Acts of A

Acts of Resistance,

The

in Colonial

d India

anc

Nai

The University of Michigan Press

Ann Arbor
Contents

1. Introduction: The Theoretical-Historical Context 1

2. Censorship and the Politics of Nationalist Drama 19

3. Multiple Mediations of "Shakespeare" 51

4. Performance and Protest in the Indian People's

Theatre Association 76

5. Colonial History and Postcolonial Interventions:

Staging the 1857 Mutiny as "The Great Rebellion"

in Utpal Dutt's Mahavidroha 95

Epilogue: Bringing Women's Struggles to the

Streets in Postcolonial India 111

Appendix: A Bill to Empower the Government to

Prohibit Certain Dramatic Performances 121

Notes 125

Bibliography 169

Index 189
Introduction

The Theoretical-Historical Context

Postcoloniality and the Question of Genre

[T]here is the special consideration.., directed not at all against any

mere publications of whatever sort, but against representations on the

stage. Such dramatic acting conveys ideas in a manner quite different

from that of any other sort of publication, and among other things has

a much more vivid effect. It, therefore, by no means follows that the

law regarding publication would suffice for the stage. In short, dra-

matic representation does require a law peculiar to itself.'

These remarks by the lieutenant-governor of Bengal regarding the regula-

tion of drama in India are indicative of at least two trends. First, they reveal

that imperial authorities in India perceived theater and drama as potentially

threatening modes of anticolonial expression. And second, they indicate

that the fears of the authorities were not unfounded; that by 1876, the year

of the passage of the Dramatic Performances Censorship Act, and not too

long after the mutiny of 1857, the official transfer of power from the English

East India Company to the Crown in 1858, and the indigo revolt in

1859-60, theater in India had indeed become an expression of political

struggle against colonial rule and a space for staging scathing critiques of

the oppression and atrocities inflicted upon colonial subjects by rulers on

the indigo plantations and tea estates. Based on stories about the lived expe-

riences of laborers in the tea and indigo plantations, eyewitness accounts by

playwrights such as Dinabandhu Mitra, and newspaper reports, dramatic

representations disseminated stories of colonial excesses to large and varied

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

audiences, in order to raise awareness of existing social evils, forge commu-

nity bonds, and mobilize collective action.

While the political content of the plays was the reason for the growing

panic among the rulers, the performative aspects of such cultural produc-

tions further aggravated existing tensions. British authorities feared that

drama's interactive relationship with its viewers could generate an immedi-

ate response, such as that witnessed in 1875 during a performance (in Luck-

now) of Nil Darpan (The Indigo Mirror), a play exposing the oppression of

indigo planters.2 At the moment when an Indian character attacked the

actor playing the British planter who assaulted an Indian actress playing the

part of the wife of an indigo laborer, some European spectators rose from

their seats and moved toward the stage to stop the performance. Thus the

play was disrupted, and to prevent a riot, both the audience and the actors

had to be escorted out under police protection.3 While the staged act

demanded recognition of colonial abuse, the reaction of the European spec-

tators represented their anxieties regarding the ability of theater to incite

audiences. Such anxieties also derived from the knowledge that theater con-

stituted a significant part of public entertainment and religious festivity in

its various manifestations including popular and regional folk theaters such

as the nautanki, jatra, tamasha, and burrakatha, and religious-mythological

drama such as the ramlila.4 Additionally, the formation of numerous theater

companies by 1876 that traveled to various parts of the subcontinent and,

through a complex mixture of imagery, stage design, and dialogue,

launched attacks on colonial policies and practices, further sharpened con-

cerns about the genre. As such, they established for the authorities that in

reproducing and acting out dramas of colonial exploitation and domination,

theater had become an invigorating arena for anticolonial cultural resis-

tance.

Such theatrical campaigns make the question of drama's role in liberation

struggles in colonial societies generally, and in India in particular, especially

distinctive. For as part of the cultural institutions that play a significant role

in mobilizing the populace toward political activism, theater in colonial and

postcolonial India has consistently participated in providing possibilities for

resistance to and reassessment of ruling ideologies through multiple meth-

ods of engagement ranging from mythology, folk forms, reenactment of

oppressed histories, revival of historical stories, and hybrid Anglo-European

productions. Historiographers of South Asian history and culture have

pointed out the need to acknowledge the role of the subaltern in anticolo-

nial resistance movements. As early as 1981, Sumit Sarkar proposed that

"[w]ritten literature in a largely illiterate country. . . can be a guide to the

ideas and values only of a minority."5 Despite Sarkar's urgings to examine

oral cultural forms for the purpose of recovering a "history from below,"
Introduction

there have been few systematic attempts to examine the role of theater in

order to identify what Ranajit Guha calls "the element of subaltern protest

... [and] challenge the condescending assumption about the passivity of the

masses."6 While the representational project of theater, through its fictional

dramatization of events, is not identical to the historiographical project of

these historians, who reinscribe into history "authentic" accounts by subal-

terns themselves, scholars and literary critics have repeatedly underscored

the "interpenetration" of historical and fictional writing and argued for the

centrality of cultural texts in intervening in discourses of history.7 As such,

their critical insights have also provided careful directions regarding what

Gayatri Spivak calls the literary critics' responsibility to "wrench" the subal-

tern narratives out of their "proper contexts."8 The project of recuperating

alternative histories through cultural texts also necessitates discussion of

modes of representation of those histories as well as the ideological function

of form, a context in which the representational apparatus of theater

acquires special relevance. Theater's visual focus, emphasis on collective

participation and representation of shared histories, mobility, potential for

public disruption, and spatial maneuverability impart yet another layer to

the cultural investments of colonial and postcolonial texts in framing, orga-

nizing, and presenting alternative stories. It is precisely the attempt to reach

the subaltern populace and solicit its involvement through the efficacy and

force of theater that led Ngugi Wa Thiong'o to organize a "people's theatre"

in Gikuyu.9 The power of performance to capture the public imagination

and sway public opinion, thus, cannot be minimized. After all, even Plato's

Republic works against the power of performance to shape opinion, as

opposed to the written word. And the now burgeoning attention to theater

movements in colonized societies further attests to the key role of theater as

a powerful tool of political engagement.1 To ignore theater, therefore, is to

ignore a large piece of subaltern history. In locating and retrieving experi-

ences and voices of those visibly engaged in dismantling the exercise of

power at national, regional, and local levels, Acts of Authority/Acts of Resis-

tance uncovers forgotten stories of powerful theatrical resistance.

While engaged with Indian materials, this study also addresses important

theoretical questions regarding the method of recovering contentious voices

from the margins of colonial societies, a concern that necessitates discus-

sions of postcoloniality and the question of genre. On one level, the charac-

teristic features of theater prompt this question. Unlike literature that finds

its ultimate expression in print, theater's incompatibility with infinite

mechanical reproducibility, its ephemeral and live aspects, cultural and the-

atrical conventions-such as the folk performances of the jatras, which

could last from several hours to several days-pose the problem of docu-

mentation and recovery. Yet on another level, concern regarding theater

3
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

also arises from the dominant trend in colonial and cultural studies to

repeatedly turn to print commodities and genres such as the novel for a

recovery of dissenting voices. Scholarship exploring the relationship among

nationalism, colonialism, and literature has pointed out an array of cultural

sites ranging from narrative fiction by the colonized to prison memoirs,

songs and poetry, and autobiographies, where marginalized groups pro-

duced challenges to colonial domination. Despite such emphases, for the

most part, critical assessments of literature as representative source material

for retrieving alternative narratives characteristically privilege the authority

of genres such as the novel.11 This reliance on novels as objects of study for

the retrieval of anticolonial voices is the result of a number of issues related

to literary studies, including the institutional location of postcolonial stud-

ies and the publishing industry. Because the novel, as critics have pointed

out,12 became the most important aesthetic form in Europe to emerge in the

late nineteenth century, it is (inappropriately) seen as the appropriate form

and object of study for an analysis of postcolonial literatures. It was the

novel, argues Benedict Anderson, that offered "spectacular possibilities for

the representation of simultaneous actions in homogenous empty time."13

Yet its dominance in Europe does not automatically make it the relevant

form of resistance in colonized societies. The rupture that technological

innovation created in Europe through mechanical reproduction and print

culture cannot be assumed to be the same in all societies.14

In most colonized constituencies, the exigencies of the material realities

of literacy, the heterogeneous contexts of language, and the vitality of cul-

tural life brought forth an outpouring of energy through popular forms and

oral and performative genres. Of these, theater, which constituted a

significant part of the cultural life of the "people," functioned as a com-

pelling form of anticolonial expression when it came into conflict with

authoritarian structures.15 However, as Elleke Boehmer argues, because of

its "recognizability in the west-a recognizability which has been reinforced

by marketing strategies-it is the polyphonous novel above all other post-

colonial genres which has enjoyed success in European and American acad-

emies. In contrast, poetic genres, [and theater] usually more closely tied to

indigenous cultural traditions, are believed not to translate so well."16 An

index of such oversight of "postcolonial literary texts that remain outside

the canons already in formation"17 is the focus of the vast majority of post-

colonial courses on the novel, with theater studies comprising only a frac-

tion. Additionally, critical work in colonial cultures reveals this lacuna. To

date, in the expanding corpus of critical work on postcolonial literatures,

there are only a handful of studies on drama.18

This is not to argue against the relevance and importance of the vast body

of novelistic writing that attests to the importance of the genre for resistance
Introduction

writing and practice. Yet the flip side of this predominant focus on the novel

is that it fosters simplistic claims such as the one made by Kyong-won Lee

in a recent article in Cultural Critique. In this otherwise informative article,

Lee contends that "[w]riting was for the British a means of containment, of

legitimating and naturalizing colonial rule; but simultaneously, writing was

for natives a subversive act, namely, a practice of resistance and emancipa-

tion. And unlettered natives, by contrast, remained silent throughout."19 There

is no disagreement with the first part of the author's statement. The issue of

writing as a subversive activity and a practice of resistance has received con-

siderable attention in postcolonial studies. However, it is the latter part of

the statement that becomes questionable, as it presents a crisis of represen-

tation in unhistoricized systems of reading, writing, and practice that con-

tinue to focus on "written" (equated with "literate") forms to the exclusion

of more popular cultural practices. Feeding on this trend construes the

unavailability of certain modes of resistance in print as "silence," and forces

into obscurity those who did not express themselves through literate forms,

did not possess the means to do so, or preferred oral discourses for reasons

of social and cultural contingency.

Since theater constituted an important part of cultural life in India from

precolonial times-whether performed in enclosed theater houses or on the

street, in the form of puppet theater, folk drama, or mythological drama-

examining theater as a locus of sociopolitical struggles takes on special

significance. While the primacy of theater as a powerful cultural force cre-

ates the need to be attentive to the genre, the material conditions of literacy

make an examination of theater even more relevant. Even as late as 1911,

literacy figures in India were reported as only 1 percent for English and 6

percent for the vernaculars.20 Hence, in the context of India, the argument

regarding the formation of "imagined communities" as a result of print cul-

ture remains limited. For it presupposes both a mass reading public as well

as mass circulation of the printed text, and in so doing fails to consider that

in largely nonliterate cultures (depending upon the language and translata-

bility of texts) printed materials would only reach a small percentage of the

educated elite. This is not to minimize the impact of printing in generating

new ideas and nationalist consciousness. For even in India, printing by the

late nineteenth century had created a new readership and had become an

irritant for the colonial government.21 Yet literacy also restricted the printed

text to those who had access to the languages-for as Aijaz Ahmad points

out, in India, linguistic fragmentation prevents monopoly of any one lan-

guage over another.22 Because English was (and continues to be) the lan-

guage of the elite, the materials printed in English would remain in the

hands of the privileged few. With its wide oral base that offered possibilities

for the production, circulation, and consumption of ideas among a large

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

body of people, theater formulated and sustained communities, both literate

and nonliterate.

While the distinctive features of drama as a tool of resistance inform this

study, the colonial government's attention to theater and its eventual regu-

lation, especially after passage of the Dramatic Performances Censorship

Act of 1876, invite further emphasis on the genre. In the presence of theater

as a powerful cultural force, colonial authorities resorted to keeping regular

checks on drama through the Anglo-Indian press and agents of the state.

This becomes evident as early as 1837 in a report about native drama in the

Asiatic Journal-an organ of the Royal Asiatic Society:

The puns in the [performances] are numerous, the Hindostaanee lan-

guage being particularly adapted for indigenous plays upon words,

double meaning, and droll associations, and to those who have made

any progress in their study of the native dialects, the dramas afford

instruction which it would be difficult to obtain by any other means.23

The article posits that "the natives take great delight in the dramatic enter-

tainments... shewing, though in a covert manner, when Europeans are pre-

sent, the enjoyment produced when these Christian strangers are made the

subject of ridicule."24 Therefore, concludes the article, "The songs, tales,

histories, in fact everything connected with Asiatic amusements and litera-

ture, are, with few exceptions, more or less licentious."25 And such a dis-

course extends to all ranges and varieties of performances. For example, the

same article presents the following about the festival of Kali:

In Calcutta... although very large sums are expended upon the festi-

val in honour of the goddess Kali. . . performers of every denomina-

tion are admitted, Mussalmanee women, as well as the real worship-

pers of the goddess; these people, it may be supposed, must be of a

very low class and very loose morality, since they can thus lend them-

selves to the assistance of idolatrous worship, and they are so consid-

ered by the whole population.26

Not surprisingly, the Asiatic Journal concludes that "there can be little hope

of any striking improvement in the Asiatic character, until the importance

of the influence extended over by Christian countries . . . shall be fully rec-

ognized."27 Clearly, the subtext of such attacks is one that reflects anxiety

on the part of the authorities and asserts their own cultural and moral supe-

riority in order to justify their presence. By the second half of the nineteenth

century, one finds the colonial discourse on drama intensifying. Consider

Introduction

the following statement, issued in 1876 by Mr. Hobhouse, an official in the

colonial government.

Certain it is that we accept conduct and language on the stage if we

read these same things in a book, we should at once reject as false,

absurd and incredible, so powerful is the effect produced by the actual

living representation before our eyes. And in times of excitement, no

surer mode has been found of directing public feeling against an indi-

vidual, a class or a Government than to bring them on stage in an odi-

ous light. It is doubtless for these reasons that the laws of civilized

countries give to their Government great controlling power over the

stage.28

Issued by the Anglo-Indian press and by colonial officials, statements such

as the above acquire immediate relevance. Collectively, they form an archive

that reveals the authorities' fears about drama's ability to influence via meth-

ods that were not easily accessible to them-linguistically, theatrically, or

spatially. Whether or not the dramas about which the Anglo-Indian press

wrote contained seeds of discontentment is difficult to ascertain. Because of

their unavailability in documented form, we are limited by our circum-

scribed information. Yet even if we take the above statements and biases to

be assumptions on the part of colonial authorities, by assuming a particular

kind of function of theater, such reports assign theater an active presence. As

such, these reports provide us with a story about drama. Their interpreta-

tions present the performance in question not simply as a performance, a

political act, or plain entertainment but as an "uncivilized" activity. Those

attending the performance are presented not as mere spectators but rather as

persons of "loose morality" and "low class." And the language of plays is

reported to be full of "double meaning." Instead of an "objective" assess-

ment, these records present opinions, judgments, and biases through adjec-

tives that describe theater as an activity that is "more or less licentious." On

the one hand, these records reveal what Guha calls "the voice of committed

colonialism" preparing its grounds for the "civilizing mission."29 Yet, on the

other hand, they also enumerate elements of a colonial awareness and anxi-

ety that articulates the power of natives and their cultural practices.

Although these statements may not function as definitive proof of drama's

subversive potential, by indicating the need to regulate it, they produce

some knowledge about theater as a potentially subversive cultural medium

of expression. What the above statements bear are the material traces of a

genre, which, by virtue of its political content, mobility, and linguistic and

spatial elusiveness had attracted the attention of the colonial government.

Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

One of the aims of this study, then, is to advance a critical approach for a

rethinking of colonial and cultural studies with particular emphasis on the-

ater as an important cultural terrain for retrieving marginalized voices of

dissent. To this end, absence of direct sources need not be read as "silence."

Rather, the power of theater can also be gleaned from colonial documents,

which reveal imperialism's investment in silencing the Other as a gesture

that speaks of a "legitimate history" of voices that remain unnoticed.

Method and Organization

Together with an analysis of specific plays, this book draws upon historical

documents, governmental policies, acts, official correspondence, and jour-

nalistic accounts in order to reconstruct, from this vast cultural archive, a

historically grounded analysis of the intimate links between theater and

colonial history from the late nineteenth century until the postindependent

years. This is accomplished in four chapters, following this introduction,

and an epilogue. These chapters examine the politics of colonial censorship

following the official banning of Nil Darpan and the rise of a nationalist

drama; local hybrid reconstructions of Shakespearean plays; grassroots per-

formances organized by the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA); a

theatrical reassessment of the 1857 mutiny; and women's street theater in

postindependence India. Revealing new understandings about the contra-

dictions and conflicts, and multiple layers of protest and power struggles

among colonizers and colonized, such an archive enables a move beyond

simplistic categories of colonizer and colonized to examine theater as a dif-

ferentiated phenomenon. As some of the plays reveal, the responses of the

playwrights had a complex quality, which also reflected their ambivalence

about anticolonial and nationalist sentiments.30 Shaped by notions of class,

caste, gender, and religious differences, some dramas retained patriarchal

positions and replicated the social and communal patterns within Indian

society. Related to such differentiation is an important aspect that warrants

attention: the use of the term subaltern, which, according to the definition

provided by scholars, denotes a people defined by their subordination in

terms of class, caste, gender, race, religion, and so on. Since subalternity is a

shifting concept, it needs redefining according to its specific contexts. With-

out dismissing or minimizing the efforts made by playwrights to organize

and produce political dramas of protest and the impact of these dramas, his-

torical and contextual specificity enables a class-aware and gendered analy-

sis of the subaltern voices and prompts the following questions: To whom

are these voices of resistance being directed? Who were the audiences? In

whose interest was resistance being staged?

Introduction

It would be incomplete to analyze the contribution of theater to the anti-

colonial process without taking into account its connections with the rising

tide of imperialism after the transfer of power from the East India Company

to the Crown, and the empire's constitutive role in such formations of resis-

tance. For even though drama had always been a site for social critique, the

publication of Nil Darpan in 1860 became a turning point in the history of

anticolonial theater in India. Even in contemporary discussions of political

drama, Nil Darpan is invoked as the seminal text that initiated a powerful

tradition of political drama. Apart from claims about theater's possibilities

of establishing direct and verbal links of communication, and the immedi-

acy with which it brings alive social realities, this book also raises the fol-

lowing question: why did theater in India come to be identified as overtly

political soon after 1860? In this regard, the second chapter reconstructs the

dramatic and highly politicized display of colonial politics as manifested in

the indictment and imprisonment of Reverend James Long of the Church

Missionary Society for translating and circulating Nil Darpan in India and in

Britain, in order to show the centrality of this historical moment both for the

development of theater as a powerful medium of protest and as a target for

the repressive policies of the British government. Without minimizing the

importance of the genre as a means of social communication, this chapter

illustrates the extent to which the colonial machinery, which ultimately

responded to increasing dramatic threats through heavy censorship and

control, was critically responsible for strengthening perceptions about

drama as a political weapon. At the same time, the colonial power struggles

underlying the banning of Nil Darpan and the imprisonment of Long enable

a reading of the ways in which theater disrupts notions about the empire as

a singular entity, revealing instead its history in India as fraught with inter-

nal tensions among various colonial groups. The documents also help us

understand the need to return to a theater of roots, and the use of indige-

nous folk traditions and mythology. In recent years, claims about a return to

roots, to mythology, and to traditions has given rise to fundamentalist

movements in India whose attempts to instill a sense of nationalism through

the rhetoric of a Hindu India can neither be erased nor excused. While it is

not possible to ignore the metatext of Hindu nationalist formations on the

stage even during the colonial period, historical contextualization and doc-

uments pertaining to colonial censorship enable, in the latter part of the

chapter, an examination of the tangible connections between theatrical cen-

sorship and the rise of mythological drama for anticolonial protest.

Censorship of indigenous drama also led to the use of Anglo-European

drama, especially the plays of Shakespeare, popular in the metropolitan cen-

ters of Calcutta and Bombay. Connecting the rise of a vernacular Shakespeare

with the official controls exercised on dramatic productions, chapter 3 dis-

9
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

cusses rearticulations of "Shakespeare" in Hindi such as Bharatendu Har-

ishchandra's Durlabh Bandhu (Dependable Friend, 1880) and the film Shake-

speare Wallah in order to demonstrate the ways in which local reconstruc-

tions imparted a plurality to "Shakespeare," subverting and disrupting, in the

process, colonial notions of Western superiority perpetuated through the

dissemination of Shakespeare as "universal," "timeless," and "unchanging."

Another useful outcome of bringing together a variety of materials is that

they provide sociological information and contexts that not only reveal the

unique creativity of theater to recast itself in specific and local contexts of

resistance, but also highlight more complex questions about the internal

politics regarding issues of language, the politics of high and low culture,

and canon formation. For example, aside from the links between the repro-

ductions of Shakespeare in Hindi and the policy of censorship, Hindi trans-

lations of Shakespeare were also connected with Hindi-Urdu language poli-

tics: the translation of Shakespearean works into Hindi at a time of

heightening linguistic nationalism was also linked to the pro-Hindi literati's

efforts to elevate the status of Hindi literature and language through trans-

lations and comparisons with the works of Shakespeare. An examination of

Hindi journals such as Sarasvati provides such a trajectory, which, if limited

to analysis of texts, may be lost. Hindi-Urdu politics also reveal questions

about the exclusion of plays written and performed by Parsi theaters from

the canon of Hindi drama and stage. Because of Parsi theaters' use of Hin-

dustani, which was seen as possessing Urdu vocabulary instead of purer

forms of Sanskritized Hindi, literary leaders condemned their plays. In addi-

tion to recognizing their contribution to anticolonial nationalism, it was

largely the acknowledgment of their services to the Hindi language by

dramatists such as Radheyshyam Kathavachak that somewhat reinstated the

reputation of Parsi theaters. At the same time, close scrutiny of local and

specific cultural conditions also reveals the usefulness of playwrights' return

to local languages and traditions. Accordingly, an analysis of the Indian Peo-

ple's Theatre Association in chapter 4 demonstrates the possibility of subal-

tern agency and activism within anticolonial nationalist struggles through

an engagement with culturally and linguistically specific dramatic forms to

forge community bonds and awareness among nonelite audiences.

In postindependence India, the role of theater in attacking social prob-

lems such as dowry, female infanticide, and sati and in demanding the rights

of workers, students, and other subordinated groups further attests to its

function as a central cultural force where political, social, and ideological

struggles engage one another. Despite censorship, social activists, doctors,

university students, teachers, workers, and women's groups have sought the

critical attention of the state and the public, through dramatization of pre-

vailing injustices and processes of disempowerment. Crucial to the methods

10
Introduction

in which these battles for human rights are waged is the genre of historical

drama. By returning to history, playwrights carefully scrutinize and destabi-

lize colonialist myths of the past and use historical lessons of liberation

struggles to challenge myths of Indian unity sustained by official versions of

nationalism that are detrimental to the interests of minorities. Chapter 5

explores such theatrical interrogations through a detailed analysis of Utpal

Dutt's The Great Rebellion 1857 (Mahavidroha), a play that uses an anticolo-

nial heroic subject to comment on the profound class and caste conflicts in

postcolonial India. Finally, through a discussion of feminist theater in

postindependence India in the epilogue, Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

updates questions of feminist agency and activism within nationalist, anti-

colonial, and antipatriarchal struggles, pointing out processes of feminist

struggles within the context of Indian nationalism and the implications of

drama's thematization of gender at different historical moments.

Colonial Encounters and the Stage in India

Colonial and postcolonial texts often face the charge of being derivative of

colonial originals. In her article "Resistance Theory: Theorizing Resistance,"

Benita Parry criticizes those who suggest that nationalist organizations,

movements, and moments of resistance in colonized countries are mimetic,

borrowing from the very structures they seek to dismantle.31 In this context

she takes up Anthony Appiah's analysis of the idea of the West as the initia-

tor and the native as the imitator, which, even as it stresses the reciprocity

of the colonial relationship, privileges the power of Western discourse.

From this position, she says, Appiah calls the Third World intellectual

"Europhone" who rearticulates the imaginary identities to which Europe

subjected the colonized "in the language and literature of the colonial coun-

tries."32 Arguing against Appiah's position, Parry posits that "Europhone

colonials transgress their immersion in European languages and literatures,

seizing and diverting vocabularies, metaphors and literary traditions."33

Parry's contention can be usefully extended to modern Indian drama, which

some critics accuse of imitating Western traditions and consequently pro-

ducing poor adaptations and translations of European texts. For example, in

his detailed study of drama between 1818 and 1947 in Maharashtra, India,

Patil argues that due to the lack of linguistic and generic competence, bor-

rowings from Western theater remained at the superficial level.34 However,

one could argue that politically committed playwrights, influenced to a

large extent by the Anglo-European theaters in India, appropriated Western

traditions for their own anticolonial outlook. Therefore, while recognizing

the imitative or derivative nature of Indian drama, which appeared to serve

11
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

the colonial structures it sought to repudiate, it is also necessary to establish

the differences and look at points of departure in the dramas that were con-

ceived and constituted according to the local conditions and ethos.

To appreciate the extent to which modern drama was a direct result of its

interaction with colonialism and the influence of Western theater, we may

return to an examination of the theatrical milieu before 1860. British the-

aters formed part of cultural life in India as early as 1757, when Bengal came

under the rule of the East India Company from the Nawab Sirajuddaulah of

Bengal. The prominent playhouses included the Calcutta Theatre, the Sans

Souci Theatre, and the Chowringhee Theatre. Built in 1775,35 the Calcutta

Theatre was patronized by leading members of Calcutta society, encouraged

by the governor-general, and consisted of actors who "were all respectable

people."36 Supported by the governor-general, Lord Hastings, the

Chowringhee Theatre, initially called the "Private Subscription Theatre,"

was built in 1813 under the patronage of British officials.37 Similarly, the

Sans Souci Theatre, which opened in 1839, continued to be active until

1841.38 By the turn of the nineteenth century, European theater in Calcutta

had been consolidated as a popular activity and a number of theaters set up.

Among the smaller theaters were the Chandranagore Theatre of 1808, the

Athenaeum, which opened in 1812, the Kidderpore Theatre (1815), the

Dum Dum Theatre (1817), and the Wheeler Palace Theatre (1817). At all

these theaters, maintenance of distinct European standards remained a mat-

ter of deep concern, and the selection of drama was primarily European.39

Although a few collaborative efforts at dramatic productions were made

as early as 1795 when, inspired by the success of European theaters, a Russ-

ian adventurer, Heresim Lebedeff, began organizing Bengali plays in Cal-

cutta with the aid of the Bengali linguist Babu Golaknath Das, and staged,

with the permission of the governor-general Sir John Shore, his first two

productions, The Disguise and Love is the Best Doctor, attendance at these

theaters was restricted to the English sahibs and memsahibs. Sometimes

plays were performed for charity to aid local Europeans "in a manner that

would not disgrace any European stage."40 Exclusion of Indians extended

even to doorkeepers, who were generally European, as it was believed that

"black people in an office of that nature would have no authority with the

public."41 However, this pattern of separation was to change soon. With its

distinct segregation between natives and Europeans, such exclusiveness

would only prove to be detrimental to colonial interests, and ultimately,

colonial authorities would profit from expanding theatrical activity to the

inclusion of natives. Because educating natives in the colonial language and

culture could help to win the support of the upper crust of Indian society-

the class of Indians who could usefully aid in the task of governance in a

country where a multitude of languages and cultural traditions posed a huge

12
Introduction

barrier-exposure of Indian elites to European theaters was in the interest

of the colonizers. Consequently, in 1813, the exclusive British theaters

opened their doors to elite Indians such as the aristocrat Dwarkanath

Tagore. Gradually, the attendance of the Indian elite in European theaters

began to rise, as evident from this remark by the India Gazette: "It affords us

pleasure to observe such a number of respectable natives among the audi-

ence every play-night, it indicates a growing taste for the English Drama

which is an auspicious sign of the progress of general literature amongst our

native friends."42

Over time the participation of Indians in European theatrical activity did

not remain restricted to their attendance as viewers but changed to involv-

ing them as actors as well. In 1848, for example, one Mr. Berry started giv-

ing performances at his private residence (at 14, Wellington Square) and

invited a Bengali, Baishnava Charan Adhya (Addy), to play the part of Oth-

ello (on August 17 and September 11). Why would it be necessary to have

an Indian play Othello in 1848 when Othello had been played several times

before? 1848 was a crucial time for the expansion of British power. It was

only a decade before the official transfer of power from the East India Com-

pany to the Crown. Meanwhile, the British defeat in the war against

Afghanistan in 1842 had caused a setback to British interests and generated

large-scale disaffection from the natives. In Afghanistan, the British had left

a lot of enemies and in India, where the war cost nearly fifteen million

rupees, alienated the people on whom fell the burden of such expenses. It

was necessary at such a time to seek the alliance of upper-class natives and

to win their support. So even though Adhya's performance made the Cal-

cutta Star anxious about the possible cultural contamination of the English

stage, as evident in its calling the actor "a real unpainted nigger Othello," for

the rulers such an investment was necessary for disseminating English cul-

ture among a class of natives who would function as a buffer between them

and the rest of the natives.

That the creation of this buffer class was necessary for effective colonial

control is indicated by the inadequacy felt by the British over their inability

to comprehend popular indigenous theater. A significant form of entertain-

ment at religious ceremonies and festivals, indigenous popular theater pro-

vided the space for the convergence of large numbers of people in various

parts of the subcontinent. Apart from providing entertainment, theatrical

activity-which sometimes continued for several days-also became a place

for people to socialize, exchange notes, and forge friendships. As is evident

in the following extract from the Asiatic Journal, ignorance of local social

customs and the inability to understand the languages in which dramas

were staged generated anxiety among the rulers, especially regarding unfa-

vorable portrayal of Europeans:

13
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

[Some] of these extemporaneous pieces . . . are fond of shewing their

knowledge of the European character, and the style and conduct

indulged in by the young civilians whom they have had an opportu-

nity of caricaturing. These exhibitions are frequently ventured upon

before the parties who are satirized, and if, as it is to be hoped, the

picture is somewhat exaggerated, it is impossible not to admit that

there is a good deal of truth and character in the delineation. The

scene is a kutcherry, or hall, in which the European magistrates of

India administer the law. One of the actors, dressed in the English

costume, white jacket and trowsers, and a round hat, enters whistling

and slapping his boots with a whip. . . . A prisoner is brought in,

charged with some crime; to which the judge pays no sort of atten-

tion, being occupied by a young girl, who appears as one of the wit-

nesses. While the depositions are taking, he does nothing but ogle

and make signs to the damsel, totally regardless of every thing else,

and apparently indifferent as to the issue: at length, the principal ser-

vant of the judge comes in, and approaching his master with joined

hands, and a countenance expressive of the most humble submission,

whispers "Sahib, Tiffin tiar hi" [Sir, tiffin is ready]. The judge imme-

diately rises, and, as he is going away, the officers of the court enquire

what is to be done with the prisoner. The dispenser of the law, turn-

ing round upon his heel, exclaims "D-- his eyes, hang him!" and

then makes his exit, leaving the people in the greatest consternation.

It will be seen from this description, how very sorry a figure the Eng-

lish gentleman is made to cut.43

The nervous energy of the colonial age with its mission to expand seemed to

be jeopardized by such portrayals of the foreign occupants. To subdue such

theaters that were perceived as potential threats to the colonial mission, the

rulers condemned them on the basis of their "low" quality and "immoral"

content. An example of such dismissal is manifested in the earlier attacks

foisted on Bidya-Sunder, a tragicomedy of love (much like Romeo and Juliet)

staged in 1835 at the house of a Bengali gentleman, Nabin Chandra Bose.

Following the conventions of the classical Sanskrit theater, the play started

with a prayer to the gods and prologues and was accompanied by Indian

musical instruments such as the sitar, saranghee, and pakwaj. Angrily, the

Englishman and the Harkaru, pro-English newspapers published in Bengal,

attacked the play on grounds of public (im)morality. The Harkaru called it

"indecent," and arguing that such plays offered no "moral or intellectual"

advantage since they were "devoid of novelty, utility, and even decency,"

the Englishman commented: "Our correspondent has lifted the veil with

14
Introduction

which the writer of the sketch sought to screen the real character of these

exhibitions and we hope we shall hear no more of them in the 'Hindu Pio-

neer' unless it be to denounce them."44

Simultaneously, to create a greater appreciation for Anglo-European cul-

ture among upper-class natives, colonial authorities encouraged the prolif-

eration of European theatrical activity through the establishment of native

theaters patterned after European theaters. In search of a cultural identity

"that could, at some level, set them on a par with their European overlords,"

the bourgeoisie in Bengal adopted the standards of the colonizers and set up

their own "respectable" theaters, including the Hindu Theatre in 1831 and

the Native Theatre in 1833.45 These patrons of the new theaters were edu-

cated men in whose hands wealth was concentrated. The growth of a West-

ern-educated middle class that pursued "surplus creative energy seeking

channels of expression" provided the requisite support for the sustenance of

these theaters.46 The Hindu Theatre emerged from the efforts of Prasanna

Kumar Tagore, a man of wealth who had also donated charitably to Calcutta

University. On December 28, 1831, it opened with a translation of Bhavab-

huti's Sanskrit classic Uttar Ram Charita (translated by orientalist scholar

Horace Hyman Wilson) and act 5 of Julius Caesar. According to the Asiatic

Journal of May 1832, the two plays were enacted at the garden house of Babu

Prasanna Kumar in Belliaghata and watched by an audience consisting of

Europeans including Sir Edward Ryan, the chief justice of the Supreme

Court of Calcutta. On March 29, 1832, the Hindu Theatre staged Nothing

Superfluous, presented amid elaborate sceneries with actors wearing expen-

sive costumes. Most of these productions were ostensibly "for the amuse-

ment of their native and European friends who [were] admitted by invita-

tion. "47 Located at the residence of Nabin Chandra Bose at Shambazar, the

Native Theatre (1833) staged five plays during the year for an audience con-

sisting of Hindus, Muslims, and Europeans. In contrast to popular folk

drama, this emergent stream of urban drama that emulated European tradi-

tions was appreciated as a civilized, sophisticated, and cultivated activity

that would lead to the moral improvement of Indian society. Authorities

thus lauded the proliferation of these theaters at their very inception, as

reflected in the following remark by the Asiatic Journal in August 1829:

In the extensive city public institutions of various kinds and moral

descriptions have lately sprung up for the improvement and

gratification of its inhabitants; but their amusement has not yet been

consulted and they have not, like the English community, any place of

public entertainment . . . It is therefore desirable that men of wealth

and rank should associate and establish a theatre . . . as the English

15
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

gentlemen have done . . . [and] exhibit a performance of song and

poetry once a month conformably to the written nataks or plays...

such a plan will promote the pleasure of all classes of society.

Even at these theaters, however, authorities kept a close watch and carefully

monitored them to determine their quality. Consequently, while the British

appreciated efforts by natives to present European drama, they condemned

the hybridization of the plays for contaminating the "essential" qualities of

their culture.

To give the natives a taste of "authentic" British culture, English officials

henceforth encouraged "proper" productions of plays in schools. In 1837,

students at Hindu College and Sanskrit College presented plays of Shake-

speare on special occasions such as prize ceremonies. On March 30, 1837,

the Government White House staged The King and the Miller, the Seven

Ages scene from As You Like It, and The Merchant of Venice. The Oriental

Seminary initiated similar efforts, through which Herman Jeffrey, a French

barrister in the Calcutta Supreme Court, organized with the help of a Mr.

Reshi, a performance of Julius Caesar. Such attempts continued, and in 1852

former students of the Metropolitan Academy trained by Jeffrey and Reshi

stagedJulius Caesar, selling tickets for the performance. In 1853, students at

the David Hare Academy staged Merchant of Venice, a performance attended

by seven hundred Europeans and Indians.48

Efforts at "faithful" productions that began in schools were channeled

into public theaters. In 1853, former students of the Oriental Seminary, with

the help of Babu Prianath Dutt, Babu Dinonath Ghosh, and Sitaram Ghosh,

started the Oriental Theatre on the school premises. The theater lasted for

two years and, with a cast of Indian actors, performed primarily the plays of

Shakespeare including Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry IV, Part I.

The Harkaru, a newspaper that had earlier criticized the Hindu Theatre for

distorting English plays, on September 28, 1853, approved and praised the

productions of the Oriental Theatre: "The Performers were, all of them,

young men. . . and the character which we feared would be the worst rep-

resented, was the best represented-lago by Babu Prianath Dey was acted

with an evident knowledge of the character . . . the mode in which they

acquitted themselves must have given much satisfaction to every member of

the audience who cares for the intellectual improvement of his fellow citi-

zens." By the 1850s, Shakespeare was beginning to have an impact, and the

Bengali elites increasingly produced his plays. When Babu Pyari Mohan

Bose arranged for a staging of Julius Caesar at his house in 1854 and

appeared in the play himself, the Bengali journal Sambad Prabhakar noted

the following:

16
Introduction

Pyari Babu's house was illuminated and decorated in the nicest way.

The audience numbered about 400, and would have been more but for

rain and storm. Babu Mohendra Nath Bose acted in the role of Caesar,

Kistoodhan Dutt of Brutus and Jadu Nath Chatterjee of Cassius and

the artists were thus all of culture. Even the performance by the ama-

teurs of the Oriental Theatre stood inferior in comparison, and they

were astonished at the excellent way the performance of such a

difficult play was rendered.49

Such systematic reorganization of theater resulted in generating hierarchies

that relegated indigenous theater forms to a "low" status, as opposed to the

high and privileged status accorded to European "high" drama, notably

Shakespeare.

Hierarchical stratification was further reinforced by indigenous social

reform organizations such as the Brahmo Samaj in Bengal and Arya Samaj in

North India.s50 Aimed at reforming Hindu society and perceiving theatrical

activity as detrimental to Hindu society, these organizations uncompromis-

ingly condemned theater along with other activities such as gambling, going

to prostitutes, smoking, and drinking. They also prohibited women from

performing.51 One result of this development was the containment of

upper-caste women in the stranglehold of patriarchy. This is because popu-

lar theaters such as jatras comprised a principal pastime and entertainment

for women, especially those in the zenana.52 In an attempt to consolidate

their own position, the bhadralok prevented these women from watching

popular dramas and pressured them "to conform to British standards of

ideal womanly conduct."53 Viewing women's popular songs as sensuous,

they labeled them a threat "to the new ideal of domestic order and heavily

restricted elite women's association with female performers. Over time the

campaigns against popular culture dramatically diminished the number of

practitioners, leading to their eventual exile from urban society."54 In the

field of literature, writers such as Bharatendu Harishchandra of Benaras

"declared most kinds of popular theatre 'depraved' and lacking in theatri-

cality... [and] championed a refined form of drama limited largely to draw-

ing rooms and school auditoriums whose purpose would be to assist in the

moral regeneration of the nation."55 In Bengal, this distaste for "folk" cul-

ture coincided with the rise of a bhadralok56 culture associated with the

emerging middle and upper classes, who attempted to differentiate them-

selves from the populace by increasingly associating popular forms with the

"licentious and voluptuous tastes" of the "vulgar."57

Consequently, by the late nineteenth century, as a result of European

contact, a cultural stream of urban drama developed that was, to a large

17
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

extent, influenced by Anglo-European traditions, performed selections from

European plays or classical Indian drama, and was patronized by men of

wealth and respectability, who performed plays in their homes or in theaters

that operated on astronomical financial budgets. They often imported elab-

orate sets from England and performed plays for the public through a policy

of tickets. The style of dramas also became Western, adopting the conven-

tions of the proscenium and footlights, the drop curtain, and prompting

from behind. This emergent theatrical culture did not completely supplant

indigenous theatrical genres, but, as Hansen points out in the case of nau-

tanki, "the reformist discourse that resulted from the colonial experience

pushed [popular folk] theatre to the margins of respectability."58

As the empire consolidated itself, the first noticeable burst of anticolonial

energy and resistance to imperialist practices came from this class of natives,

who were well versed in colonial cultural traditions and education. Hence,

the dramas they produced can be seen as bearing the influence of Western

conventions. Yet as censorship of dramatic performances became progres-

sively worse after 1876, these literary figures opportunistically made use of

colonial forms. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the dramatic produc-

tions as embedded in their political circumstances. What needs to be recog-

nized is that, born out of the interaction with colonial models, the strategic

use of Anglo-European drama produced oppositional and independent dra-

mas that transformed the imperialist authority of colonial texts. Interactions

with colonial drama and censorship of indigenous theater resulted in new

and innovative theatrical forms that both departed from existing indigenous

dramatic conventions of classical theater and appropriated traditions suit-

able for the historically specific audiences. Another claim of this book, then,

is that the suppression of indigenous drama ultimately invigorated a politi-

cally committed Indian theater, facilitating, as it did, a creative appropria-

tion of European traditions and stimulating the use of indigenous perfor-

mance and practices drawn from local popular traditions. In demonstrating

this phenomenon, Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance brings to attention a

corpus of dramatic writing and practice that theorized strategies of resis-

tance through the complex processes of mixing indigenous popular tradi-

tions and Anglo-European forms in hybrid theater performance in which

new global and transcultural links were made out of the historical processes

of colonial intervention and the specificities of local, regional, and national

struggles.

18
Bringing Women's Strugles to the

Streets in Postcolonial India

From Dinabandhu Mitra's Nil Darpan to Harishchandra's Durlabh Bandhu

and the plays presented by the IPTA, the exploitation of women under colo-

nialism and their participation in nationalist struggles were compelling

themes. Nonetheless, such themes remained centered primarily around the

question of nationalism. Playwrights either projected the violence commit-

ted against women as a violation of the community or national honor, or

constructed the image of the female activist as one willing to sacrifice her

life in defense of the nation. As the preceding chapters show, the changing

roles of women were thus formulated primarily in the interest of patriarchal

nationalist discourse. Consider Parivartan, a play by Radheyshyam

Kathavachak, a prominent Hindi playwright who made a remarkable con-

tribution to nationalist discourse through his mythological dramas in the

early part of the twentieth century.1 The title of Kathavachak's play itself

implies change or transformation, and Parivartan was performed in 1926 in

various parts of the subcontinent by the New Alfred Natak Company of

Bombay at the height of the nationalist movement, a time when women's

participation in the nationalist cause was high on the political agenda. The

play deserves mention in that it foregrounds the theme of social reform and

desh bhakti (devotion to the nation) through a triangulated plot that brings

three women into focus-Lakshmi, a dedicated and virtuous housewife,

Chanda, a prostitute, and Maya, an anglicized Indian woman who has aban-

doned traditional values. However, while women have central roles in the

drama, the play itself becomes a way of resolving the moral dilemma of the

male protagonist, who becomes attracted to the prostitute and has to choose

111
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

between her and his wife, eventually making the moral choice of going back

to his wife. Through this emplotment, the play becomes a debating ground

for the role of the prostitute, the virtuous wife, and the anglicized woman,

and the place that each occupied within the nation. Finally, the play ends

with the reformation of Chanda, who pledges to sacrifice her own life for the

cause of the nation's women by opening up a women's university with the

money that she had coerced from her lover.

Chanda's ultimate transformation from a prostitute to a virtuous woman

comes with the discovery that she is the younger sister of her lover's wife,

Lakshmi, a connection that removes any taint of her former profession. The

playwright ultimately elevates Chanda to the status of a goddess, calling her

several names from Hindu mythology: Savitri, Damyanti, Gargi, and Gand-

harvi. And Maya, shown to be desperate for marriage, learns her lessons for

being too anglicized when she mistakenly marries the wrong man-a local

servant who had disguised himself as an Englishman. Her reformation

comes when she denounces her "fashionable" ideas in favor of Hindu norms

to become the ideal Hindu woman like Lakshmi. What we have in this

drama, like a number of anticolonial plays, is a moral lesson for women,

which suggests they assume the role that was deemed most appropriate for

the well-being of the nation. Clearly, in such a representation, and others

like it (discussed in earlier chapters), we have a theater that enlists itself in

the service of dominant nationalist discourse, which, under colonial condi-

tions, accommodated certain demands that Hindu nationalism placed upon

its men and women.2

The point of introducing the epilogue with this play is to say that under

colonial conditions, the question of women in theater came to be formu-

lated in terms of the male nationalists' definition of women's roles that

demanded their willingness to be good wives and mothers. The prescription

of such roles, in turn, provoked comparisons between "modern" and "tradi-

tional" women and initiated discussions regarding the morality surrounding

women's roles. In so doing, the nationalist patriarchy carved out

"respectable" roles for women in which neither the prostitute nor the angli-

cized woman had much to share. And even if the woman did become "angli-

cized" through her "modern" education, her credibility as a sugrahini (the

ideal homemaker) lay in her dedication to the home, a space that became a

site for the nationalist patriarchy to articulate and resolve the question of

women and the nation.3

An important ramification of setting such parameters of "respectability"

was that women's voices were suppressed or remained marginal. The pri-

mary focus on nationalist concerns obscured women's experiences of subju-

gation within the confines of patriarchal structures. And since women's roles

were conceptualized as primarily "contributive" to the political domain of

112
Bringing Women's StrugIles to the Streets in Postcolonial India

nationalism, most attempts toward women's autonomous contribution to

theater and nationalism were appropriated. Additionally, actresses came to

be stigmatized as "prostitutes." Hence, in most theaters, alluring gestures and

dances were seen as acts of lewdness and outside of the norms of social

respectability. It is no surprise then that even in Kathavachak's mythological

plays, men performed women's roles. The New Alfred Theatre Company did

not employ women for fear of having its reputation tarnished,4 as women's

participation in theater relegated its reputation to the margins of respectabil-

ity.5 Such attitudes toward actresses and dancers also became visible in the

anti-nautch campaigns in 1947 that outlawed temple-dancing and prohibited

dedicating women as devadasis (temple dancers who devoted their lives in

the service of god, with the term literally translating as "servants of god") in

South India.6 And we have the case of Binodini Dasi, the celebrated nine-

teenth-century Bengali actress who dedicated her life to the theater but was

denied social respectability, partly because she was the daughter of a prosti-

tute but also because of her profession. Even among the more Left-oriented

organizations of the latter decades such as the IPTA, which was initiated by

a woman and had a number of women in its organizational body, the agenda

seemed geared toward national interest, as a result of which women's issues

in the domestic sphere remained overlooked.

This oversight has been redressed over the last few decades, particularly

since the 1970s, through the efforts of a number of groups that have begun

to raise critical awareness about women's issues and brought their struggles

to the streets through street theater. Some of the names include organiza-

tions such as Jagori; Stree Mukti Sanghathan (Women's Liberation Move-

ment), a nongovernmental organization (NGO) from Maharashtra; Garib

Dongari Sanghathan in Pune; and Theatre Union and Saheli in Delhi. While

lack of financial patronage, limited time for the volunteers (many of whom

hold jobs elsewhere), and the ephemeral nature of the medium prevent

large-scale documentation, there exist several reports and case studies on

the work undertaken by activists to bring women's issues to the forefront.

Collectively these reports constitute an important archive that shows the

ways in which these autonomous organizations bring women's stories of

"everyday" struggles into the external and public domain.

The proliferation of women's street theater was accelerated by the need for

social change and women's empowerment after 1947, when a renewed focus

on the nation appeared and the custodians of independent India promised

equality for all its citizens. Despite the constitutional declarations of equality

for both men and women after the end of colonial rule, feminists viewed the

years following independence as a setback for women, particularly in light of

the Hindu Code Bill. Passed in 1955, the bill "sought to create a uniform law

113
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

ensuring women some rights to property and succession and treating them

as equal to men in relation to marriage and divorce."7 But such promises

toward equality were, at best, partial, and women continued to suffer numer-

ous social injustices, both in the domestic and the public spheres.

By the 1970s, social excesses and violence against women became increas-

ingly evident in the escalating "dowry murders," with little attempt made on

the part of the state to alleviate the situation.8 "Dowry murders" involved the

barbaric act of setting women on fire because of unfulfilled demands of

dowry. The demand for dowry had its source in cultural as well as in socioe-

conomic developments. By the 1970s, the Nehruvian model of a mixed

economy had begun to collapse. The per capita income of the country did

not increase with the rising costs of essential commodities, unemployment

remained high, and large sections of the population lived below the "poverty

line." With a growing multinational capitalism, the liberalization of the

Indian market brought an increasing fascination with consumer goods that

poured in from abroad. High costs of living and a growing consumer culture

increased the burden of dowry on women's families by raising the grooms'

expectations of goods, from traditional items such as gold and utensils to

additional items such as VCRs, televisions, cars, and air conditioners, which

were often beyond the financial means of most families. As Gauri Chawdhry

argues, dowry has "become an easy way of acquiring goods and cash in a

society where the rising cost of living does not have a parity with income

opportunities.... Marriage is a socially and legally acceptable way of acquir-

ing cash to invest in business, build a house, buy a truck, pay for the boy's

further education; anything that will eventually earn money for the bride-

groom and the family."9 She further asserts that "[a]dvertisements on the

A.I.R. [All India Radio] and Doordarshan [national TV network], the news-

papers, magazines and billboards, are crying out to buy more, creating needs

for luxury goods which become status symbols in a highly competitive soci-

ety."10 Most dowry deaths, according to Ranjana Kumari, were recorded as

accidental or merely dismissed as family quarrels. Statistics released in the

Parliament regarding dowry deaths pointed out that 421 deaths were

recorded in 1982, 610 in 1983, 690 in 1984, and 558 in 1985. Of the 2,806

cases of dowry incidents reported between 1982 and 1986, "not a single con-

viction" took place.11 In Delhi alone, 350 women had been burned to death

in 1975 and 200 women in 1978. The plastic surgery unit of a major hospi-

tal in Delhi revealed 400 cases of body burns. Fifty percent of these cases

were newly married women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.12

The climate of political unrest-manifested in a variety of oppositional

movements that emerged through student protests, labor strikes for higher

wages in the industrial sector, and agrarian struggles for the redistribution

of land-followed by protests after the excesses committed during the state

114
Bringing Women's StrugIles to the Streets in Postcolonial India

of emergency (1975-77), ushered in a renewed energy among feminists.

Their efforts resulted in the formation of numerous women's organizations

including the Forum against the Oppression of Women in Bombay,

Vimochana (Redemption) in Bangalore, Stree Shakti Sangathan (Organiza-

tion for Women's Power) in Hyderabad, and Saheli (Friend) in Delhi. These

organizations directed their attacks against the state for not paying adequate

attention to the violence committed against women and urged the govern-

ment to take action.13 In 1979, a group of activists in Delhi University

launched Manushi, a feminist journal that became extremely vocal in

protesting the practice of dowry and provided an important forum for the

emerging women's movement.14 In Delhi, Stree Sangharsh (Women's Strug-

gle), formed in 1978 by Subhadra Butalia,15 made dowry a central issue of

protest. Among other things, these organizations raised slogans, held

demonstrations outside the homes of dowry victims, and conducted

inquiries into police records.16

In order to enlist the participation of women whose lives were directly

affected by dowry-related issues, but who were unable to approach these

organizations for a variety of reasons, activists turned to street theater in

order to bring social issues directly to women through a medium that was

instructive as well as entertaining. For example, after months of campaign-

ing against dowry through demonstrations, Stree Sangharsh resorted to

street theater as a "more direct method of communication with people."17

Through the efforts of Anuradha Kapoor (who brought her own training in

theater when she returned to India in 1980 after receiving a Ph.D. in theater

studies from Leeds University), Rati Bartholomew, and Maya Rao, Stree

Sangharsh formed the Theatre Union for the purpose of raising critical mass

awareness about women's rights.

One of the most striking examples of successful plays presented by the

Theatre Union is Om Swaha (Unholy offering), which was performed first in

1980 and subsequently staged several times.18 With dowry as its subject

matter, the play begins with an auction of young men, a scene that enables,

through a comic device, an introduction to issues of harassment, torture,

and humiliation faced by women. To draw out the story of women's victim-

ization, the play focuses on the life of a young woman from birth; her col-

lege years; her ill-treatment after marriage at the hands of her in-laws; her

parents' refusal to bring her back, out of shame and fear of social dishonor;

and finally her death in her husband's home. Throughout, says Kapoor,

Punjabi folk songs accompany the action in order to hold the attention of

the viewers and solicit their involvement through a familiar language.19

Aside from raising awareness, the play, as Kapoor describes it, purports to

encourage mass involvement in urging an end to the violence of dowry. The

dual ending of the play is designed to achieve this goal:

115
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

In the final image of the play, the young woman is held by her in-laws.

They shoot demands at her like bullets from a machine gun: "we want

a fridge, we want a television." At that moment we stop and tell the

audience that the girl has two options: either she dies or she gets out

of the situation. We would then play both endings. In the one she dies,

because her old parents can't deliver the goods. In the other one she

seeks help, gets educated, and learns to stand up for her rights.20

While the first ending displays the reality of dowry demands, the conclud-

ing scene offers an alternative to a life of despair, and projects possible

changes in the lives of women in the future.

Moreover, in alluding to the material demands made on the girl and her

family, the play intervenes in the record of failed promises about equal

rights for women as stated by the constitution of independent India. In

1961, a few years after India's independence from colonial rule, the govern-

ment passed the Dowry Prohibition Act "to prohibit the evil practice of giv-

ing and taking of dowry."21 The act's definition of "dowry," however, had

numerous loopholes. For example, it excluded "presents in the form of

clothes, ornaments, etc. which are customary at marriages."22 Overall, the

act proved highly inadequate in preventing women's harassment and con-

victing the guilty party. In a number of cases, the police dismissed deaths

involving dowry as "family quarrels" and therefore outside the purview of

legal action. By enacting such issues on the streets, Om Swaha brought out

into the public space what remained hidden in the private spaces of

enclosed homes.23 The efficacy of the play can be gauged from the fact that

several people approached the group to perform it in their neighborhoods.

In an interview, Kapoor tells van Erven that at the end of a performance, a

number of women often asked performers where they could seek help.24

Considered "one of the first major events of India's developing women's

theatre," the Theatre Union has subsequently dealt with themes such as sati

and the problem of rape of women in police custody. The issue of rape was

addressed in the play Dafa 180 (Law 180) following a discussion in the Par-

liament regarding a new legislation for the rights of women in custody. The

group presented the play in colleges, parks, and slums in order to raise

awareness about the frequency with which the police raped women in pris-

ons and often escaped from being charged by accusing the women of being

prostitutes.25

Apart from the Theatre Union in Delhi, several theater groups operate in

major cities and in villages, where they regularly conduct theater work-

shops.26 Among the better-known groups are Jana Natya Manch (People's

Theatre Forum), orJanam, run by Mala Hashmi;27 Shamsul Islam's Nishant

116
Bringing Women's StrugIles to the Streets in Postcolonial India

(Dawn); groups run by activists such as Habib Tanvir28 and Badal Sircar;29

and organizations such as the Ahvaan Natya Manch (Summons Theatre

Stage).30 Emphasizing collective action and creativity, most of these groups

write and direct their own plays, constantly improvising and modifying

them to perform at street corners, public parks, footpaths, university cam-

puses, and city slums. Some of the lesser-known organizations are also

doing remarkable work in bringing to the fore issues that do not get cover-

age in the mainstream media. For example, Garib Dongari Sanghatana,

organized by fifteen peasant women and two men under the direction of

Hema Rairkar in 1991, held group discussions on "deserted women" (i.e.,

widows or women abandoned by their families, husbands, or in-laws), and

eventually presented their exchanges in the form of a street drama called

Social Trap.31 And Stree Mukti Sangathana staged The Girl Is Born, a play

that was performed for over two hundred thousand people in Maharashtra

by a cast made up primarily of female members of the NGO. According to

Jyoti Mhapsekar, director of the NGO that wrote the play, the play inspired

some women to leave abusive situations, while others joined the organiza-

tion after watching it.32 Initiated by Sheela Rani, another group organized

a two-month-long street theater campaign in Tamil Nadu as part of the

education campaign on health care to deal with female infanticide and

urged the spectators at the end of the play to take a pledge to fight against

the practice.33

Most theater activists agree on the relevance and popularity of the

medium for giving public expression to issues faced by women. Because of

its mobility, theater, they argue, can be taken to the people, instead of peo-

ple coming to theater. For those with little time or the opportunity to make

special arrangements to watch a play, or even participate in demonstrations,

the performance outside their homes makes women's struggles immediately

visible. Often plays also allow women to bring in their own voices. Because

street plays need minimalist props, they are inexpensive and can operate on

small budgets and are performed free of charge. Moreover, when other

media, such as the press and radio, are controlled, the "flexibility and adapt-

ability of this form makes it invaluable as a medium of communication."34

According to a Saheli volunteer and theater activist who organizes plays on

social issues, street theater allows the group to stage protest on roads, cam-

paign for better rights for women, and intervene actively in issues pertain-

ing to "media, politics, and government." She discusses the effectiveness of

improvisation for presenting important issues such as women's health,

dowry, and so forth.35

One of the most striking features of women's theater is its participants'

resorting to popular songs and folk traditions to display and discuss their

domestic problems. "Songs in particular," says the above-mentioned Saheli

117
Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance

activist, "make the plays interesting and entertaining without making them

preachy." Additionally, they help forge a mutual camaraderie by emphasiz-

ing the idea that "our songs are your songs" and "our struggle is your strug-

gle."36 Most theater groups also go with titles that impart the flavor of col-

lectives. The titles of the organizations, in fact, give audiences an insight

into the nature of their agenda. Further, the problems faced by women are

simply not to be subsumed under other social causes but are foregrounded

to constitute a distinct theatrical methodology and pedagogy for addressing

women's issues. Hence, a number of these groups include women as actors,

scriptwriters, and storytellers. By narrating their stories, women actors not

only bring into focus and discussion personal experiences; they also reveal

the ways in which social norms and expectations are intricately tied into

their own subjectivities. The most commonly deployed device is the method

of sharing stories where women talk about their everyday lives, then work

this material into a plot, and perform it. This, in turn, is meant to provoke

questions from the audience and turn those questions into discussions

about female self-empowerment.

For many women, participation in street theater provides the impetus for

turning their domestic identities or limited roles into new independent

social identities. A report on street theater mentions the experience of a

woman performer who, after graduating from class 10 in her village, was not

allowed to continue with her education. When a women's group came to

perform in her village, she joined the group. Not only does she find her

work with the theater group self-empowering; her independence and con-

tribution to women's issues also inspire other men and women in villages,

where sometimes women are not allowed to come out of their homes.37 For

some women, participation as actors helps revise ideas about "social

respectability."

While the achievements of street theater activists are encouraging, opera-

tion of these groups under varying social, financial, and geographical condi-

tions and constraints enables different levels of success. Moreover, like the

dramatists and political theater organizations of the colonial era, theater

activists in postcolonial India must also contend with both official and

unofficial state censorship. In 1989, for example, during a performance of

Safdar Hashmi's Halla Bol (Attack), a play about governmental oppression

of (male and female) workers staged in Sahibabad-an industrial town east

of Delhi-armed (suspected) agents of the Congress party attacked Hashmi

and his troupe and killed him along with another factory worker.38

Hashmi's brutal death merits serious attention: it reminds us of the far-

reaching implications of theater in the cultural and political life of India.

Beginning with the 1861 ban on Nil Darpan and the subsequent suppression

118
Bringing Women's StrugIles to the Streets in Postcolonial India

of drama during colonial rule, the repression of theatrical campaigns for

human rights, now again in the postindependence period, leaves little doubt

about the utter centrality of theatrical activity, in its varied forms, to sub-

versive cultural practices. And the proliferation of political theaters in

numerous parts of the country, despite such repression, only demonstrates

that subaltern struggles continue to be waged in the arena of theater.39

119