JAF 121.480 - Garlough On The Political Uses of Folklore

Christine Lynn Garlough
On the Political Uses of Folklore: Performance

and Grassroots Feminist Activism in India
This essay explores the use of street theater by grassroots Indian feminist groups to
carve out a public forum and to articulate pressing concerns about rape, inheritance
law, and women’s representation in popular and historical texts. Focusing on a situ-
ated performance of a play titled Women in Search of Their History, I consider the
ways that the virangana, an Indian folk heroine type, and the garba, a women’s folk
dance, are appropriated and reinterpreted, becoming topics for rhetorical invention.
Critical play with these folk forms provides these women with the means to persua-
sively articulate a feminist message to diverse audience members.
[My] earliest memories are of the artificial famine created by the British military to feed
the soldiers in the Pacific theater of the Second World War. It was obviously illegal to pro-
test against this. As an extraordinary political move in response to this situation, was formed
what became a major phenomenon, the Indian People’s Theater Association, IPTA. They
took performance as the medium of protest. Obviously, the British were not coming to
check out street-level theater; the actors were not professional actors. What they were per-
forming was the famine and how to organize against it. . . . The fine thing was that the plays
were good; the songs were good. One still sings those songs, even on marches. That’s some-
thing that colored my childhood more than I knew then.
—Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Community-based, street-level theater, as Gayatri Spivak observes, grows out of mo-

ments of uncertainty and bears witness to the needs and suffering of individuals and
communities.1 Its work is political, and its appeal is often rooted in folklore. Indeed,
the beginnings of such radical Indian theater can be found in the Marxist movements
of the 1930s, when social activists first appropriated and explicitly politcized aspects
of traditional folk theater, such as Jatra in Bengal, Bhavai in Gujarat, and Nautanki
in Rajasthan. Such performances had a profound and long-term effect upon a broad
range of citizens, from the educated and elite to the illiterate and impoverished. Pro-
moting civic engagement, these performances exhibited a colloquial and evocative
rhetoric that called out to audiences to reflect upon pressing social, economic, and
Christine Lynn Garlough is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of

Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is an affiliate
of the Folklore Program and the Center for South Asia
Journal of American Folklore 121(480):167–191

Copyright © 2008 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
JAF 121_2.indd 167 3/13/08 11:44:03 AM

168 Journal of American Folklore 121 (2008)
political problems and to work toward reform in the colonial context. Activist per-
formers reinterpreted and appropriated a heritage of folk forms, figures, and prac-
tices and infused them with new meaning to raise critical consciousness, mobilize
communities, and constitute identities. In drawing from and reinterpreting a deep
pool of community traditions, these activists demonstrated a notable hermeneutical
and rhetorical competence that facilitated the invention of “appropriate responses”
to particular exigencies. This experimental mix of the folk, the popular, and the clas-
sical in street theater remains appealing for both civic performers and their audi-
ences even after six decades.
In this article, I focus upon a situated performance of a feminist, street-level play
entitled Nari Itihas Ki Talash Mai (Women in search of their history).2 Written by the
feminist activist Dr. Vibhuti Patel, with the support of women participating in a
Bombay feminist workshop, this play functions as a public act of remembrance that
revisions folk figures and traditional dance forms to make feminist claims for recog-
nition and to testify about the social injustices that galvanized the Indian women’s
movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Published in 1990, it is an exceptional example of
feminist work produced in the “writing against the grain” movement, and it has been
widely distributed and used by feminist groups across India at protest gatherings and
women’s events. It was first brought to my attention nine years ago while conducting
fieldwork in Gujarat, India, with a small grassroots feminist group called Sahiyar.
With these women, I learned about, experienced, and documented performances of
radicalized women’s folklore found in street plays, political songbooks, and material
artwork. As my fieldwork progressed with this group and others in the area, it became
clear that Sahiyar’s performance of Women in Search of Their History marked a crucial
moment in the introduction and development of a feminist presence in the local area
of Baroda.
Through a rhetorical analysis informed by feminist and performance theory, this
article considers the ways this play enacts a call of conscience and reveals a critical
moment in the creation of an Indian feminist constituency through arguments sup-
ported by the appropriation and reinterpretation of folk traditions associated with
women. Indeed, consideration of such street plays demands attention to the rich
connections and tensions between tradition and invention, persuasion and interpre-
tation. In the discipline of folklore, scholarly conversations concerning such intersec-
tions were initiated first by Roger Abrahams (1968), who drew heavily from the work
of Kenneth Burke (1931, 1950), as did many scholars of rhetoric during that time. In
recent years, a growing number of folklore scholars have reinvigorated investigations
into the interconnections between folklore and rhetoric (Howard 2005; Kirkwood
1983, 1985, 1990, 1992; Oring 2008; Sawin 2002). This essay hopes to contribute to
this ongoing conversation, particularly in regard to folklore performance contexts.
My approach draws upon the rhetorical theory of Thomas Farrell (1995) and Dwight
Conquergood (2002), hermeneutical philosophies of Hans Georg Gadamer (1976,
2004) and Emmanuel Levinas (1998), and Indian notions of aesthetics and rhetoric
(Sastri 1989). From this perspective, I examine the ways Indian folk traditions are
often reinterpreted and appropriated to serve as inventional resources in rhetorical
texts that strive to create constituencies and support social transformation.
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Garlough, Feminist Activism and Indian Street Theater 169
I begin by discussing the interconnection of Indian notions of aesthetics, rhetoric,

and hermeneutics, directing specific attention to the use of eclecticism that can be
found from the Vedic period to Indian Nationalism and contemporary postcolonial-
ism. This framework enables me to provide a culturally situated means of understand-
ing the ways that folk practices and representations are transfigured within Women
in Search of Their History and used to support a feminist argument for reconceptual-
izing the “common women” as exemplary. I then provide a detailed account of the
context for Sahiyar’s performance of Women in Search of Their History that leads me
to a consideration of how we might understand the work of this performance when,
as Soyini Madison notes, it must “not only inform and enlighten, it must not only be
beautifully beautiful, but must have palpable effects for structural change and policy”
(2006:400).
Toward this end, I offer a rhetorical analysis of the performance, in which I contend
that Women in Search of Their History’s central concern is testifying to the glaring
absence of “common women” and their achievements in Indian historical narratives.
Instead, a folk heroine type—the virangana, or “exceptional woman”—is often invoked
to exemplify female leadership in historical and political discourse. This representation
of “ideal” Indian womanhood has served the purposes of many political and religious
parties, from Indian nationalists during the colonial period to the conservative Bharati-
ya Janata Party (BJP) in recent years. Since the 1970s, some Indian feminists also have
tried to put this representation to use for their own political purposes. However, this
approach has been hotly contested by Dalits (an identification for groups of individu-
als once designated as untouchable), tribals, and other marginalized groups of women
who might consider involvement in the movement but who feel excluded by repre-
sentations like the virangana that are typically high caste and Hindu. This approach,
they assert, denies a common woman’s history, rich with stories of women from di-
vergent castes, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds struggling for democratic
rights, ecological preservation, and a public and private sphere free from violence
against women.
The play asserts that, in order for women to understand themselves as potential
agents in bringing about long-term social change, they must become aware that they
are bound together by their experiences of social marginality and exclusion, as well
as by the particular ways that, despite oppression, they enact a women’s culture with-
in their respective communities. This, I contend, is accomplished by refiguring the
notion of the “common woman” into an anti-essentialist trope that demonstrates
unity within diversity. This move is a delicate one. As French philosopher Jacques
Ranciere points out, a term such as “the common woman” involves “an impossible
identification,” one that in many senses no woman would want to embrace (1995:66).
And yet, the gap it articulates—between what is socially valued and what is not—
makes it a potentially important term in demonstrations for recognition. This act of
radical appropriation constitutes an ironic hopefulness that the word “common” can
be resignified.
In reinterpreting and connecting fragments of oral history, memory, and folk tradi-
tion, this piece of street theater hopes to reconceive common practices as revolution-
ary, heroic, and ultimately potentially constitutive of an Indian feminist consciousness.
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That is, the actors and participants actively construct a representation of the “common
woman” that presents irreconcilable elements, plays with the tension this produces,
and embraces the fact that a synthesis is neither possible nor desirable. Indeed, the
rhetorical power of this play comes from the fact that there is no closure or resolution
but instead an acknowledgment of the diversity and uniqueness of experiences. It
ultimately argues that, even with these divisions and differences, South Asian women
make up a feminist constituency on the basis of a shared oppression, yet it does so
while acknowledging how issues of caste, class, regional affiliation, and religion com-
plicate these connections and potential unity. It opens a pathway, avoiding on one side
an essential, fixed notion of woman and, on the other side, undifferentiation.
Persuasion, Interpretation, and Tradition in Western

and Indian Traditions
Rhetoric in the West—conceptualized broadly as the art of persuasion—often has

been associated with notions of the classical, particularly classical Greek philosophy.
Yet the work of rhetoric and faith in its potential is very much grounded in the ev-
eryday and can be found in all cultures around the world. As Walter Jost and Michael
Hyde note, all humans “are rhetorical beings, creatures who are capable of dealing
symbolically with particular matters that we recognize as pressing and that require
careful deliberation and judgment, but whose meaning and significance are pres-
ently ambiguous, uncertain, and contestable” (1997:2). We are socialized into this
rhetorical competence. We learn how to call forth the appropriate discourse and
practices when confronted by crisis or need (Farrell 1995). Thus, narratives, rituals,
material art, and other aspects of folk culture all provide material by and through
which rhetors advance agendas, support social movements, and constitute identities
(Conquergood 1992).
The type of interpretation and appropriation involved in this process has been a
central point of interest within hermeneutic philosophy (Gadamer 2004). That is, it
long has been recognized that traditional texts are inexhaustible; they are always in
the process of being defined as the course of history reveals new meaning. This “in-
escapable play of interpretation” (Caputo 2000:57) involves moments of self-recog-
nition and requires putting ourselves at risk. In these spaces and times, we risk our
own meanings, beliefs, and practices in order to offer—to neighbors, strangers, friends,
and those we may never meet—a perspective upon truth and an opportunity to engage
with others (Caputo 2000:57). When we appropriate and reinterpret cultural prac-
tices to persuade others of something, a “retrieval of the old is equally an unfolding
of the new” (Jost and Hyde 1997:16). In this way, tradition is conceptualized as some-
thing radically contingent and not an essential truth “that cuts off the coming of the
other” (Caputo 2000:56). Used in what Emmanuel Levinas (1998) refers to as “calls
of conscience,” traditional folk forms can evoke powerful appeals that demand that
we do not remain indifferent to the suffering and needs of others.
Folklorists also have developed a lasting interest in the power of strategic interpre-
tation and appropriation to sustain, revitalize, and critically transform cultural tradi-
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tions and communities. The work of Bauman (1977, 1990, 1992; Baumann and Briggs
1993), Del Negro (2004), Kapchan (1996), Kishenblatt-Gimblett (1983), Mieder (1987),
Radner and Lanser (1993), and Zipes (1983), among others, all speak to the ways that
individuals purposively (re)make socially accepted folk forms to communicate mar-
ginalized or potentially threatening social perspectives. Indeed, it has been many de-
cades since folklore itself has been conceptualized as the fossilized remnants of a di-
minished past or since its performance has been seen as a movement of aberrant return.
This we know; on an everyday basis, people in all corners of the globe work to create
communities, think through their problems, make sense of their lives, and find new
meaning within them through folk practices and performances. Yet, what remains
perplexing, given folklore’s prevalence and importance within the public sphere, is the
relative lack of critical work that attends explicitly to folklore from a rhetorical perspec-
tive (Garlough 2007; Howard 2005; McArthur 2004; Sawin 2002).
In India, while texts discussing folk and classical arts and their persuasive and
interpretive potential have existed since classical Vedic times, until recently there was
no separate study of folklore, aesthetics, rhetoric, or hermeneutics, at least as Western
scholars have understood them. Indeed, philosophers made no strict demarcations
between these fields, as they felt that each of these areas of inquiry contains elements
that were intricately related to the others (Oliver 1971:7). There was avid contempla-
tion of the basic principles of music, material arts, dance, and drama, and philosophers
and scholars often dwelt upon the intersection between experience and self-under-
standing. In this, a basic principle developed; when one encounters a work of art—folk
or classic—one’s way of seeing one’s world and one’s self-understanding expands
(Dehejia 2004). Art, in this sense, does the work of posing questions. In the encoun-
ter, there is a revelatory process that takes place and discloses or suggests approach-
es for thinking about “the way things are.” This experience of art is ontologically
universal; that is, art discloses being (Paranjape 2004:15). What is central to this
experience is neither exclusively form (sabda) nor content (artha) (Kumar 1993:99).
Rather, it is a dependant and interactive combination of the two that results in the
experience of meaning. As P. S. Sastri writes, “Aesthetic pleasure is not a sensuous
response to form but to the total movement of meaning in the form of a work of art.
. . . The world known through form in art is so set into the materials that ‘thought’
cannot be differentiated from it, nor indeed the aesthetic differentiated from the
non-aesthetic elements” (1989:170).
Abhinavagupta (a.d. 975–1025), a classical philosopher of aesthetics and rhetoric
and the author of a seminal text on Indian theatre entitled Abhinavabharati, “speaks
of the apprehension of this unity as being distinct from any empirical one. It is an
apprehension involving the expansion of the self, a transformation of the spirit brought
forth by the aesthetic imagination which invests the individual with the vision and
faculty of the divine” (Sastri 1989:167). In this sense, art transcends deliberated rea-
son, will, and thought, yet it includes all of these in the aesthetic. Bhattanayaka, the
author of another classical text on Indian theater entitled Natyashastra, makes simi-
lar claims about the ways that imaginative experience alters desire (rajas) and passions
(tams) to support the needs of reason or spirit (sattva). Indeed, the Sanskrit word for
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playwright is kavi, the origins of which come from the Sanskrit verb ku, meaning to
show or reveal (Maharishi 2000:35).
Art and Identification
Art was thought to possess a particular potential for presenting ideas in a way that
facilitates communication about the collective consciousness and that encourages
reflection about the connection between self and community, values, and beliefs.
Based on these ideas, classical Indian scholars, anticipating notions raised by Burke,
advance the view that the aesthetic experience may facilitate identification. Indeed,
Abhinavagupta observes that the “true” aesthetic experience can only be had by audi-
ence members who can identify themselves with the characters (Sastri 1989:134).
Bhattanayaka writes that identification is the first of the three key phases of the aes-
thetic experience, an opening of the self to the universal and an experience of illu-
mination being the other two (Pandi 1977:88). This key feature of the aesthetic state
induced by drama is the evocation of the “appropriate responses” from the audience
and the transmutation of these emotions and ideas into something universal and
objective (sadharanikarna).
These orientations toward self-reflexivity and identification also can be seen in
contemporary street theater. Feminist scholar and activist Malini Bhattacharya (1983)
has argued that such performances provide an important means by which audiences
come to know themselves, others, and the social problems facing their communities.
Street plays, however, often reflect postcolonial desires to move away from classical
Indian or Westernized structures and toward an eclectic use of folk, classical, and
popular culture. This is not surprising, for while eclecticism was never recognized as
a formal school of thought in India, it commonly has been understood as a deeply
rooted interpretive (hermeneutic) practice and means of rhetorical invention by South
Asian scholars studying Indian philosophy. Often used in times of sociopolitical or
religious transition, this method of eclecticism can be seen in Vedic texts and ritual
practices, nationalist political speeches, and the contemporary literature of postco-
lonial authors (Hatcher 1999:12).
As opposed to syncretism, eclecticism involves the purposeful selection and creative
incorporation of disparate elements in a single text. These elements do not seek resolu-
tion or synthesis. Rather, the force of this discourse comes from putting unconnected
entities to use in creating meaning, regardless of the internal contradictions produced.
Thus, when analyzing texts, be they textual or material, a critic pays attention to the
“methods of choice, patterns of desired connections, and accepted disjunctions” (Hatch-
er 1999:11). Eclecticism often challenges form in the name of invention—the ability to
perceive relationships among things and thereby create new understandings of reality.
Opening space for new meaning, it brings together both similar and contrastive ele-
ments to create opportunities for shared meaning through discourse and allows indi-
viduals to engage with aspects of tradition and authority in a way that calls into question
legitimacy without complete dismissal. This method is thought to contribute to various
types of hybridity, as discussed by postcolonial scholars like Homi Bhabha (1990), Arif
Dirlik (1994), and Ella Shohat (1992).
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Community-based, Street-level Theater in India
We see this eclectic method in many instances of Indian community-based, street-

level theater, where various elements of culture are appropriated and combined within
a single performance. Its heritage stems from a long-standing tradition of folk theater
in India. In many ways it is a “modern, urbanized version of numerous folk forms. As
people moved to urbanized centers, they brought along their own cultural expressions
with them, while borrowing from their new urban culture. Indeed, it is the possibilities
of dynamic improvisation that have made street theater a popular medium” (Sram-
pickal 1990:102). And these performances do not simply occur in the streets. Rather, diverse
audiences assemble in courtyards, open lots, factory gates, old temples and churches,
warehouses, tents, town halls, and exhibition sites (Davis 1986). As Bim Mason notes,
what is important about community-based, street-level theater is not that it has no roof
over its head; rather, what matters is that the performance is away from “the predefined
structures of a theater building” and is in close proximity to the audience and the pos-
sibility of interaction with them (1992:3).
Such performance is “situated between entertainment and efficacy, art for pleasure
and art that concretely does something, be it in the realm of education, therapy, counter-
history making, community organizing, or social change” (Cohen-Cruz 2006:427). It
is theater that values debate. Dialogue, song, and dance in these performances offer
opportunities for shared understanding about community problems and the ways in-
dividuals might work together to solve them. In doing so, these performances are stra-
tegically designed to raise consciousness about issues of social relevance, provide social
critiques, and involve people at a grassroots level to effect change.3
Such performances in their modern form began to be used most widely in the
1930s, particularly by IPTA (India People’s Theater Association), a Bengali group
affiliated with the Communist Party of India. This organization spent decades per-
forming pieces such as Aaj Ka Sawaal (The problems of today), Charge Sheet, Bhook
Ki Jwaala (The flames of hunger), and Swathantra Sangram (Independence struggle)
to engage the masses in social activism against imperial forces. As an alternative to
commercialized, bourgeois theater, the IPTA sought to provide experimental perfor-
mances linking the traditional and the modern and using content drawn from con-
temporary reality. As Indian feminist playwright and scholar Malini Bhattacharya
notes, by revitalizing folk culture to embody a “cultural forum where urban and rural
sections of the struggling people might communicate,” this interventionist theater
hoped to affect the social order. “It is not a movement which is imposed from above
but one which has its roots deep down in the cultural awakenings of the masses of
India . . . which seeks to revive the lost in that heritage by interpreting, adopting, and
integrating it with the most significant facts of our people’s lives and aspirations in
the present epoch” (Bhattacharya 1983:5–6).
These performances continue to play an important role in the political activities of
grassroots groups across India. As Bhattacharya states, “Its aim is not just to provide
refined entertainment, but to work subtly upon the cultural habits of the peoples involved
in it” (1979:19). As cultural intervention, “it aims at change in popular consciousness
by working directly at the level of consciousness. This is not to negate the importance
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of change at the political and economic level, but to assert that politicization of cul-
tural forms is a slow and gradual process and cannot be achieved merely through
generalized political directives” (Bhattacharya 1979:6). This notion of explicitly politi-
cizing the cultural is not a practice unique to India, yet it remains understudied.
Today, a variety of groups in India use street-level theater to make political argu-
ments in a colloquial and engaging manner. Indeed, religious reformers, urban activ-
ists, mainstream politicians, citizen groups, factory workers, and students all have
used this form in the hopes of gaining support for their agendas. Although the gov-
ernment has occasionally attempted to shut down these performances, taking puni-
tive measures against authors and artists, these plays continue to be produced for
audiences that range from handfuls to hundreds. Interestingly, the success of street
theater as an artful form of political engagement has attracted the attention of Indian
government officials for more self-interested reasons. Indeed, hoping to generate
support for mainstream political policies, those who work for the Song and Drama
Division have hired actors for street performances that advance the agendas of the
controlling party and its leaders. In this way, street theater, a creation of revolutionary
spirit and critical consciousness, occasionally has been re-appropriated.
The Making/Doing of Street-level Performance
Often, scripts evolve through informal group discussion, beginning with the selection
of an exigence that needs to be addressed. In this way, performances become “an
expression of a specific community’s stories, issues, knowledge, and needs” (Prentki
and Selman 2000:8). Common themes include the caste system, communalism, health
care, political corruption, terrorism, current economic trends, alcoholism, sexism,
and police brutality. To ground their political concerns, authors reference real life
cases in the scripts or contextualize complex issues through current events. Popular
film tunes, folksongs and folk dances, and characters from popular literature or me-
dia are also frequently drawn upon in the scripts, not only to provide entertainment
but also to serve as touchstones or familiar comparison points. These folk elements
frequently do not retain their “traditional” meanings; rather, they are strategically
appropriated and transformed to articulate social critiques or to advance claims for
recognition. In order to appropriately engage audiences, the language in these per-
formances is colloquial, militant, and provocative in character. Rather than exhibiting
a linear narrative, progressive character development, and the suspension of disbelief,
scripts often use episodic plot structure and restricted cause and effect between scenes.
Moreover, the content of the scripts is typically regarded as dynamic, even during
performances. For example, during the play it is not unusual for audience members
to respond to the scripted discourse, prompting further unscripted remarks from the
actors. This type of exchange often continues after the performance, during question-
and-answer sessions that focus upon the issue at hand.
This opportunity for both actors and audience members to contribute to a political
discussion in a public space allows for a unique exchange that is not often available
to many citizens. Such a forum expands the range of possible audience members to
include those who have been denied educational opportunities or who have very
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limited economic means. Indeed, because street theater is essentially a mobile me-
dium, actors can go out in search of this audience. Of course, this mobility also often
means that no stage exists and props are kept to a minimum. Costumes, particularly
masks, sometimes provide a bit of illusion; however, emphasis is placed most heav-
ily upon the performance of the actors.
Women’s organizations across India use street theater to critique prevailing gender
inequalities in kinship, caste, class, and community relationships and also voice al-
ternative visions of the future. Street theater is thought to provide an educational
setting in which people learn how to perceive, express, comment upon, and shape
aspects of themselves, their community, and their culture. Reimagining and re-rep-
resenting emerging identities, these performances create a space for Indian women
to portray themselves in their own terms rather than in those of mainstream society.
Beyond this, performances provide a place where these identities can be enacted. The
stage is a place where new cultural possibilities are suggested and explored, with the
hope of utopian impact.
Performing Women’s History
I now turn to Sahiyar’s performance of Women in Search of Their History. Here, my

rhetorical analysis attends to several facets of the event, from the activists involved
and their political goals, to the audience who engaged with the performance, to the
feminist claims for recognition that the play advances. My information about the
details of the event comes from in-depth interviews with the author, Vibhuti Patel;
Sahiyar’s director, Trupti Shah; as well as other women associated with this feminist
group. Part of the autonomous women’s movement, Sahiyar has been working for
women’s rights for the last two decades. The organization was founded by a group of
students from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Varodara in 1984, and its ex-
plicit long-term goal has been “to work towards a society which is free from any form
of inequality, injustice and oppression against any human being . . . a society in which
women have equal status and recognition as human beings” (Sahiyar 2005:4). To meet
this goal, Sahiyar provides programs to “support services to women for their imme-
diate needs in the struggle for justice” (Sahiyar 2005:5), such as helping young girls
continue to pursue their educational aspirations and helping women to establish
savings groups and legal-awareness workshops. They also organize political campaigns
relating to issues of rape, domestic violence, communal violence between Hindus and
Muslims, sex-determination testing, and sex-selection abortion.
Most of the women who initially became involved with Sahiyar through commu-
nity-education programs later found that Sahiyar’s feminist approach somehow
resonated with their personal experiences and hopes for social reform. Years afterward,
many of them serve as advocates for the women in their community. In my interviews,
many women, like Jaya Roy, expressed that they “feel fortunate to have [an] oppor-
tunity to share their stories” and provide new ways of interpreting them.4 They are
aware that, as Daksha Patel stated, they “are giving the gift that was given to them”
by listening to the stories of others and compassionately responding to calls for help
and recognition. In these moments, there is something both social and personal at
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work. There is a regard for the pain of others, because it relates to broader social
problems. There is also the connection that these women feel because often they too
have felt oppressed in similar ways. Certainly, the stories shared among the women
within the walls of Sahiyar’s office are often painful, many relating to social, sexual,
or domestic violence of some sort. The question, as philosophers of rhetoric Jost and
Hyde (1997) contend, is how to organize and advance an argument about it, speak
in a timely manner, form communal bonds, and struggle with others. Street plays are
one way in which the women of Sahiyar accomplish just that.
Because of Sahiyar’s decision to remain an autonomous grassroots organization
and reject funding from granting agencies that might want to influence its agendas
and activities, the group often finds itself without substantial monetary resources.5
Indeed, when the group first organized in 1985, it had no regular office space. This
continued for several years until Trupti contacted her close friend Vibhuti to brain-
storm for possible options. The two had collaborated together since 1974 in social
activist causes, such as the youth movement and the anti–price rise women’s move-
ment of the early 1970s.6 Both had worked with the Varodara Worker’s Union, found-
ed by Trupti’s father, Col. Thakor Shah, and Vibhuti’s husdand, Dr. Amar Jesani.
In 1990, Vibhuti suggested a charity show from which the proceeds could be used
to buy a flat. The idea was taken up enthusiastically, and together Trupti and Vib-
huti decided that a performance of Women in Search of Their History would be a
fitting means by which to introduce the group’s feminist agenda to the Varodara
community. Written by Vibhuti with support from members of a feminist workshop
in Mumbai, the play drew upon Vibhuti’s personal involvement in radical movements
of the late 1960s, such as the anti–Vietnam War campaign, as well as the key events
of the 1970s that led to her gradual transition into women’s issues. Her stories offered
an alternative way to interpret Indian women’s social agency and political contribu-
tion in the last four decades, explicitly asserting the need to recognize the interpen-
etration of private and public spheres, home and politics, individual and commu-
nity. Similar to many oral histories, the play drew together “(historical) fact and
(storied) symbol into the precarious, co-creative process of memory making” to “tell
the past in order to tell the future—not to predict, to reveal, or to foreclose on it but
to catch it in ethical threads drawn in the act of telling” (Pollock 2006:88). That is,
through this script, Vibhuti did not seek to provide a more definitive or “truthful”
version of history. Rather, as she indicated in an interview, she hoped to participate
in a consciousness-raising campaign, make feminist claims for recognition, and
“highlight women’s collective endeavor for social transformation.” However, through
the use of folk forms, her testimony told truths in a way quite different from court-
room discourse, political speeches, or media soundbites. In our conversations she
noted, “The storytelling method is the most effective tool to reach out to uninitiated
people in the women’s movement” because people “identify with form and learn
from the content.” Ultimately, Vibhuti and various groups staged more than thirty
performances of Women in Search of Their History in Maharestra. This speaks to the
ways in which such plays are often part of an enlongated process; they are what I
refer to as “traveling texts,” which exist within the matrices of multiple opportunities
for participation, in differing contexts, over time.
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Sahiyar’s performance of Women in Search of Their History eventually took place

in Varodara’s town hall. It was a venue that gestured toward the group’s explicitly
political aims and desire to take part in the broader Indian political context. How-
ever, their choice to address the audience through a street play also spoke quite mean-
ingfully to their alternative approach to confronting social problems, to the type of
hands-on community work in which they anticipated participating, and to the net-
works through which they saw this work occurring. Sahiyar’s performance at the
town hall, like every subsequent performance of this play, developed in specific ways
in response to the venue and audience. For example, prior performances in Mumbai
had been staged in neighborhood centers or school courtyards, which drew together
less politically active audiences who exhibited more skepticism toward the feminist
message. In such settings, the resistive discourse of this play was meant to introduce
feminist perspectives, provide a new lens through which to interpret women’s his-
tory, and lay the initial groundwork for political participation in the future.
Unlike these other settings, the performance considered in this essay occurred
before a diverse but already politicized and concerned audience. It was an event that
gathered together spectators who generally supported a feminist agenda, although
the nuances of their positions provided ample room for debate. Thus, this particular
performance provides an interesting case study; indeed, little attention has been paid
to the use of street theater in these sorts of public-sphere settings. It reveals the ways
that street theater can be used not only as a form of radical outreach but also as a
means to share disparate perspectives in a quasi-deliberative situation composed of
other activists and engaged community members. Vibhuti recalls, “There were men
and women office goers, teachers, industrial workers, artists, public school and college
students. They were upper and lower caste, Hindu, Muslim, and Christian.” Indeed,
the event had been strategically promoted to various nongovernmental organizations
in the area with the hopes of networking and encouraging such a socially diverse
audience to attend. As Trupti points out, “No one group can do everything. The only
way small grassroots groups survive is through networking with others and sharing
resources.”
In this sense, the event itself developed partially out of the dynamics of seeing and
being seen, which have been largely ignored in the discipline of folklore but which
are addressed by Giovanna Del Negro (2004), who draws upon the work of Irving
Goffman and Richard Bauman. Fueled by the desires of audience members and per-
formers, gaze was manifested and functioned in different ways within the performance
setting. For example, Vibhuti recalled that before the performance even began, mem-
bers of the diverse audience closely watched one another for a sense of how to respond
to this presentation and to each other. Attempting to read the landscape, people looked
around the venue to see who was in attendance, with whom they sat, what organiza-
tions were represented, how enthused or supportive they appeared to be, or what
concerns they already were expressing. For some, Vibhuti remembered, this gaze
fueled a desire to identify with the performers and their feminist agenda. For others,
the diversity of the crowd generated some anxiety, stemming from conflicting per-
spectives upon women’s issues; for example, a handful of the Marxist feminists men-
tally prepared to debate with the liberal feminists. Waiting for the opening lines, the
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audience members discussed their impressions among themselves and formed judg-
ments about the event and its participants. In this way, very early on, the audience
members became an integral part of the performance and its potential.
Once the performance began, the actors on the sparse stage also were oriented toward
and drawn into this sense of seeing and being seen. In interviews, Vibhuti said that she
felt that the audience members’ gazes in many ways fueled the enthusiasm and desire
of the performers. Appearing publicly to others as a feminist—through costumes, ges-
tures, gait, discourse, and glance—generated feelings of power and personal fulfillment,
along with varying degrees of nervousness. The sense of gaze also worked produc-
tively to connect the actors together, creating a sense of “we-ness” that transcended
their personal histories. Interestingly, the performance also facilitated a critique of the
“male gaze,” which women often are asked to manage in their everyday lives. The per-
formers on stage directly addressed the audience members, meeting their eyes, display-
ing themselves, and offering their words freely, thereby challenging the “pornographic
gaze” and “panoptic discipline” of the female body. In addition, there was a sense of
seeing and being seen after the performance concluded—a way of seeing and being
seen as feminist continuing to enact a political role in the public sphere.
Foregrounding the enmeshed sense of personal and political concern, performance
as a resistive act, and post-performance political engagement is important to under-
standing this type of grassroots activism. This was not a professional performance.
These performers—costumed in differing salwar kameez and in simple sarees to rep-
resent village women, shopkeepers, policemen, husbands, urban working women,
and tribal women of differing castes, classes, and religions—had, for the most part,
no training. Rather, like many audience members, it was their personal experiences
and political convictions that drew them to the play. In this performance, these wom-
en enacted a testimonial, illustrating realities that they actually lived and felt. That is,
these women did not merely know about these issues. Rather, they possessed an in-
timate and perhaps traumatic knowledge, due to their experiences with these prob-
lems. Yet, interestingly, the eclectic form of the play also helped the performers to
admit to a certain “passion for ignorance” about knowing “the truth” of women’s
suffering and oppression.7 That is, the eclectic form allowed for diverse voices and
perspectives, some of which contradicted one another and allowed for productive
lines of inquiry to emerge. Consequently, both performers and audience members
engaged in a critical encounter with what was “known” about their situation and what
was unknown from the lives of other women (Pollock 2006). Such a traumatic en-
counter opened the possibility for an ethical relationship with the other and to the
other’s suffering (Levinas 1998). There was a common experience of wanting to be
recognized, and yet there was a need to guard against an appropriation of the other
that would deny singularity and difference.8
Vibhuti remembered that the perspectives advanced in the play gave rise to a com-
plex set of emotions in audience members, ranging from compassion to anger, and
“enthused many college girls and working women to join the women’s movement.”
The air in the performance was charged, stemming from passionate recognition, mo-
tivation to enact change, and sometimes a sense of discomfort as the women performed
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secrets, “artistically publicizing the intimacies of private life in the public sphere” (Kap-
chan 1996:184). Vibhuti noted, “The working-class women were particularly moved
by the episode of Chipko. The urban women were impressed by anti-price struggles
and the women victims of violence were specifically interested in the fight for just
family laws.” And yet, also they were engaged by each others’ stories as well. What was
notably absent from the audience was a sense of disregard or hostility toward the
feminist perspective being advanced. This, Trupti claimed, would have been much
more likely had the performance taken place on the street. In this case, the venue, the
event structure, and the charitable nature of the function worked to create an “intimate”
environment that was open and supportive of the subversive message advanced in the
performance.
Yet, Women in Search of Their History certainly exhibits conventional street theater
form in a number of ways. The resistive discourse is relayed to the audience in a variety
of regional languages from Marathi to Bengali, further emphasizing the diversity inher-
ent within the women’s movement. In colloquial and evocative language, the play deals
with five separate issues of paramount importance to the feminist movement in India:
consumer and environmental economics, rape, property rights, sati (the immolation
of widows on their husband’s funeral pyres), and domestic violence. Each concern is
explored in a separate scene involving a unique plot, set of characters, and setting. In
all cases, issues are contextualized by referring to real events well known to the public,
including the 1976 Chipko Movement; the notorious Madhura rape; Lata Mittal’s chal-
lenge of the Hindu Code concerning property rights; Mary Roy’s fight against Christian
property laws; Shahnaz Sheik’s rally against the Shariat Law; and Laroojoko, Buribai,
and Dagbai’s protest against native land rights that exclude women. Each instance serves
to exemplify the ways that dominance cuts across class, caste, and religious lines, even
as it is manifest in ways specific to each. The form of this piece of street theater as a
whole is eclectic, playing with and reinterpreting neglected moments in women’s his-
tory, arranging them in such a way that they speak to—and at times against—one an-
other, and creating a shared space in which they can dissent and explore possible con-
nections, despite differences in religion, region, caste, and class.
Invisible or Exemplary? The Legacy of the Virangana Tradition
In terms of rhetorical strategy, this performance addresses two complex exigencies

relating to the identity and development of the Indian feminist movement. Consistent
with concerns of many second-wave feminists, the first speaks to the invisibility and/
or homogeneous representations of women in mainstream historical texts. Specifi-
cally, the authors argue that the social and cultural contributions made by women
consistently have been overlooked, and when they are not, women are most often
portrayed in terms of the “virangana” in Indian folk tradition—a heroic and patri-
otic woman who is Hindu, upper caste, atypically educated, or in some other way
“exemplary.” This tactic has led to the impression among women in lower class, caste,
or tribal groups that feminism is for the handful that are privileged. This set of viran-
gana representations, although perhaps less problematic than the silent, subservient
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figures found in colonial discourse, are so removed from most women’s everyday
experiences that they do not encourage identification.
Such a perspective is clearly articulated in the opening scene of Women in Search
of Their History, through both discursive and nondiscursive means:
(On the stage a woman sits, her back facing the audience.)
narrator: In the past a woman has always struggled and worked hard. She has done
farming, made herbal medicines, decorated art works, and with her inner strength
she has looked after society’s welfare. But alas! History has still not acknowledged
them.
Why have history, the epics, and the ancient texts never talked about the varied
and significant contributions of a woman?
Only the popular figures like Jijibai and the Queen of Jhansi are known. What
about the portrayal of a common woman? (Patel 1990:1)
Here the narrator invokes the virangana folk tradition in order to problematize and
re-appropriate it, holding open the possibility that common women—the millions of
women without the privileges of high-caste birth, wealth, or education—may too be
regarded as exemplary. Indeed, they may be exemplary precisely because of their
“commonness.”
In popular usage, the term “virangana” refers to both real women and fictional
characters who are extraordinary or ideal leaders within their communities; these
women may appear in Indian folksongs and legends, modern novels and folk theater,
or comic books and films. Unlike most women, they typically have been educated by
a father or father figure and so are literate, cultured, and skilled in physical combat
and arts of war. Thus, it is not surprising that in popular media, pictures of viranga-
nas disrupt gender boundaries—a dignified woman in masculine clothes and a turban,
waving a sword, riding on horseback, and calling to mind the goddesses Durga and
Kali. When given the opportunity to rule as a result of a husband or male kinsman’s
death, they are ideal leaders: just, wise, and generous in their administration. Indeed,
often the virangana appears in the face of a deteriorating moral order or foreign inva-
sion, where her bravery and self-sacrifice is what sustains traditional society. For this
reason, the virangana has been used regularly by religious and nationalist groups to
comment upon and critique political and social oppression.
The exemplary behavior of the virangana would seem to make her a likely candidate
for feminist appropriation. Yet, in this scene, we see the rejection of this traditional
representation. Rather, the work of memory enacted in this play issues a call for critical
remembrance: a recalling of the ways that common women have exhibited leadership
to everyday political and community change. Here, the invisibility of the common
woman is countered by naming everyday resistance alternatively—that is, as exem-
plary. The common woman, as opposed to the virangana, becomes a topical recourse
that provides the grounds for collective social struggle. And although “common” cer-
tainly is not a word that most women typically would apply to themselves in everyday
discourse, much can be made out of its negative connotations. Indeed, within some
Dalit and tribal women’s movements, emic terms like “common women” have dovetailed
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with and supported Marxist feminist theories about the condition of women in India
(Omvedt 1990). This constitutive address is productive, because it points to a social
bias, makes space for political connection, and allows for “the articulation of a gap”
(Ranciere 1995:68). That is, “common women” is not the name of any group that could
be sociologically distinguished. Indeed, a common woman is in many ways the name
of an outcast, the name of a person denied acknowledgment in a given polity. This
disidentification or misrecognition, however, points to the connection of women who
are “together to the extent that they are between” (Ranciere 1995:67). While acknowl-
edging the diversity of women’s lives and their performances of gender, class, caste, and
religion, this term provides a location from which to explore a basis for feminist con-
stituency that grows from naming everyday women’s experiences differently—as po-
litically consequential. In this way, the “nonplace” of the common woman—the in-
between space—becomes a site for rhetorical play and polemical construction. Once
re-signified, the “linguistic display” of this term constitutes an ironic hopefulness, in-
venting and sustaining a simultaneously shared and oppositional identity.
Between History and Possibility
This commonness is performed in this scene by the narrator, whose back is to the
audience and remains faceless. This absence of an immediately recognizable, essen-
tialized identity raises the possibilities for broader identification. Addressing the
audience directly, the narrator asks them to read against the grain of history and to
reinterpret the everyday experiences of women as more than everyday. These prac-
tices, she argues, are vital societal contributions situated within a set of women’s
cultural traditions and are “exemplary” in their own right. This rejection of the vi-
rangana offers a new feminist vision of becoming that invites women to reimagine
their role in history and their connections with one another through resistive prac-
tices. The chorus carries this call forward with a song:
chorus: Come on sisters, let’s go in search of our history.

song: Where did we come from?
Where do we have to go?
Where are our limits?
Come on sisters.
What is our past?
What are our dreams of the future?
Where does our destiny lie?
Watch and look where your step falls, listen, and then proceed forward.
Keep your eyes open.
Keep your mind open.
Move with self-confidence. Let’s move . . . (Patel 1990:3)
Through this song, the female performers foster a process of political subjectiviza-
tion for women who are together to the extent that they are in between histories
and possibilities (Ranciere 1995:68). Their questions and directives enact notions
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of equality for the audience members. They suggest a new means for interpreting
their participation in grassroots activism. Indeed, they are not merely calling at-
tention to events that have been passed over in mainstream discourse, although
this certainly is an important part of the witnessing that occurs. Rather, they enact
a “hermeneutic of difference” in which there is “no longer a positive ideal that needs
to be restored but simply a certain capacity to resist the identities that are imposed
upon us, just to set free our capacity to invent such new identities for ourselves as
circumstances allow” (Caputo 2000:34). This opens up space for new radical inter-
pretations of women, their role in history, and their contributions to the feminist
movement.
The Common Woman
The second exigency addressed in the performance relates to a critique of the feminist
movement made by Dalit and tribal women. Here, the performers raise important
concerns about second-wave feminists’ claim that the basis for a women’s movement
is the common experience of oppression. Mindful of the violence of essentialism, the
performers argue that while all women may by affected by social problems such as
rape or inequitable inheritance law, these problems are experienced differently by those
in lower castes or classes and by those in marginalized groups like tribals, Muslims,
or Christians. In questioning such an essentialized identity, the performers also ac-
knowledge the uncertainty and contingency of every identity. Each woman, the actors
claim, should be understood as an individual who occupies a range of subject positions
that are constituted within various discursive formations. For this reason, many find
it ironic that women who are typically high caste or intellectuals cultivate the focus
upon common oppression, shared identity, and sameness. Frustrated, many Dalit and
tribal women have rejected the feminist movement entirely. The claim of “common
oppression,” they argue, obscures important aspects of women’s complicated and di-
verse social realities. Moreover, this perspective overlooks the many ways in which
women may exploit or oppress other women.
One might reasonably wonder, then, is a political union between such diverse groups
of women possible? Women in Search of Their History suggests that the answer is yes.
Echoing the thoughts of Judith Butler, the performance argues that the use of such
totalizations can be productive, so long as they are used both critically and tactically
(Butler 1993:29). That is, even as individuals recognize that they are positioned and
identified reductively by a term, they also may engage in “strategic essentialism” in
order to simultaneously mobilize groups and interrogate the totalization’s exclusions
and power dynamics. Such a practice works toward the creation of a constituency,
even as it celebrates a diversity of backgrounds. Consequently, the authors reinterpret
and play with the notion of the common woman throughout this text, arguing that
such a representation can manifest both cohesive and irreconcilable elements.
In the performance, this representation manifests both discursively and nondis-
cursively, as is apparent in scene 4, which deals with issues relating to rape and the
Mathura case.9
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(A talk between common women—a mother and daughter.)

daughter: Mother, I was raped . . .
mother: Don’t say another word. Your sister’s wedding will be held. Just keep quiet
and don’t utter a word about it.
chorus: Keep quiet. Keep quiet. Don’t protest. Just bear it.
(The girl goes to the ruling party representative.)
daughter: I was raped. I need justice.
(Three members of the governing body are shaking hands with each other and one
by one ask the girl questions.)
official: Why did you go out alone late in the night? Did you protest or did you . . .
police: How dare you raise your voice against the police? He was your boyfriend.
Anyhow, you have lots of lovers, don’t you?
official: We will look into the matter, we will brood on it and then we will form a
committee to review it.
narrator: By Indian Penal Code Act no. 376, this case is dismissed and the defen-
dant is considered not guilty. The accuser with her own goodwill participated in
the sexual activity, it has been proven with sufficient evidence.
daughter: Do you think that I made a mistake by going to court to seek justice?
chorus: A step taken forward cannot be taken back.
(All the other women join their scarves to form an image of common “women’s
strength” which is able to catch the three government officials in its grip.)
narrator: (Leading a protest chant in Marathi) One, two, three, four, we will not
sit peacefully. We will protest against rapes. It wounds the woman’s body. And now
we will not let this happen to anyone else. (In Bengali) One, two, three, four, we
will not sit peacefully. We will protest against rapes. It wounds the woman’s body.
And now we will not let this happen to anyone else. (Patel 1990:10)
In this scene, we see a mother and daughter, both dwelling within a patriarchal system
that is either dismissive or accusatory when confronted by a woman who has been
raped. And ironically, the system is fed not only by law but also by victims who them-
selves become oppressors, as in the case of the mother in this play. This complexity
calls attention to the multiple identities South Asian women enact in daily life. One
may be subordinate in one set of relationships while dominant in others. Indeed, in
the interaction, the insistence upon sacrifice is clear and calls attention to the differing
ways in which women are positioned and constructed in terms of family and com-
munity. The demands for silence and self-annihilation are unmistakable in both cases,
even as the mother oppresses the daughter.
The violence and calls for the acceptance of this violence are shown to exist in a
variety of discursive sites, all of which structure a common woman’s life experiences.
That is, rape is perpetuated through the discourse that occurs in various legal, eco-
nomic, and social networks, as well as cultural traditions. A portion of the chorus,
functioning here as a manifestation of these perspectives, repeats this message over
and over, mirroring the ways that mainstream social norms, values, and beliefs may
monotonously bear down upon subjects. Yet, this collective set of discourses is not
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impenetrable. Thus, when the daughter asks the other chorus if speaking out was a
mistake, the answer, given both discursively and nondiscursively, is a resounding no.
Joining together their scarves, these women representing various religions, castes,
and classes perform what is both common and unique among them. With the enact-
ment of this circle, women exercise their agency, encompassing and disempowering
the various manifestations of “the law.”
The discourse that accompanies this act, a series of protest rally chants, is spoken
in a variety of different languages, yet another way of playing with the tension between
political solidarity with other feminists and the diversity of their experiences. This
tension also can be seen as early as scene 1:
chorus: Ajitkaur, I am a Sardarni

I am the queen of Punjab
Listen O people, listen O girls
Listen to my story.
(Gita with folded hands, like a serene and poised woman . . . )
gita: My husband left for heaven and along with that my life became as miserable
as hell.
nasreenbanu: Oh Allah! What to do?
[I am] Legally divorced.
(Early in the morning, Bhuribai [a local villager], along with her children, is on her
way to work on the farm.)
magdeline: I am Miss Magdeline, my profession is typing. I often dream of getting
married and am waiting for my Prince Charming.
(Chorus members and Narrator ask questions to Miss Magdeline.)
narrator: Who are you?
woman: Magdeline
question: Aren’t you Bhuribai?
woman: Comparing that illiterate country bumpkin and me?
narrator: Both of you work daily for a living and both of you get paid less as com-
pared to a man.
question: Aren’t you Gita?
woman: No.
question: Then maybe you are Nasreenbanu?
woman: What a comparison! One a Hindu and the other a Muslim.
chorus: A widow, a divorcee. Both have no respect in this society.
woman: Yes . . . you are right. Nothing has changed.
chorus: It has changed and will change further in the future. (Patel 1990:2)
This dialogue circles around questions of identity; is a Punjabi queen the same as a
laborer, a Christian secretary, a Hindu goddess, or a Muslim divorcee? In this en-
counter, “the other” resists containment, and the result is exposure to what is simul-
taneously like and unlike. The play between the two allows for fresh understanding,
a new way of seeing. This eclectic representation of the “common woman” argues for
multiplicity within unity and points to something “extraordinary”—an unexpected
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and momentary refusal of traditional boundaries and collectivities in the name of

creating identification.
Re-envisioning Garba as a Feminist Performance
This argument also is enacted through the invocation of a folk performance form at
the end of the first scene. At this time, women from the chorus dressed in clothing
representing different castes, classes, and regions move together in a folk dance called
garba. Originally associated with Navatri harvest rituals for the Hindu goddess Amba,
the garba finds its name in the Sanskrit word garba deep, meaning “womb.” During
the dancing, women circle a lamp set inside an earthen pitcher called a garbi. The
pitcher symbolizes the womb of the mother goddess and the flame represents the
seed of creation. Such garba dances are still performed in some areas. Walking from
house to house, girls carry the garbi on their heads inside a decorated wood structure
called a mandavi. At each home, the girls set down the mandavi and circle around it
while singing garba songs that are accompanied by clapping hands or drumming
(dholak). There are, of course, subtle variations in the garba style that correspond to
regional, tribal, or caste differences, as well as to dancers’ personal styles. This dance
form remains extremely popular in mainstream practice; however, in these metro-
politan contexts it has been transformed because of the commercialization of the
Navatri festival. Big bands have now replaced shenai (a traditional double-reeded
wind instrument used at celebrations) and dholi (a barrel-shaped wooden drum)
players, creating a “disco culture” that attracts thousands of people, including Muslims
and Christians, into urban centers.
In Women in Search of Their History, this circular folk dance is appropriated and
reinterpreted as an expression of political resistance and feminist solidarity. The
power of this appropriation stems from the dialectical play between memory, au-
thenticity, and innovation within the performance space (Heath 1994). That is, the
effectiveness of this act relies in no small way upon performers’ and audience mem-
bers’ experiences, recollections, and knowledge of garbas. Many audiences have an
intimate understanding based upon many years of participation, a sense of knowing
how one’s body feels as it moves in response to a particular rhythm and the pleasure
that arises from this awareness. As Vibhuti stated, her deep enjoyment and current
expertise in performing folksongs and folk dances from various regions in India
grows from a fund of childhood memories that has been an “invaluable resource”
in her activism, providing a deep pool for rhetorical materials that help her to con-
nect with a broad range of audiences. For some, the meaning may come from a
different kind of personal knowledge, based upon what an audience member may
have seen in the media or heard about from a friend. In any case, as James Olney
points out, “the rich terrain of memory with all its wonderous recollections and
imagining, its errors and confusions, its failures and overcompensations for failure,
its capacity for transformation, distortions, ordering, and reordering” provides the
fertile ground for invention (1998:340). From this space of remembrance, individu-
als find important resources for appropriation and play; in this instance, “critical
play” displays a hermeneutical and rhetorical competence (Garlough 2007).
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The recognizability of the garba is maintained within the choreography, particularly

in terms of form. The dance remains circular and the rhythmic beat is produced through
clapping hands. At each step, the dancers curve sideways with arms brought together
in sweeping movements that gesture left and right, up and down. Their noticeable skill
in dancing the garba displays a cultural competence that works to strengthen their
credibility with audience members witnessing this political performance. Moreover, as
Vibhuti noted, advancing a feminist message through the proficient presentation of an
appropriated women’s folk form demonstrates to the audience the ways that a critical
perspective may be advanced without outright rejection of one’s heritage. Feminism
does not preclude cultural belonging. To the contrary, reflecting back upon the garba’s
roots in women’s folk traditions, the dance by the chorus members works to persuade
the audience that a sense of feminism may by engendered by building upon the ways
women have, for generations, learned to connect and support one another within cul-
tural acts. In this way, the garba in this play is not meant to invoke the religious aura
typically associated with this Hindu folk tradition. Rather, inserting the garba within
feminist discourse, the performers hope their dancing bodies will represent for the
audience the potential for creating a multivocal feminist constituency. This is accom-
plished by making a visual argument for the many appearances of Indian women
through costuming and then showing how this diversity might be unified in difference
through movement. Each woman, while participating in the garba form, is distinct in
her particular enactment of it, one that is informed by caste, class, sexuality, regional
affiliation, and more. Subtly disrupting the readability of the garba, the dancing bodies
of the women claim the status of political agents, and the garba becomes an instance of
“politically engaged and aesthetically challenging choreography” (Lepecki 2004:3).
This performance of garba also addresses the question of how the female body in
the public sphere is often read through male gaze (Del Negro 2004; Kapchan 1996).
Indeed, in a society in which the bodies of dancing women often have been understood
as morally ambiguous or shamefully erotic, the performers’ display of their bodies on
stage to advance a subversive political perspective could be regarded as doubly trans-
gressive. Appearances and words combine to create a radical act. Mindful of the ways
that women’s bodies have been implicated in their political and social oppression, the
dancers on stage enjoin the audience to see them—to see their bodies differently and
in that moment see political actors. And yet, the gendered bodies do not deny a sense
of their sexuality in order to deflect criticism based on repressive social norms. As they
circle, hips sway, feet move together, and arms extend up and then toward one an-
other. In this manner, rather than taking upon themselves normatively male-gendered
personas to articulate their political message—like that of many viranganas—the per-
formers choose to present themselves in ways that display and subvert normative ideas
of their sexuality for their own political purposes.10 That is, their dance is not used to
evoke fertility, as it is in more religious contexts; rather, it allows the performers to
connect politically in bodily ways that are familiar, that constitute a sense of female
identity, and that still admit difference.
Through the kinetic pleasure of this dance, the moving bodies call to and engage
with the audience (Markula 2006). The performance becomes “a matter of delicate
education” (Lepecki 2004:4) where both audience members and performers remem-
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ber the feelings and sensations of dancing the garba and relate these to the political
questions at hand. Consequently, this appropriated form exhibits a multivocal qual-
ity informed by a web of past and present performances; the meaning of the dance
emerges from a dialogic relationship between such mainstream and alternative dis-
courses and plays with the limits of appropriateness. What the garba dancers show
us is that critical play with tradition provides powerful resources for the practice of
resistive rhetoric. It is not merely that the familiar is made unfamiliar and thus be-
comes intriguing. In these cases, force is generated through the appropriation’s pur-
poseful engagement with social exigencies that demand immediate attention and
action. Thus, this dance performance functions rhetorically, in ways that bear witness
and testify to the importance of people who have been overlooked by history written
by elites.
Creating Space for Critical Interruption:

Some Concluding Thoughts on Folklore and Rhetoric
Tradition, while shared, calls to us in many voices. In its evolving interpretations,

which are situated responses to particular problems and needs, it connects us to our
past and yet provides pathways to any number of potential futures. This is the seat
of its power. The play between memory and invention ensures that cultural traditions
are safeguarded in ways that do not (necessarily) advance traditional values and
beliefs; that is, used strategically, these practices have an emancipatory potential,
creating space for critical interruption. This tension can be seen in the ways that folk
traditions function rhetorically within Women in Search of Their History to reveal
instances of social oppression, bring about alternative understandings of the South
Asian women’s movement, and constitute a feminist ethos.
This analysis of Women in Search of Their History builds upon folklore scholarship
concerned with appropriation and resistance (for example, Bauman 1977, 1990; Del
Negro 2004; Kapchan 1996; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1983) and points to an interesting
set of future inquiries concerning the ways that “folklore” and “rhetoric” may intersect
in terms of critical theory and practice. As scholars from Gadamer (2004) to Burke
(1950) and Abrahams (1968) have shown, folk forms can be important rhetorical
resources for invention precisely because many are highly iconic yet multidimen-
sional. As shared symbols, they can promote self-reflection and identification, increas-
ing the likelihood that listeners will adopt the perspective of the rhetor. Just as im-
portant is the fact that folklore is capable of persuading through the production of
pleasure as well as through the assertion of an idea or a course of action. A perfor-
mance may be entertaining, but that does not diminish its persuasive potential. Indeed,
that is at the heart of folklore’s potential sway. It draws the audience in and renders
them more open to the argument that is implicitly advanced. This is true even beyond
the boundaries of the group, a marker of folklore’s latent rhetorical power.
As much past scholarship has argued, folklore, being a traditional activity, some-
times operates normatively as a cohesive force or form of social control (Abrahams
1968). However, critically oriented research projects such as this one are more con-
cerned with the ways folk forms also are effective when used by progressive activists
JAF 121_2.indd 187 3/13/08 11:44:08 AM

as tools for change and transformation. Through performance, narrative, and mate-
rial culture, activists communicate innovative ideas (often strongly opposed by more
conservative factions of a community) in a form that is somehow familiar. In this
way, folklore can be used to advance marginalized perspectives that may be difficult
to articulate because they are not widely accepted or openly discussed (Kumar 1993).
This is certainly true of much street-level theater. Indeed, it is precisely for these
reasons that street theater likely has more sway than formal speeches do for the audi-
ences that most Indian feminist organizations wish to reach. Flexible, collective, par-
ticipatory, familiar, and entertaining, this folk form has great potential not only for
intervention and social change but also for a reassertion of progressive values with
each performance.
Women in Search of Their History’s significance as a text should not simply be un-
derstood in terms of the frequency of its use, although my research over the last decade
with grassroots feminist groups in Gujarat suggests that it has been extensive. Its im-
portance is also not limited to the ways in which it reveals a critical moment in the
Indian feminist movement and affords an opportunity to understand the arguments
advanced to redefine an Indian feminist constituency at this time. Rather, this street
play is a notable example of the ways that folk forms are appropriated and used for
rhetorical purposes by groups with few resources and important political agendas.
Taking into account the degree to which such street plays also are used in Africa, South
America, and Europe for resistive purposes, it would seem that more theorizing about
these practices from the disciplines of folklore and rhetoric would be productive (Con-
quergood 1992). Specifically, what much past research does not seem to explicitly
address are connections that could be made between the work of rhetorical critics
studying non-Western cultures (Kirkwood 1990; Shome 1996) and folklorists studying
rhetorical practices and philosophies and their relationship to tradition (Abrahams
1968; Howard 2005; Oring 2008). Both disciplines share an interest in the dynamics
of tradition and innovation, persuasion and power, and pleasure and performance.
Each could provide important insight into the aesthetic and hermeneutic means by
which people are moved to think about or act upon their world in particular ways. In
doing so, together they could contribute significantly to our understanding of the ways
that rhetorical texts arguing for a progressive social vision of the future may invoke
the past in order to make history.
Notes
I wish to thank the women of Sahiyar and Vibhuti Patel for sharing their lives and approach to activism
with me. Their work is truly a gift.
1. In the same vein as Prentki and Selman, I use the term “community-based theater” to indicate “the
broadest spectrum of theater which embraces community education and social concerns and which is
located within ‘community’, be it a community of interest or one of geography” (2002:13).
2. The play, typically performed in Gujarati, has been translated for this article into English by Meena
Khetan and the author.
3. A subgroup of these street theater activists are aware of and sometimes ground their work in Brazil-
ian community educator Paulo Freire’s principles of education, which advocate exchange, participant
JAF 121_2.indd 188 3/13/08 11:44:09 AM

ownership, reflection, and action (2005). Some performances may also reflect Augusto Boal’s “theater of
the oppressed” in that they includes workshops, a blurring of spectator and audiences, and an interactive
style performance (1985).
4. With the exception of Trupti Shah and Vibhuti Patel the names of the women quoted within this
essay have been changed at their request for anonymity.
5. Sahiyar was first established in 1984 and was registered under the Public Trust Act in 1997.
6. The Anti–Price Rise Movement took place in the state of Maharashtra after servere droughts in the
early 1970s. This militant campaign included thousands of women who protested in the streets to chal-
lenge black marketeers who gouged prices and to voice complaints about the government’s inaction.
7. See Britzman (1998).
8. See Cornell (1992).
9. The Mathura rape case sparked the anti-rape movement throughout India. A fourteen-year-old girl,
Mathura, was called to a police station late at night in Chandrapur, a small town near Nagpur, where she
was raped by two police officers. The local court found the police innocent because the girl was “of loose
morals.” The case was tried again in High Court, the decision overturned, and the police officers given a
seven-and-a-half year prison sentence. The case was finally taken to the Supreme Court, where the deci-
sion was reversed and the men set free. Hot debates erupted in the public sphere and women’s groups
around the country demanded the case be reopened. On March 8, 1980, rallies against the court decision
were held around the country, and women groups gathered to demonstrate, singing protest song and
bearing posters that decried the injustice.
10. For important discussions of the body and performance in relation to folklore, see the special issue
of Journal of American Folklore devoted to the topic, edited by Katharine Young and Barbara Babcock
(1994).
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JAF 121.480 - Garlough On The Political Uses of Folklore

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Christine Lynn Garlough

On the Political Uses of Folklore: Performance

Community-based, street-level theater, as Gayatri Spivak observes, grows out of mo-

Christine Lynn Garlough is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of

Journal of American Folklore 121(480):167–191

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I begin by discussing the interconnection of Indian notions of aesthetics, rhetoric,

JAF 121_2.indd 169 3/13/08 11:44:04 AM

Persuasion, Interpretation, and Tradition in Western

Rhetoric in the West—conceptualized broadly as the art of persuasion—often has

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Art and Identification

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Community-based, Street-level Theater in India

We see this eclectic method in many instances of Indian community-based, street-

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The Making/Doing of Street-level Performance

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Performing Women’s History

I now turn to Sahiyar’s performance of Women in Search of Their History. Here, my

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Sahiyar’s performance of Women in Search of Their History eventually took place

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Invisible or Exemplary? The Legacy of the Virangana Tradition

In terms of rhetorical strategy, this performance addresses two complex exigencies

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Between History and Possibility

chorus: Come on sisters, let’s go in search of our history.

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The Common Woman

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(A talk between common women—a mother and daughter.)

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chorus: Ajitkaur, I am a Sardarni

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and momentary refusal of traditional boundaries and collectivities in the name of

Re-envisioning Garba as a Feminist Performance

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The recognizability of the garba is maintained within the choreography, particularly

JAF 121_2.indd 186 3/13/08 11:44:08 AM

Creating Space for Critical Interruption:

Tradition, while shared, calls to us in many voices. In its evolving interpretations,

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