpiece capital Mumbai. The World Bank recently cancelled its assistance for the Mumbai Urban Transport Project, since the state did not bother to rehabilitate the people affected by it. Onion farmers in the state are starving because prices have crashed to pits, and the government would not declare a minimum support price to save them. There is a raging bird flu in several parts of the state, and nobody has an idea when the culling will be over and the poultry owners can relax. Any casual observer can see that the reported rapes and murders in the city have sharply gone up in the last couple of years. The Planning Commission recently termed Maharashtra a failed state over its financial state. It has the dubous distinction of being the last state in the country to abolish the primitive Octroi.

Attempts at preseving the moral fabric of the society are welcome, but only after the government sets a cleaner record at sorting out other issues of immedate significance. Dance bars are not the Problem No.1 in the state. If some dance bars became seedy joints and corrupt policemen fed off them, the government's job was to discipline the cops and punish the erring bars. By tilting at dance bars when Mumbai and Maharashtra are ravaged by multiple crises, the state government has successfully made itself look like an ass. Before time runs out, the Maharashtra government should devote its energies to rebuilding the broken state.