Cheerleaders cause controversy in India

25/04/2008 11:36:00 AM.

Cheerleaders are taking Indian cricket by storm, but some are wondering if this conservative South Asian nation is ready for dancers with bulging breasts and gyrating bellies parading in packed stadia.

Many foreign cheerleaders have been imported to India with this month's inauguration of the India Premier League (IPL), a shortened form of traditional cricket that transforms the game into a more glitzy US-style sponsored sport event.

But some outraged politicians say it is an affront to Indian culture while a few of the cheerleaders themselves complain lewd comments and insults from spectators is making their job a misery.

"It's been horrendous," Tabitha, a cheerleader from Uzbekistan, told the Hindustan Times. "

"Wherever we go we do expect people to pass lewd, snide remarks but I'm shocked by the nature and magnitude of the comments people pass here."

The IPL has caught the imagination of India, a nation of 1.1 billion and the world's biggest cricket audience. TV rights sold for more than $US900 million ($A949.57 million) and players for eight teams, many imported from abroad, were auctioned for millions.

In contrast to the cliched cricket image of genteel spectators sipping tea while politely applauding their team, now scantily-clad dancers gyrate to Bollywood or Western-style dance music blaring out from loudspeakers in stadia.

Even well-known cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins flew to India to perform for the Bangalore Royal Challengers. Photos of the dancers graced the front pages of most newspapers.

"What the cheerleaders are doing during cricket matches is ten times more vulgar than what used to happen in dance bars of Mumbai," Nitin Gadkari, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra state, home to the Mumbai Indians.