Foreign cheerleaders shake India's conservative values

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New Delhi, May 1: : The foreign cheerleaders were brought in to show India's cricket fans how to shake their pompoms - but not everyone was impressed.

The New Delhi team said Wednesday it was switching its cheerleaders for a band of drummers. Mumbai politicians have forced theirs to cover up, saying their performances were lewd and not appropriate for India's traditional culture.

The cheerleaders were flown in to give a touch of glamor to the Indian Premier League - a newly launched cricket tournament that brings together the sport's biggest international stars, million-dollar (euro) contracts, big business and celebrities.

Cricket in its purest form is a serene game that lasts five days and is played by men in white who take breaks for tea.

But the Indian Premier League presents a flashy, rapid-fire version that is played in just five hours under floodlights with players in colourful uniforms.

The league has been posited as a celebration of the new India: brash, confident, cosmopolitan and rolling in money from a decade-long economic boom.

Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya flew in the Washington Redskins American football team's cheerleaders to boost his team, which he named after one of his whiskeys - the Bangalore Royal Challengers.

Other team owners flew in troops of dancing beauties from Eastern Europe.

For a brief moment all was good. They whirled and bounced and cheered. Miniskirts flared and pompoms shook as cricket players batted balls out of the park.

But it was all too much for the other India - a deeply conservative country where public displays of sexuality are taboo and women are expected to dress modestly.

The backlash began in Mumbai last week when lawmakers from the Bharatiya Janata Party pressed to get cheerleaders banned from the home games of the local team, the Mumbai Indians.

"See the pictures of these girls in the newspapers? This is not something you can allow inside your house, or something that you can look at in the presence of your sister or daughter," said Nitin Gadkari, the BJP's president for Maharashtra. "It may be a good thing for America, for the USA, it's not a good thing for India, for our kind of culture," Gadkari said.

Police vowed to keep scantily clad dancers out of public view.

"We will take action," said Mumbai police officer Ramrao Wagh.

"The government has said it will not allow obscenities on the field." He did not elaborate.

In the end a compromise of sorts was reached.