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Margin takes Centre Stage: An Aspect of Indian Theatre

Subhendu Sarkar

Protest has always been an important aspect of modern Indian theatre, both before and after
1947. It has lent voice to the victims of the socio-political system that thrives on exploitation.
The initiation of legislative and administrative measures by the British had forced the stage to
chart an oblique anti-imperialist course but things changed significantly in the postcolonial era.
In fact, it was particularly in the 1970s that the Indian theatre entered an unprecedented radical
phase with the emergence of an alternative idiom. Limitations of the proscenium theatre were
never so glaring: its dependence on the money-economy and the middle-class audiences for its
survival seemed inadequate to represent the subaltern as well as spread the revolutionary
message among the masses. A search for an alternative form resulted in a synthesis of not only
western and eastern traditions but also ancient and modern practices. Alternative theatre thus
became free from many constraints that had tied down its proscenium avatar. Various theatre
practitioners managed to evolve their own brands in commensurate with their socio-political
concerns and objectives. What follows therefore is an illustration of three different methods of
radicalizing the theatrical space which exemplify the diversity of the alternative theatre
movement in India. For this purpose I refer to a play each by Badal Sircar, Heisnam Kanhailal
and Safdar Hashmi.

Severing all connections with the conventional stage in 1971, Badal Sircar (1925-2011) evolved
an alternative theatrical idiom (Third Theatre) which still manages to survive. Seeing the
proscenium theatre as a commodity where actors and spectators enter into a seller and buyer
relationship, he thought revolutionary ideas mismatch with it, particularly in the context of a
poor country like India. He conceived a theatre (a synthesis of the indigenous and the western
theatre) that would be portable, flexible and inexpensive and remain dedicated to raise the
consciousness of the people as regards the injustices of the society they are victims of. He was
inspired by the Avant Garde theatre practitioners of the West as well as the folk theatre of
Bengal.
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Badal Sircar’s Third Theatre plays are often complex as they take into account, at the
same time, many problems. With a form that allows tremendous freedom his actors often change
roles and situations to cover a wide range of issues. In fact, Sircar appears, according to Lenin, as
a ‘propagandist’ who takes an epic approach in his plays.

Many of Sircar’s non-proscenium plays are characterized by a keen awareness of the

rampant exploitation of rural Bengal (or India) and a blatant ignorance about it among the city-
bred people who prefer to live an insulated life. However, in most cases, an exasperated
protagonist (often the mouthpiece of the playwright), having an urban middle-class background,
exhibits a larger vision who exploring the conditions in villages as well in the cities to convey
the realities of the profit-driven capitalist society. However, Sircar does not promote the cause of
any established political party. In fact, he works in a much wider area where his plays are
directed in bringing about a radical change in the mind-set of the people. Sircar has propagated
Marxist ideas without ever being an ideologue of an established political party.

Bhoma (1975) too presents the picture of a ruptured world where there is an indifference
of the middle-class people about the realities around.

ONE (getting up). In front of the Enquiry office at Sealdah station, an old man has died.
TWO (getting up). Behind the Book Stall at Sealdah station, a child is born.
Everybody gets up.
FOUR. Beyond Sealdah, take the V.I.P. Road. To Dum Dum Airport ― See India!
THREE in the middle, the others move around him in a circle.
FIVE. Darjeeling in summer, Kashmir in autumn, Gopalpur on Sea in winter.
FOUR. Season flowers in spring.Don’t forget your vaccination.
FIVE. Drink boiled water only, or drink only Coca Cola.
TWO, FOUR, FIVE, SIX. See India! See India! See India!

Though Bhoma primarily revolves round a landless tribal labourer who once cleared
forests of the Sunderbans for human settlement it, however, incorporates a whole lot of other
issues. Therefore, themes like the indifference of the middle-class urban dwellers towards the
economic exploitation of peasants, influx of hungry peasants in the cities, consumerism,
machinations of the capitalists and the ill-effects of nuclear tests crisscross the entire play. In
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fact, gradually it becomes evident that Bhoma, though an individual, becomes a representative of
all the exploited people, living in both cities and villages.

The play, however, is far from being a mere reportage of the status quo ante. In fact, towards the
end Sircar urges Bhoma (actually the have-nots) to revolt.

ONE. This earth belongs to everybody, all of us, doesn’t it, Bhoma? You wielded your
axe, killed tigers, got mauled by the tiger, so that you could dig some rice out from the
niggardly fist of this earth. Didn’t you, Bhoma? This earth . . . .
TWO, THREE, FOUR, SIX. This earth . . . .
ONE. Yes, Yes, this earth. This earth belongs to ALL of us, doesn’t it Bhoma? If we
ALL of us, could work our hardest to make everything we need and ALL of us shared all
we produced, then that queer picture that lets us buy up your blood to drink, the picture
that you don’t have and therefore can’t get your rice― if we could destroy for ever that
queer, obscene picture― I can’t explain I, Bhoma! I can only understand― if you don’t
rise up with your axe, then the forest of poisonous trees will never be cleared!

Bhoma was first performed in the open at Rangabelia village in the Sunderbans on 21
March 1976. It was there that Badal Sircar first heard about Bhoma from Tushar Kanjilal, the
headmaster of Rangabelia Village School. Since then the play has been performed hundreds of
times not “aiming to entertain the well-dressed front row audiences in a lush theatre” but
inspiring the common people (who remain outside the ambit of proscenium theatre) in cities and
villages to dream and strive for a radically different society.

Heisnam Kanhailal (b. 1941)’s theatre manifests yet another aspect of radical modern Indian
theatre. Rooted in the cultural traditions of Manipur, he has shared the distrust of the Manipuris
towards the political centre. The cultural domination of the Brahmanical tradition since the
Vaishnavite movement in the eighteenth century made every effort to obliterate the ethnic
identity of the people of Manipur. The situation worsened when political domination became
rampant in the wake of Independence.
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Inspired by Badal Sircar in the early 1970s, Kanhailal created a theatre that suited him
most. In an effort to establish his Meitei identity Kanhailal at last found a theatrical idiom that
corresponded with the simple way of life of his community. Characterized with a dream-like
lyrical quality his plays have done away with the verbal tradition together with many other so-
called essential components of theatre. His actors bring alive his plays primarily through the
stylized movements of their bodies. Besides, there is a creative use of sound uttered from
different resonators of the body. Kanhailal has succeeded to create a form of theatre that
becomes at one with the struggle of the common people of Manipur and at odds with the
dominant mainstream theatrical discourse.

Exploiting a traditional folk tale widely known to the indigenous people of Manipur,
Kanhailal comments on the political and cultural domination of the privileged in Pebet (1975).
Pebet, a bird even smaller than a sparrow, in its struggle to protect its offspring from a predatory
Cat becomes an apt symbol of the little people’s struggle to survive the onslaught of the Centre.
The play charts the mother-bird’s various efforts, ranging from flattery to resistance and trickery,
to free her captive children.

In spite of borrowing heavily from the oral tradition of the story, Kanhailal in Pebet has
inserted his political statement, particularly in the section where the Cat set one young bird
against another. A Vaishnavite priest in appearance, the Cat indoctrinates the Pebet children with
a Sanskrit sloka, janani janmabhumiccha swargadapi gariyasi (one's mother and motherland are
dearer to him/her than heaven). Uttering these words the children go on to stone their mother.
Language here becomes a symbol of repression. In fact, the Cat exhibits all the qualities of a
colonizer who thrives by dividing and ruling his subjects.

But Pebet is also a play of resistance. There is a turn of events when one of the Pebet
children instead of licking bites the Cat’s arse.

While she sings, the other sister licks the Cat’s arse and lies on the floor. Now only the
middle brother continues to move in a slow circle around the Cat. With a dream-like
movement, half-hesitant, hal-resolute, he moves with his head up, one hand sticking out
almost half-consciously.
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As Mother Pebet breaks out of the dirge to sing her old song
ha pebet te … tu
ha pebet te . . . tu
the big brother forces his sibling to kiss the Cat’s arse. But the brother bites it instead,
clinging on to the Cat’s leg.

Eventually the rebel is tortured by his big brother who pierces him with thorn-plant. Mother
Pebet, on the contrary, finds trickery a better strategy than violence. When asked what would be
the best way to eat her youngest child, Mother replies to the Cat:

O Cat, O Cat
Let me address you as Cat, O Monk!
If you desire to eat my child
Bathe him well in water
Dry him in the sun
Place him on your open palm
Throw him up and down
Up and down again
Then you will eat well, O Cat!

While she sings, the Cat mimes the action with broad and foolish gestures. He even
attempts to bounce young Pebet in The palm of his hands. Squawking in delight, the
young Pebet leaps in the air and flies away after shitting on the Cat’s hands.

Finally the children reunite with their Mother and the oppressor has to leave in dejection.

The structure of Pebet, however, has undergone change over the years. The Meitei-
Vaishnavite conflict was overt when the play was first performed in February 1975 as part of a
Jatra festival in Imphal. There were seven Pebet children representing the seven Meitei clans
wearing turbans different colours and two Cats symbolizing oppressors. But the play went
through a restructuring in the 1980s after Kanhailal felt the need to transcend the immediate
context of the play. Today Pebet is not only an allegory of coercion and indoctrination anywhere
in the world but also an inspirational model of resistance.
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Since 1978 Safdar Hashmi (1954-89) and his group Jana Natya Manch (Janam, formed in 1973)
has produced one street play after another. He had by the mid-1970s realized that it was the best
possible means of reaching to the masses. Modelling his plays on the tradition of leftist
agitational theatre he worked with a simple form using minimal or no props, costume and make-
up. Hashmi’s street theatre not only revived the experimentations made in West Bengal decades
ago under the aegis of the CPI but also made a living contact with the audiences, particularly in
the industrial areas near Delhi. He saw his theatre as something complementary to the work that
his Party (CPIM) and its various organizations were engaged in. Indeed Hashmi had covered a
wide array of issues in his street plays and his radical stance had often been the source of
discomfort for the powers that be. He had been thoroughly uncompromising in his commitment
and had to lose his life for the sake of theatre. On 1 January 1989 while performing Halla Bol
(Attack!) during the Ghaziabad municipal elections in Sahibabad's Jhandapur village near Delhi,
the members of Janam were attacked by political hoodlums of the Indian National
Congress. Hashmi was brutally injured and died the following day. Two days after his demise
the troupe returned to the same spot and completed the play.

Safdar Hashmi’s Aurat (‘Woman’, 1979) is one of Jana Natya Manch’s most successful
street-plays. Created during the Conference of Women Workers of North India, the play has so
far been performed more than three thousand times and translated into many regional languages.
Committed to use theatre as a socio-political weapon, Hashmi begins his play with a poem by the
Iranian revolutionary, Marzieh Ahmadi Oskooli, who was shot dead in 1973 by Iran’s imperial
forces.

Hashmi’s play brings into its purview not one but many individuals who toil throughout
their lives, both in villages and towns. To help the cause of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist), the playwright offers a holistic view of the working class movement. Hence, his play
refers to both women peasants and workers.

ACTRESS: I’m from the distant villages of the north . . .

ACTOR 2: A woman, who from the beginning,

Has worked to the limits of her power
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In the paddy fields and tea gardens.

…
ACTRESS: I’m a woman

ACTOR 4: A worker whose hands turn

The great machinery of the factory
Which each day tear to bits my strength
In the treads of the wheels
In front of my eyes
A woman from whose life’s blood
The carcass of the blood-sucker bloats
And from the loss of whose blood
The profit of the capitalist increases.

The female actor in Aurat takes up three different roles in the three episodes that the play
comprises. The first story is that of Munni, a girlchild who is denied school-education by her
father because he has a whole lot of problems to cope with.

FATHER: Go and hang yourself! Didn’t your mother die that way too? I have a son. Will
try to bring him up in some way. Where from will I get it for you? There hasn’t been a
single penny rise in my salary in the last five years. Whenever there’s a demand for a rise
in salary the owner threatens to close down the factory . . . and you hanker after books
and toys. Phew! Go and wash utensils. She dares to go to school. The bitch!

However, with the subsequent closure of the factory the Father realizes the significance of the
Workers’ Union.

The story goes on to trace Munni’s life after she is married off into another impoverished
working-class family. Engaged in domestic chores from dawn to dusk, she gives birth to equally
ill-fated children who have a drunkard and wife-beater as their father. But the HUSBAND too is
a helpless victim of the capitalist economy who has only a wife to vent his frustration on.

The theme of the subjugation of women persists in the next two episodes as well. The
woman actor changes roles to bring alive the troubles that women of the lower strata of the
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society face. The second episode reports the difficulties a college student of a lower-class family
encounters to enter an institution of higher learning and later to secure a job. Eventually she ends
up spending four days behind bars for joining a procession of unemployed youths. It only adds to
her worries. Education is not enough to bring about liberation.

The brief final episode narrates the vulnerable condition of the OLD WOMAN worker
who is fired by the factory owner. Heedless of other workers’ advice she continues to plead with
the employer but her efforts bear no fruit. At the end she too realizes like the FATHER of the
first episode that without a united movement the condition of the working class will not improve.

Though conspicuously agitational in nature with a purpose to complement the work of a

political party Aurat does manifest certain features which make Hashmi more than a mere
partisan playwright. There is an attempt to take an overall view of the situation and point towards
the general oppressive socio-economic conditions. Lives of women (and men) will change only
when there is a radical alteration in the political set-up.

Badal Sircar, Heisnam Kanhailal and Safdar Hashmi may not have had the same political
outlook, even their theatrical conceptions may not have always matched but still their works
share something common. In fact, they represent one very vital aspect of modern Indian theatre:
to bring to the centre the plight of the subaltern. For them theatre is a weapon to be used in a
political battle waged not merely to conscientize the audiences and make them aware of their
revolutionary potentialities but in fact prompt them to take an active part in changing the world.

Works cited

Bharucha, Rustom. “Politics of Indigenous Theatre: Kanhailal in Manipur”. Economic and

Political Weekly. Vol. 26, No. 11/12, Annual Number (Mar., 1991).
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4397431
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Erven, Eugène van. “Plays, Applause, and Bullets: Safdar Hashmi's Street Theatre”. TDR. Vol.
33, No. 4 (Winter, 1989). http://www.jstor.org/stable/1145964

Choudhury, Shyamalendu. Safdar ‘Mrityunjay’ Hashmi (in Bangla). Calcutta: Nadiya Book
House, 1989

Hashmi, Safdar. Safdar Hashmi Natyasangraha (in Bangla). Calcutta: Paschimbanga Natya
Academy, 1998

Kanhailal, Heisnam. The Theatre of Kanhailal: Pebet and Memoirs of Africa. Trans. Rustom
Bharucha. Calcutta: Seagull, 1998

Sircar, Badal. Three Plays. Calcutta: Seagull, 1985

---. The Third Theatre. Calcutta: Badal Sircar, 1978

Seagull Theatre Quaterly. Issue 16. December 1997