People's Democracy

All India People’s Theatre Activists Meet At Hyderabad

ALL over the country, street theatre has become the voice of the people against oppression and injustice. For many years, toiling people and their fighting organisations have used this medium to give expression to their anger as well articulate their vision of a free and just world. While a lot of street theatre gets done in India, there is hardly any interaction between the groups that do street theatre in different parts of the country. As a result, the groups operate in relative isolation, and are not able to exchange and learn from each other’s experiences to the extent they should.

Realising this enormous gap in the movement, Jana Natya Manch, New Delhi, initiated a process of dialogue with other groups a few years ago. The first All India Meeting of Street Theatre Activists was held in Delhi in 1998. At that first meeting, the representatives from the various groups and organisations who had gathered spent time basically exchanging notes and learning about each other’s work.

The next meeting was held in end of March and early April 2002, again in Delhi. This time, the pogrom in Gujarat cast a long shadow on the proceedings. Most of the time of the meeting was taken up with discussing the events as they were unfolding and thinking of an appropriate secular cultural response to the pogrom. The meeting therefore issued a call to observe a Resist Communal Fascism Week in April with performances, film shows, poetry readings, and other cultural events throughout the country. The idea was to take the truth of Gujarat to the people of the country. The street theatre and other cultural activists from across the country responded massively to the call, and there were more than 15,000 performances across the country in that week.

It was resolved in that meeting to meet again fairly soon, since a number of questions of organisational and political import could not be taken up, since the discussion basically focused on Gujarat. Praja Natya Mandali, Andhra Pradesh, offered to host the meeting in Hyderabad in November, and Jana Natya Manch, Delhi, was again entrusted with the task of coordinating it.

HYDERABAD MEETING  

Accordingly, street theatre and other cultural activists from across the country met in Hyderabad from November 7 to 9, 2002. The meeting was attended by 40 participants who represented 22 groups and organisations from 15 states across the country.

It may be clarified at the outset that this meeting was basically a coming together of various groups and organisations which are engaged in cultural work in various states. It does not represent the coming into being of an all-India organisation or association or federation. Indeed, that was not even on the agenda of the meeting. The meeting represents merely the actualisation of a felt need – the need of cultural activists to share and learn from each other.

The meeting elected a presidium to conduct the proceedings. The members of the presidium were Devi (Praja Natya Mandali, Andhra Pradesh), Rajendra Saiwal (Jana Natya Manch, Rajasthan), Ashish Chatterjee (IPTA, West Bengal) and Moloyashree Hashmi (Jana Natya Manch, Delhi). The meeting was inaugurated by V Srinivasa Rao, editor of Prajasakti daily and Andhra Pradesh state secretariat member of CPI (M). Rao underlined the importance of cultural work in today’s context and pointed out that communalism and globalisation are not mutually opposed processes, but feed into each other. He emphasised that it is the task of cultural activists today to go to the grassroots, since a great social upheaval is underway, and it is for cultural activists to give it voice.

The first two days were taken up by half-hour presentations by each group on the organisational questions faced by their respective groups, and the strategies they use to deal with these questions. This exchange of experiences and ideas gave the participants a wider understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the progressive cultural movement and also helped formulate and concretise future tasks.

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURAL MOVEMENT

The dynamics of the progressive cultural movement in India varies widely in different regions. On the one hand, there are organisations like Praja Natya Mandali (Andhra Pradesh), IPTA, Ganatantrik Lekhak Shilpi Sangh and Bahirang (West Bengal), Progressive Writers’ Association and Purogami Kala Sahitya Samithi (Kerala) and Samudaya (Karantaka), all of which have a strong and effective organisation in their respective states. Then there are organisations like Haryana Vigyan Samiti, Janavadi Sanskritik Morcha in Jharkhand and Bihar (of which Prerna, Patna, is a unit) and IPTA Assam, which are in the process of expanding their work and organisational base. All these are organisations with many units across the state. On the other end of the spectrum are single groups in states like Maharashtra (Disha, Jagar and Paigam in Mumbai, Praja Natya Mandali in Solapur, Jana Natya Manch in Nagpur, etc.), Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh (Jana Natya Manch in Raipur), Rajasthan (Jana Natya Manch, Jaipur) and Delhi (Jana Natya Manch), which are very active in their own areas, but do not yet have state-level networks. In Tamil Nadu, Chennai Kalai Kuzhu has started establishing units in different cities, thereby expanding beyond their base in Chennai. Bhavaikala Vedike in Hospet, Karnataka is also active. Though it was not possible for anyone to attend this meeting from Tripura, a fair amount of work is happening in the state. Some initiative is about to take off in Orissa.

In other words, the map of progressive, secular cultural movement in India is very uneven. In all the southern states, various groups and organisations are very active. So is the case in West Bengal and Tripura. In the northern states, there are many individual groups, but virtually no coordinated movement. What is most telling is that the regions where the most crucial political battles are being fought today are precisely those where the progressive cultural movement is either absent or fragmented – Kashmir, where virtually no open cultural activity is possible with all the violence; Gujarat, where some progressive cultural groups used to exist, but now find working very difficult; and Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal, where progressive cultural work is fragmented and irregular. It was natural, therefore, that the Hyderabad meeting took serious note of this situation and decided to take some concrete steps to try and help build some groups in states where none exist, or help existing groups in some way.

COORDINATING WORK PLANS

On the last day of the meeting, therefore, the participants broke up into five groups to coordinate work plans. Each group represented a broad region of 3-4 states and nominated a 3-member working group to facilitate the entire work process for smoother and effective implementation. In order to decentralise and democratise the functioning, these regional working groups would function for the coming six months till the next meeting is held. The idea behind forming these regional working groups is to try and facilitate the coming together of various groups and organisations in these states for specific programmes or events. In some cases, these regional working groups will also try and initiate some workshops and seminars in areas where very little work is being done. The idea is to also try and identify more groups at the local level. All these groups may or may not be left-wing. But the concern of the meeting was clearly to try and expand beyond the left fold to attract other secular and progressive groups as well.

Thus, for instance, one of the regional working groups which includes Jana Natya Manch (Delhi) and the Janavadi Sanskrtik Morchas of Bihar and Jharkhand have decided to hold seminars and workshops in Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal. As part of these activities, an effort will be made to identify groups and individuals who are already doing some work, as well as young people, students, etc., who may be interested in starting fresh work. A similar effort would be made in Bihar and Jharkhand as well.

For the moment, Jana Natya Manch, Delhi, has been entrusted with the responsibility of coordinating activities at the all-India level and to become the nodal point for various groups for the next six months.

LECTURES BY LEADING INTELLECTUALS 

The meeting was addressed by P Govinda Pillai, cultural activist and intellectual, who spoke on globalisation and culture. Pillai spoke in his inimitable style, full of erudition and insight. His presentation was so rich that it would be practically impossible to give a gist of it in a few sentences. In essence, Pillai investigated the various cultural forms of expression and the impact of globalisation on them. In this, he emphasised the strength of live performance, especially street theatre. The lecture stretched into an informal discussion that lasted well beyond the time the presidium had allocated to it. Pillai spoke to an enthralled audience at great length about questions of culture, people’s culture, the role of the oppressed communities in creating people’s culture, the question of so called ‘high’ culture, and so on.

The meeting was also addressed by leading Marxist intellectual Javeed Alam. Alam spoke at length about communalism and the strategies of the sangh parivar. Amongst the points he made forcefully was that the sangh parivar is engaged in a process of refashioning the entire body politic of India, and this runs completely counter to the entire tradition of the freedom struggle, premised as it was on secularism. It is not a coincidence, therefore, that the sangh parivar finds itself coming into conflict with virtually every constitutional body in India – the National Human Rights Commission, the Election Commission of India, the Minorities Commission, large sections of the judiciary and the Supreme Court, etc. Alam also analysed at some length the turbulence that is being witnessed amongst the lower caste groupings in India today.

The participants in the meeting represented not just street theatre activists, but artists working in other forms as well. Thus, the meeting decided to rechristen itself as the All India Meeting of People’s Theatre Activists. The next meeting is scheduled to take place in Guwahati, Assam, in June 2003. This meeting, apart from taking stock of the work done thus far, will also focus on questions of aesthetics and politics, especially in relation to the act of creating cultural and art pieces.

The meeting gave a call to observe the 10th anniversary of the destruction of the Babri Masjid with performances and other actions amongst the people on a massive scale, reminding them that 6 December represents one of the darkest hours in Indian history. The meeting also called upon people’s theatre activists across the country to observe National Street Theatre Day on April 12, 2003 with as many joint programmes between groups from various states as possible. The meeting also felt that people’s theatre activists should participate in the Asia Social Forum being held in Hyderabad from January 2 to 7, 2003.