Cultural Consciousness and Folk Elements in the Selected Plays of

Habib Tanvir and Girish Karnad

Background

Drama in its broadest sense is under threat for a number of reasons. It is considered
elitist or narrow or male, which is sometimes true but when it becomes a voice of the
under privileged or dedicates itself for big social issues, it strengthens its survival
instinct.

Classical theater has tended to be theater about society. It is an important cultural

performance of a society. Whether it is Ancient Indian drama, Chinese drama,
Shakespeare or the Greeks they are plays about society, about kings and queens and
clashes in culture and class and war and justice and all of those things that big drama
takes on so they tend to be larger and formally different, not necessarily naturalistic.
The contemporary drama survived because it is about society, not necessarily about
kings and queens, but about those who waited long for their representation in
literature. Drama not only registers but also manifests the changes (social, political or
cultural) the society undergoes.  Thus, the study of drama would enable to reconstruct
forgotten histories, understand the society and comprehend its identity.

As this genre witnessed several changes and experiments in form, structure and style,
the purpose of theatre also kept on changing. Since primary function of catharsis or
Ras Nishpatti is no longer limited to literature anymore and films and visual media
have made every type of entertainment accessible to masses, if drama is not going to
communicate what must be communicated, it will loose its ground. As Marjorie
Boulton defines the role of drama that, “It is three dimensional: it is literature that
walks and talks before our eyes” (1960 3), if drama fails to talk about and walk
towards the issues of the oppressed and underprivileged , it will loose its relevance in
the contemporary society. We’re obsessed with the future, that’s what it is to be
Indian, and yet particularly in our democracy at this moment I find it unbelievably
helpful to have a relationship to thoughts and ideas of the histories of those who are a
forgotten lot.

Postcolonial India theatre presents a stark picture of the society like no other form of
literature can. The shift from the age-old form of Classical Sanskrit Theatre to the
Modern Indian Theatre hasn’t been an easy one. Although newer issues and concerns
were always dominating the Indian Theatre too, the first remarkable shift was noticed
before and during the Naxalite Movement —during the heydays of Marxist politics in
India. At the same time amateur theatres, not owing direct allegiance to Communism,
but wedded to social change also came into being in different regions. Though not
popular like entertainment theatre, it kept alive the role of drama as a criticism of life
and culture.

Aims and objectives:

Literature is never independent of cultural contexts and drama is perhaps the best
literary medium to reflect cultural consciousness of a group of people or the cultural
heritage of a nation. A dramatist not only articulates cultural practices, but also builds
his/her literary career and identity as a playwright. Contemporary Indian theatre has
produced internationally acclaimed play-wrights who have reflected deep cultural
consciousness in their works, like Asif Currimbhoy, Badal Sircar, Chandrashekhara
Kambara, Dharmveer Bharati, Girish Karnad, Gurcharan Das, Gurcharan Das,
Gurcharan Das, Javed Siddiqui, Mohan Rakesh, Vijay Tendulkar, Shambhu Mitra,
Safdar Hashmi, Utpal Dutt and Indira Parthasarati. These play-wrights brought to
theatre great formal precision and the thematic preoccupation of modernist angst.

Habib Tanvir and Girish Karnad have always questioned the view of Indian culture
performing art and continuity of culture. Conflicting philosophies, historical
situations, and cultural attitudes have shaped the different forms of their plays. For
them folk theatre is the continuity of tradition. They have specific ideas in his mind.
Both of them are able to combine the subjective interests with the general literary and
cultural interests. Their plays are cultural symbols. In their plays, they draw heavily
upon the rich resources of the native folk theatre. In there plays the folk forms and
elements of supernatural play a significant role. The dramatists employ the
conventions of folk tales and motifs of folk theatre as masks, curtains, mine, songs,
the commentator, narrator, dolls, horse-man, the story within a story. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

My aim is to study and analyse these cultural and folk elements in the plays of Habib
Tanvir and Girish Karnad to explore how they are helping to form new cultural ethics
through theatre. How their plays play a crucial role in giving voice to the marginalized
and oppressed class of post independent Indian society? Are they able to revive the
folk traditions which were on the verge of extinction? What kind of issues they are
dealing with in their plays? How their approach is either similar or dissimilar in
dealing with these issues? Several other questions will emerge during the course of
my doctoral project which this thesis shall endeavour to answer. The thesis will seek to
examine the social consciousness developing through their plays, the issues they are
focussing on by their enhanced writing skills while keeping the lower strata people in their
minds. In addition to this the thesis shall seek to explore issues of Women sufferings/Gender
inequality, class conflicts, religious conflicts and Indian mythological dominance.

Girish Karnad tries to judge the contemporary realities in term of ol myths, legends and
history. He feels that literature is a vital part of historical process. He tries to challenge those
ethical questions for which no ready-made answers are available, neither in the past nor in the
present. He subverts myth and visualizes the whole reality in a subterranean fashion. He was
not interested in the social realities as they are and finds them boring. He employs myths and
legends to subterfuge to discuss socio-cultural evils. He operates on the evils of the society
myths, legends and history serve as a kind of anaesthesia. Myths and legends serve as a
metaphor for contemporary situation in Karnad’s plays. He uses them to draw the different
problems faced by the modern women in the patriarchal society, like Padmini in
Hayavadana, Rani in Nagamandala, Visakha and Nittilai in The Fire and the Rain.

Habib Tanvir with his pioneering effort in the direction of drama and theatres emerged as one
of the best Indian Urdu and Hindi playwright, director, actor and a poet who innovatively
shaped the contours of contemporary Indian stage. Tanvir was one of the greatest figures in
the field of folk literature, he linked theatres to the native traditions of performance which
made him stand as a class beyond comparison. He pioneered the revival of interest in folk
performance tradition and made it into a significant influential category in regards to the
contemporary theatres practise in India. Tanvir artistically fused the traditional and modern
elements in his dramaturgy which made his plays socially relevant, having touch of his own
secular, democratic and humane vision. In his play, Charandas Chor (1975), the most
celebrated, the most popular, most humane and most performed all over the world, merging
almost all the prominent folk elements known like comic spirit, rich fusion of folk music and
dance, native liveliness, flat characters and contemporary sensibilities. He introduced
Chhattisgarhi dialect as a language for a modern play with Chhattisgarh folk actors on stage.

Hypothesis:
In this proposed dissertation my effort will be critically evaluate and analyze the plays of
Habib Tanvir and Girish Karnad in respect to their regional values and traditions (i.e.
Chhattisgarhi and Kannad respectively). Tanvir and Karnad both are reknowned for their
prominent contribution in the field of folk literature. Both writers raise their voices against
the social and cultura problems prevailing in the society, but their approaches are a bit
different as Tanvir uses the original folk artist, folk songs and poems for the exact
representations of the traumas they were suffering through and in the meantime Karnad takes
the help of the myths and histories to make a necessary attack on the social and most
prominently the contemporary problems. This dissertation will be discussing, how the plays
of Tanvir and Karnad are culturally and socially awakening. Apart from this we will be
analyzing the folk elements used by Tanvir and Karnad in their plays. I shall take up these
plays in this dissertation:
Habib Tanvir

M. Boulton, The Anatomy of Drama (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960