CONTEXT AND DIEXIS OF POLITICAL THEATRE IN INDIA

Nirban Manna. Research Scholar. Dept. Of English.

Banaras Hindu University.E-mail: nirbanm@gmail.com.

The distinction between theatre and drama is troublesome,

but the complex dynamics of the respective roles lies in the

difference itself. While drama is the fictional script designed for

stage representation, theatre is the phenomenon of the

representation of the dramatic script. Theatre is never a solitary act.

It takes the audience into its conversation. It’s the most powerful

apparatus to influence the mass opinion. It is the most political of

all art forms. The political connotation of drama is linear but in

theatre it’s kaleidoscopic and dynamic. Traditionalists love to keep

politics confined to study of state, government, political

organization but modernists inflate it to the extent of power

mechanism, power sharing, challenging establishment; and

therefore theatre is the easiest tool of empowering common people

with contemporary socio economic knowledge. The political act

of theatre depends as much on the text or performance of the text

as on the socio political structure of society during the

performance. Macbeth in the Elizabethan epoch had specific

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political denotation in relation to English – Scottish political

tension, but the production of Macbeth by Little Theatre Group

(Utpal Dutta’s group) bears an anti fascist signification in the post

independence Congress era. In the country like India with such a

complex social structure and changing political status, theatre

plays a crucial role to reach, to influence and to form political

consciousness of the mass. The origin of Indian dramaturgy is

political in its very core. The intension of making of ‘Natyasastra’

was to protect the hierarchical status quo and revolution from the

marginals. When the celestial theatre performance came under the

attack of demons, Brahma called Bharata to write a Natyaveda to

pacify the rebel of demons. Actually the celestial power made the

fifth Veda to access for both the higher and the lower classes,

while other four Vedas had restrictions for the lower class.

Anticipating jeopardy, the fifth Veda was a kind of ideological

state apparatus to maintain the celestial hegemony. It’s a kind of

toy given to the Sudras which had its remote in the hand of the

higher class. This supremacy of the higher class is evident in the

Sanskrit dramas. Only two plays talk about the issue of making an

alternative government. One is Vishakhadatta’s Mudrarakshas

(The Minister’s Seal) where Chanakya conspires to overthrow

Nanda dynast. Shudraka’s Mricchakatikam (The Little Clay Cart)

was more political than Mudrarakshas. The main plot revolves

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around the love of Charudatta, a poor Brahmin tradesman with a

rich, beautiful Vasantasena. Vasantasena is a public woman, and

the love affair of a public woman with a poor Brahmin challenged

a social stigma of the class consciousness of the time. The subplot

directly addresses the political reality of the time; it centers on the

political revolution resulting the removal of the tyrant king Palaka

and the coronation of Aryaka as the people’s man. The play also

shows sentiments of party brotherhood. When Aryaka is arrested

and barred, one of his comrades, Sharvilaka comes into the action

in charge of the revolutionary party and arranges his rescue. The

Brahmin Sutradhar frequently shifts to Prakit in the play to

emphasize the compassion of the Sudras.

The most interesting phase in which theatre has served as

political weapon began in the middle of the nineteenth century

when there was a wave of patriotic sentiments and nationalistic

movement against the British imperialism. The first significant

drama about political protest against the oppression and extortion

of the Raj was Dinabandhu Mitra’s Nildarpan (Mirror of the

Indigo Planters), published anonymously in 1861. The play is

drawn from the political incident of 1855 when the Bengali indigo

planters were brutally murdered when they refused to sow the

indigo seed. The main plot concerns about the family tragedy of

Golak Basu and the malevolent British indigo supervisor Mr.

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Wood and Mr. Rouge. The fate of the Basu family is the

microcosmic representation of the exploitation of the British

colonial government in general. Mitra also vandalizes the ‘Dadan’

(paying money in advance) to expose the cunning mechanism of

British business. The play circulated the spirit of revolutionary

activism showing Nabin’s courage and sacrifice. The play had such

a public impact that in one of the production in Kanpur some

Indian farmers in the playhouse assailed some Sahibs. When the

play was published in English by an altruistic missionary, James

Long, it created hullabaloo in the govt. circle and at last Mr. Long

faced imprisonment. After the first production of the play in

Decca, the newly born National Theatre of Calcutta in 1875

inaugurated its production with Nildarpan. Though the production

was set to launch commercial venture of professional theatre, the

choice suggested mare than that. The popularity of Nildarpan and

the subsequent effects compelled the Colonian British Raj to

impose Dramatic Performance Act No. XIX to avoid further

challenges. Mr. Hobbhouse accepted the inflammatory nature of

theatre. He said “Now it has been found in all times and in all

countries that no greater stimulus could supplied to excite the

passion of mankind than that supplied by means of drama”

(Dasgupta: 1938: 225p). The censorship made a little impact on the

political nature of the nationalistic dramas; it veers towards the

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allegorical political plays. Then the playwrights used historical

figures and mythical tale as tool of protest. One of the examples of

the type is Probhakar Khadilkar’s Keechakbadha (The Killing of

Keechaka, 1906). This Marathi play is based on the Virata Parva

of the Mahabharata. This well known story pictures Draupadi

coming under the libidinous desire of Keechaka, the brother in law

of the king, Virata. Perusing his lecherous desire, keechaka steals

into Draupadi’s room in the dead of the night only to find Bhima

who unhesitatingly pulverizes Keechaka, thus Bhima defends the

honour of Draupadi. The audience easily recognizes in Bhima the

reflection of the Marathi patriot, Lokmanya Tilak. And Keechaka

symbolically represents Lord Curzon. Realizing the symbolical

significance too, the British government banned the play.

Historical events glorifying India’s past also reinforced the idea of

nationalism and patriotism. Girish Ghosh’s Sirajuddaulla,

Mirkasim and Chattrapati Shivaji are the historical allegories that

were banned under the Dramatic Performance Act. In Assam the

struggle of Ahom Kind with the Burmese invaders was dramatized.

In south India, the historical figures like Eceham Nayaka, Tipu

Sultan, Kittur Channanna provided the subject for the anti

imperialistic resistance. Every region found its own hero to

counter the British Raj. The theme of nationalistic and patriotic

fever continues to dominate the playhouses till our independence.

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In the mean time, diverse political and social philosophies for the

futuristic society began to sprout with inception of the communist

wing in 1922*. Both the congress party and the communist party

began to campaign to make a public impact only to show their

respective potentiality to rule India. The dramatic intelligentsia of

our country turned to ideology to treat social problems. But the

considerable political phenomena like World Wars, great economic

depression, hydra headed fascism and despotism threatened to

break the intellectual and political equilibrium of the whole world.

Cultural associations like Youth Cultural Institute, Progressive

Writers Association, Kranti Shilpi Sangha assembled together to

oppose the growing fascist nature of power. In 1943 the

communist party held its annual session in Bombay and it was

there that Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) took birth

under the aegis of the communist party of India. It’s assumed that

it was the party command that made Anil d’Silva, the secretary of

the Bangalore unit of IPTA, to initiate a mass movement in the

cultural front. Though Ahmed Abbas, the president, had pointed

out IPTA’s non-political standings, its aim and objectives were

clearly Marxist in essence. At the annual conference in 1945, the

themes of the theatre produced had been described thus:

National unity

Food crisis

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Grow more food

Increase production

Red army’s heroism

Anti fascism

Stop sabotage

People’s unity against police repression

A Kishan Sabha worker’s life

Strike. ( Pradhan : 1985: 159p)

These themes clearly indicated the trends of politicizing the theatre

that was inculcated by IPTA. The most significant plays of pre

independence IPTA early attempts that set the political and

ideological stances of the country were Four Comrades (1943),

Roar China (1943) and Nabanna (The New Harvest, 1944).

Written jointly by the IPTA members, Four Comrades dramatized

an incident in the battle of Singapore that described the story of

four labour agitators – two Chineses, one Malay and an Indian who

upon their release from the jail waged war against the Japanese

invaders. The play with the theme of glorification of the

revolutionary activism openly criticized Gandhi’s strategy of non

violence and Quit India movement. In The prologue of the play

Roar China the political outlook was clearly clarified:

But there is a limit to non- violence and peace When the waves of tyranny and justice rise high The oppressed, the hungry, the poor the workers, the peasants ---- all take arms to resist it.(IPTA: 1943:13p)

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On the other level, when Japanese soldier backed Netaji Subhas

Bose up in his fight with the Britishers, the progressive communist

party saw it as launching the Japanese imperialism in India. In one

of the exchanges of Ratan, the Indian labour, with the Japanese

officials clarifies the communists’ anti-imperialistic stance against

Japan.

The Japanese officer: You are an Indian and we have no quarrel with Indians Ratan: The Japs coming to free India! That would be a good joke. Ha. Ha . Just as you freed Manchuria and Korea and China _____No we Indians are not such fools as to exchange our present bondage for a worse slavery (IPTA: 1943:9-10p)

While the early productions like Roar China and Four Comrades

stated the ideological position of the communist party, Bijan

Bhattacharya’s Nabanna (The New Harvest) dealt with the grim

reality of the post famine Bengali commoners who were denied the

basic necessities of life. Bhattacharya exposed the bourgeoisie

economic vandalism called improvised famine and its heart

rendering consequence of the people who lived hand to mouth. In

Orissa, Kalicharan Pattanyak wrote Bhata (Rice) and Raktamati

(The Red Earth) in the early 40’s. Both the plays deal with political

and social prejudices. Bhata dramatizes the stigma of

untouchability and problem of starvation among the peasants. A

cruel landlord’s only son turns against him and empathizes with

rebellious peasant only to be fatally shot by the father. The peasant

revolution becomes victorious when the grief stricken landlord

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stoops to the peasant’s demands. The rising peasant – landlord

relationship became an issue of the contemporary theatre because

the age old Jamindari system tried to clutch its fading dictatorship

for the last time against the rising political wave of socialism. In

Kerala K. Damodaran’s Pattabakki (The Landlord’s Due) deals

with the corruption and perversion of the landlord who throws his

tenant into jail and compels the tenant’s sister to become his

mistress and ultimately drives her to become a whore. When the

brother is released, she is united with her brother. Obviously the

playwright meant to imply that poverty breeds the social

corruption and an egalitarian society can only be achieved by

longstanding revolution. The independence of Indian, the banning

of the C.P.I. organization in 1948, lack of organizational control

and ideological conflict within the workers resulted split in IPTA.

Though IPTA became paralyzed after its break, still the workers

have been forging with same ideology and vigor that the

organization was founded long ago.

Convinced by the ideas for which the IPTA stood proved

to viable means to reach the common people, in the post

independence era C.P.I continues the exploit the potential of

theatre as a vehicle of propaganda. In 1952, the Kerala People’s

Art Club of Trivandapuram banged with Ningalenne

Communistakki (You Made me a Communist) which was

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performed more than 600 times and is thought to have helped to

make government in 1957. The Congress party also retaliated with

Kesav Dev’s Jnanippo Communist A Vum ( I will not Become a

Communist ) .in the same time D.M.K. party seek to woe its

voters with the production Neethe Tnanon Mayakkam ( The

Seduction of The Just King ) of its own leader Annadurai. In

Maharashtra, the congress party in 1971 election campaign used

Kalapathar (The Back stone) in the traditional Tamasha form.

Taking the inspiration from the successful experimentations

of IPTA , the playwright and directors like Utpal Dutta( The Little

Theatre Group and People’s Little Theatre group) , Manoj Mitra

(Theatre Workshop) ;Ahmed Abbas and Balraj Sahani (IPTA’s

Mumbai Unit) used professional proscenium theatre to preach

people with the socio-political ideologies and knowledge.

Sometimes non-commercial theatre groups like Prithvi Theatre

Group (Prithviraj Kapoor), Shatabdi (Badal Sircar) and Janam

(Sadaf Hashmi and his associates) hit the streets with the

politically conscious plays.

Utpal Dutt, a staunch communist theatre personality, has

devoted his theatre activism on Lenin and Stalin’s ideologies. Most

of his plays are agitprops that follow the hardcore party line. He

believed that theatre could initiate revolution among the mass. He

wrote Angar( The Burning Coal,1959), Kallol ( The Sound of The

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Waves,1965),Ajeya Vietnam (Invincible Vietnam,19) Special train

( 1962 ) and Teer ( Arrow ,1971) and many more for Little theatre

Group ; and for People’s Little Theatre wrote Surja Sikar

( Haunting the Sun, 19 ), Tiner Talowar( Tin Sword , ) Titumir

(1978) Duswapner Nagari ( the City of Nightmare) etc. Angar

shows that the bourgeoisie coal gangsters did not even hesitate to

murder their own labours and to cash out of the murders. Dutt used

slogans, strikes, and party banner on the stage. The Special Train

was another agitprop written on the occasion of the ongoing strike

at Hindustan Automobile Factory in Uttarpara, Calcutta. In the

play Dutt exposed the alliance of the Birla Group with the congress

party. One of the much talked about play Kallol deals with the

conspiracy of the British government in India with the congress

party in Bombay Naval Mutiny in 1946. The play not only exposed

the facts but also questioned the history. The hero Sardul Singh is

the epitome of the colonial and post colonial resistance of the

fascist despotism. Dutt was arrested and imprisoned during the

productions of the play. His Teer was the dramatization of the

uprising of the Naxalbari movement, the armed revolution against

the congress dictatorship during 60’s and 70’s. Teer focused on

the grievous incident in one of the villages in north Bengal where

ten innocent women are ruthlessly killed by police. Later on with

the folk form Jatra, Dutt tries to start a revolution through theatre.

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As Utpal Dutta followed the hard line party – cadetship -

doctrine in his plays within the limits of the commercialism, the

group Janam (Jana Natya Mancha) performed their street plays

under the banner of C.P.I. (M). Their plays are used for election

campaigns and most of the plays make direct political statement on

price rise, elections, communalism, economic policy,

unemployment, trade union rights, globalization, women's rights,

education system, and the political leaders, etc. The group

became matured under Sadaf Hashmi. Janam’s first election play

Aye Chunaw (Here comes Election) was produced for the 1980

Parliamentary Election, held in the backdrop of the first non

congress government. In 1989‘s general election Janam

Campaigned for the C.P.I (M) candidate from Kanpur with Hai Lal

Hamara Parcham (Our Flag is Red). And for the first time in the

history of Indian political theatre, Janam made voters as characters.

*In the 2004 general election with Lo Utha Raha Phir Hai Jhanda

Lal (Here Red Flag rises again). In the play the B.J.P led N.D.A.

was severely criticized with the portrayal of the High-Tech Sadhu.

The theatre in the hand of Janam becomes more a mudslinging

machine than people’s weapon. Janam has handed over theatre

from common people to the selected political leaders. Though it

followed the hard core party line, the productions of Dutta

maintained the essence of theatre as a whole. Apart from Janam,

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no theatre group in India has dared to go beyond the limit of the art

of theatre. The theatre units like Shatabdi, Chetana, Bahurupee are

political, but from a certain distance.

The tradition of political theatre in Bengal was carried on

by several group theatre activists. The plays like Rajrakta (the

Royal Blood) of Mohit Chatterjee and Chak-bhanga Madhu (Fresh

Honey from Hive,) of manoj Mitra of the Theatre Workshop were

the examples of urban political theatre. In Rajrakta, Mohit

Chaterjee brilliantly draws the nature of autocratic power , when

we saw Rajababu assumed various authoritative roles to allure his

people and thus tightening his hegemonic and panoptic grip over

the commoners. Apart from theatre workshop, we find many

professional group of commercial theatre propagating the ideology

of Marxism in particular and humanism in general. The groups like

Gandharva and Chetana openly declare their objectives to produce

‘right drama’ from the Marxist point of view.

The contribution of the theatre activist Badal Sircar in the field

of the raising political and humanistic consciousness among the

urban people was as important as the propagation of the

revolutionary theatre by Utpal Dutta among the rural people. These

two held two faces of political theatre in India. One is

commercially ‘rich professional theatre’ and other ‘poor theatre’.

His practice of the third theatre is the essence of the Marxist

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political theorem. Denying the ‘rich proscenium theatre’, he moved

to the streets, parks and pavements of Calcutta with his plays like

Bhoma (1975), Michil (Procession, 1974) and Basi Khabar (Stale

News, 1978). The plays empower the common people rather than

empowering any party ideology. Sircar’s plays do not comment on

the ideology but they comment on the existence of humankind in

the age of political exploitation. The essence of these plays is not

in the theme, but in the content and message that the plays carry.

Though Michil is a random juxtaposition of the slices a modern

life, it cleverly infixes the theme of drudgery, political and

intellectual purposelessness of the modern people to combat

hegemony. The theme of searching for path leading to our spiritual

freedom from the narrow cognizance fits to the Marxist –

Humanistic matrix. The Plays like Bhoma, Sukhpathya Bharater

Itihas (Indian History Made Easy, 1976) and Basi Khabar made

people aware of the nature of economic and social exploitation of

the rural people in the hand of the bourgeoisie.

From the age of Sanskrit plays to the 21st century, as the

mode of exploitation has changed but the content remained the

same, so also theatre prowess has changed in accordance with the

political and public tastes. Not only the political theatre

harmonizes the political and public sense but also it sets a new

trend of criticism and creation. But in now a days the rampaging of

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the television, satellite, multiplex cinema culture creep so much

into the modern life that theatre are losing its critical value ; and

theatre should act politically and potentially to resist this dreadful

mechanistic future.

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WORKS CITED: ____________________________________________

Banerjee, Biswanath (1999) Makers of Indian Literature: Sudraka (New

Delhi: Sahitya Akademy).

Bhatia, N (2004) Acts of Authority/ Acts of Resistance: Theatre and

Politics in the Colonial and Postcolonial India (New Delhi: OUP).

Bharucha, Rustam (1983) Rehearsal of Revolution :The Political Theatre of

Bengal (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press).

Dasgupta, H N (1938) The Indian Stage, vol- 2 ( Calcutta : Metropolitan

Printing and Publishing House) .

Deshpandey , S. ed (2007) Theatre of the Street : The Jana Natya

Mancha Experience (New Delhi: Janam).

Dharwardker, A B (2006) Theatre of Independence: Drama Theory and

Performance in India since 1947 (New Delhi: OUP).

IPTA (1943) Roar China and Four Comrades (Bombay: National

Dramatics for Defence ).

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Mukhopadhyay, K ( 1999 ) Theatre and Politic : A Study Of

Group Theatre movement of Bengal ( 1948 – 1987 ) (

Calcutta : Bibhasa ).

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