STAGING FEMINISMS

This book questions how feminist beliefs are enacted within an artistic context. It
critically examines the intersection of violence, gender, performance and power
through contemporary interventionist performances. The volume explores a host of
key themes like feminism and folk epic, community theatre, performance as radical
cultural intervention, volatile bodies and celebratory protests. Through analysing
performances of theatre stalwarts like Usha Ganguly, Maya Krishna Rao, Sanjoy
Ganguly, Shilpi Marwaha and Teejan Bai, the volume discusses the complexities
and contradictions of a feminist reading of contemporary performances.
A major intervention in the feld of feminism and performance, this book
will be useful for scholars and researchers of gender studies, performance studies,
theatre studies, women’s studies, cultural studies, sociology of gender and literature.

Anita Singh is Professor in the Department of English at Banaras Hindu University,

Varanasi, India. She received a Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Scholar Fellowship for the
year 2013–2014 at the University of Virginia, USA. She was a fellow at the Indian
Institute of Advanced Study at Shimla, India (2018–2020). Her recent publications
include the two edited volumes Gender, Space, and Resistance: Women and Theatre
in India (2013) and Hero and Hero Worship: Fandom in Modern India (2020). She
has completed a major research project, sanctioned by the Indian Council of
Social Science Research, on “Staging Gender: Performing Women in Ramlila of
Ramnagar”. Dr Singh has published interviews with Indian women performers in
the Asian Theatre Journal, contributed to four chapters in the Routledge Handbook of
Asian Theatre, ed. Siyuan Liu (2016) and was the guest editor for the special issue
of the journal Gender Issues (Springer, 2018). She has also served as the conference
chair for the Future of Women conference held in Malaysia (2018), Colombo,
Sri Lanka (2019) and Bangalore (2020) and is the President of the Asian-African
Association for Women, Gender and Sexuality (AAAWGS).
STAGING FEMINISMS
Gender, Violence and Performance
in Contemporary India

Anita Singh
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Indian Institute of Advanced Study
The right of Anita Singh to be identifed as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-89630-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-89633-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-02022-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS

List of fgures vi
Foreword vii
Preface x
Acknowledgements xi

1 Introduction 1

2 Feminism and folk epic: Draupadi, Dharma, performance

and protest in Teejan Bai’s Pandavani 43

3 Community theatre: performance as radical cultural

intervention 82

4 Urban proscenium stage: volatile bodies, celebratory protests in

Maya Krishna Rao’s Walk and Usha Ganguly’s Hum Mukhtara 127

5 Conclusion 177

Index 187
FIGURES

2.1 Chhattisgarh Lok Utsav, New Delhi, 1984 58

2.2 Instruments used in Pandavani performance 60
2.3 Spic Macay Classical Heritage Series in association with Ministry
of Tourism, Government of India, Assi Ghat, Varanasi, India,
March 2018 63
2.4 Performance at Hotel Hyatt in Kolkata organised by the Eastern
Zonal Cultural Centre (ECZZ) 19 January 2019 64
2.5 Pratha Parva, 29 December 2016, New Delhi 71
3.1 Left to right, Anita, Sima, Sanjoy and Ranu at the Amulya
Ganguly Memorial Library 84
3.2 JS’s three-decades-old community kitchen 98
3.3 Binodini Moncho: The Performance Space 98
3.4 Sarama storyboard 101
3.5 Dastak performed at Parliament Street, 5 May 2018 103
3.6 Dastak performed at Parliament Street, 5 May 2018 103
3.7 Dastak performed at Parliament Street. May 5, 2018 104
3.8 Dastak performed at Parliament Street. May 5, 2018 105
4.1 Usha Ganguly in Hum Mukhtara 150
4.2 Usha Ganguly in Hum Mukhtara 151
4.3 Usha Ganguly in Hum Mukhtara 156
4.4 Maya Krishna Rao in Walk on 30 November at OP Jindal
Global University 159
4.5 Maya Krishna Rao in Walk on 30 November at OP Jindal
Global University 160
4.6 Maya Krishna Rao in Walk on 30 November at OP Jindal
Global University 163
FOREWORD

To perform in the theatre is necessarily to put one’s body on display in the pub-
lic sphere. For women who have been taught that their role in cultural life is to
remain invisible and silent, taking to the stage, intentionally bringing their bodies
and voices to public awareness, constitutes a defant act of bravery. Where else-
where they have been chastised for calling attention to themselves, the stage can
ofer, instead, a public podium for self-expression and both personal and communal
empowerment. In India, women’s bodies have too often been a site of violence and
abuse. This book analyses the work of women performing artists who understand
that the public female body on stage can be a forceful means of transforming that
reality.
While violence against women is, tragically, a global problem, the situation
for women in India has unique features that can pursue them at every stage of
life, starting even before birth. A preference for sons has led to prenatal selection
against female fetuses as well as to a disproportionately high rate of female infant
mortality. These facts collaboratively contribute to the unnatural gender imbal-
ance in the country at large, which favors males. As children, many girls struggle
to get an education, which cuts them of from future possibilities. They can be
kept from school by poverty, child marriage and the lack of basic facilities and
accommodations to help them manage their menstrual cycles. Both Hindu and
Muslim religious views that see menstruation as unclean contribute to a range
of further discriminatory situations. When girls reach an age for marriage, the
continued practice of a husband’s family demanding dowry from the wife’s side
leaves women as vulnerable pawns within these economic matrimonial negotia-
tions. The burden dowry imposes on a woman’s family accounts partially for the
prejudice against female births. Traditionally, married women move in with their
husbands’ families. They can then be at the mercy of in-laws, who often see them
only as fnancial burdens or servants, whose upkeep is to be repaid with their labor.
viii Foreword

Becoming dissatisfed with a received dowry can lead to more abuse when in-laws
pursue further enrichment. Repercussions from this situation can include the hor-
rifc and all-too-common practice of acid attacks. Throwing acid on a woman’s
face, causing disfgurement and blindness, has also been used as brutal repayment
for a woman’s refusal of marriage or sexual advances. Even after a husband’s death,
women may not be masters of their own fates as widows in certain regions face
enforced isolation. The crime of rape and other forms of sexual violence shadow
Indian women throughout their days, with reported cases involving females as
young as 2, as old as 100, and every age in between, from every social class. Such
facts belie the myth that somehow a woman’s provocative dress or actions are to
blame for her victimisation. Rape itself is often used as a deliberate act of punish-
ment or retaliation against a woman or her family. Nonetheless, female survivors of
rape have traditionally been the ones forced to bear the shame and social retribu-
tion of these acts, not their assailants.
These heinous crimes contextualise the daily fears women face as they maneu-
ver through public spaces and personal relationships. They form a litany of abuses
that describes not a series of unfortunate events, but a culture of misogyny that
requires strong refection and forceful action for change to be fully realised in all
sectors of society. Luckily, the theatrical performances analysed in these pages ofer
hope. As this book shows, theatre is a powerful weapon for revealing truths and
allowing women’s bodies to stand, not merely as objects of temptation, shame, or
victimisation, but as an active protest against victimhood itself.
It is a gift to have Anita Singh bring her critical acumen and considerable knowl-
edge of theatre, performance studies and feminist criticism to this investigation.
She ofers insights into the many domains of performance in which practitioners
are addressing violence against women and bringing their message to audiences of
every social class. Theatrical responses range from performances in folk forms to
community plays to urban dramas. These enactments allow the emotional toll of
abuse and repression to fnd expression alongside calls for transforming social prac-
tices and praise for the women who, drawing deeply on their own inner resources,
have moved forward, fought back or simply endured. In her analysis of Teejan
Bai’s Pandavani folk performance, Singh fnds an archetypal incident of rape and
resistance in the scene of Draupadi’s attempted disrobing, drawn from the Mahab-
harata epic. Framing the brutality of the abuse depicted there and Draupadi’s strong
defance is the very problematic concept of a woman being regarded as a man’s
possession, an owned object, not an independent being in her own right. Such
fundamental views of women’s ontological existence undergird a culture of abuse
and must be reckoned with for social and cultural change to occur. Draupadi’s story
continues to be told and retold, resonating with each new generation of Indian
women. The fact that Teejan Bai is one of the rare women who performs in this
male-dominated form allows her to bring a unique perspective and emotional art-
istry to the telling of this age-old tale.
In contemporary urban performances, both on city streets and in modern the-
atre spaces, more and more artists are engaging with the theme of gender violence.
 Foreword ix

The prevalence of this subject currently owes a debt to the national outrage that
erupted in response to the 2012 gang rape and death of Jyoti Singh, known as
“Nirbhaya” or “The Fearless”. Rocking the nation, forceful protests throughout
India at the time fnally allowed this ubiquitous but unspoken social malady to
move to the center of public discourse. Maya Krishna Rao’s powerful one-woman
show, Walk, crafted in response to that incident, is striking for the simplicity of the
demand it makes: for women to be able to walk in public without fear. Like Drau-
pudi’s need to own herself, Rao’s cry for women’s freedom to walk undisturbed
reveals Indian women’s appeals for fundamental human rights.
Singh has assembled a compelling collection of theatrical examples that sketch
out the landscape of this powerful, growing performance terrain. She guides us
through it, providing elucidating insights at each step. While Singh’s writing fully
embraces a scholarly approach to the topic, don’t be surprised if, in reading, you
also fnd yourself emotionally moved, perhaps even weeping, as her examples and
analysis ask you to consider the injustices women have endured and the strengths
they have had to cultivate in response. Singh has been a pioneer in promoting
scholarly discourse on the subject of women in Indian theatre. Her 2012 anthology,
co-edited with Tarun Tapas Mukherjee, Gender, Space and Resistance: Women and
Theatre in India, gathered the voices of numerous researchers to address the topic
from a variety of historical and critical positions. In this volume, we are treated to
Singh’s singular voice on one of the most important aspects of this area of study. At
Banaras Hindu University, through her classes in the English Department and her
leadership as Co-Coordinator of the Center for Women’s Studies and Develop-
ment, Singh ofers her students critical perspectives on women’s issues and reveals
how feminist analysis sheds light on theatrical texts and productions. Through these
pages, we are fortunate to all have Anita Singh as our teacher, a thoughtful and
illuminating mentor, revealing for us a burgeoning area of critical theatre studies.
Claudia Orenstein
New York, NY
March, 2020
PREFACE

Staging Feminisms: Gender, Violence and Performance in Contemporary India aims at

studying the performances of Usha Ganguly, Maya Krishna Rao, Sanjoy Gan-
guly, Shilpi Marwaha and Teejan Bai, all of which are connected with the shared
theme of rape/attempted rape of women. The book brings together a representa-
tive variety of performances and performance contexts for investigation and ofers
through the several examples of performances some actionable and accessible ways
put forward by the performers who take back control of the narratives of gendered
violence. The study is intersectional in more than one way – the work explores
the intersection of violence, gender, performance and power through contempo-
rary interventionist performances, and it also brings the traditional folk/classical
genres in dialogue with the community/street and the proscenium performances;
the urban with the rural; the vernacular with English. The subject of women and
violence is a critical one, especially in the context of South Asia. The fact that
women practitioners are focusing on it in their performances demands that we
take note. This study will add to the understanding of the subject in scholarly and
artistic circles as well as in other contexts where women and violence is a central
topic of consideration.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My gratitude is due in three quarters. Firstly, my reverence and thankfulness to the

Almighty as always. This Almighty may not have a defnite name or form for me,
but her presence has been a constant force and support in all phases and moments
of my life. I am blessed to have the love and blessings of God.
The second are the avenues that facilitated this research and publication. I hereby
acknowledge the fellowship granted to me by the Indian Institute of Advanced
Study, Shimla (from 1 August 2018 to 24 March 2020) for this book project. I am
grateful for the support granted by the Institute during my stay. I will name here
the Director, Professor Makrand Paranjape, whose vibrant and scholarly presence at
the Institute has added so much to the academic ambience of the place; Professor
Kapil Kapoor, the Chairperson of the Institute; Colonel Vijay K. Tiwari, the Sec-
retary and Mr Prem Chand, the Librarian. There are so many others who readily
come to my mind as I write this who made my stay at the Institute pleasant and
memorable. I quietly acknowledge them and pray for their well-being.
The manuscript reaching the next stage of publication became possible through
the interest and involvement of Ms Shoma Choudhury, Commissioning Manager
and Ms Brinda Sen, Editorial Assistant, of Routledge India, who consented to
undertake this work for publication and the nameless reviewers who reviewed this
work. I cordially thank them all.
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have approved and supported
the work, I turn to another and equally vital set of people. They are my friends
and family. My children, Amitabh and Alankrita, are living on a diferent continent
altogether, so far yet always so close. My prayers are for their health and happiness
as I dedicate yet another book to them. Finally, my gratitude to all those unrecog-
nised here without whom this would not have been possible.
I close with my sincerest prayers to God!
1
INTRODUCTION

Performance seems an ideal space for the exploration of cultural identity hold-
ing within it the possibility of reconfguring the ways that we think about each
other and view the world (Conquergood, 2002, 145–156). Performance is at the
intersection of social and cultural practices. Performance, to use Richard Schech-
ner’s words, is “the whole constellation of events . . . that take place in/among
performers and audience” (1988, 39). My work establishes the mutuality between
performance, culture and feminist discourse. This study addresses some case stud-
ies of contemporary performances (mostly performed in the early 21st century).
These are necessarily selective; the practitioners chosen are those who explicitly
tackle issues of violence.
The book sees the nexus of feminism, performance and activism against the
violence that constitutes an active engagement with contemporary life. Defnitions
are often fuzzy. The term contemporary has been used to refer to performances made
and produced by artists living today; as a term, it is open ended, constantly evolving
and refective of the world today. Contemporariness is, then, a particular connec-
tion with one’s own temporality.
The idea of staging refers to performance, theatre, music, flms, dance, art and also
artists, practices and innovations. The term holds other inventories of performance
and enables us to consider the performativity of language, gender, nation, politics and
protest. Staging conceptualises our perceptions about society, history, literature and
culture to speak about the way we are, the way we have been and the way we think
we should be as persons and collectively as a society. The purposes of the performers
and their performances selected for study are not merely to stage issues about rape
and gendered violence, but to throw open a passageway for questions for the actors
and spectators in their act of performance and reception. Examples of performances
aimed to raise pertinent queries have a profoundly political approach; this investiga-
tion, then, is fundamentally about the politics of performance.
2 Introduction

This work will engage in performance in a multilateral and holistic perspec-

tive as what Patrick Pavis calls “integrated semiotics” (1997, 203–230). Integrated
semiotics and phenomenology will be used as a key performance analysis approach.
The proposed methods for analysis include all elements of performance, includ-
ing the mise-en-scene, the actor and the auditory, visual and spatial aspects of
performance, besides the spectators’ experiences. Performance is perceived as an
embodied, material event. Issues of representation, signifcation, language, sound,
song, silence, violence and body are considered. In Geographies of Learning: Theory
and Practice, Activism and Performance, Dolan argues that performance is a site of
progressive social and cultural practice. Performance ofers the liveness, the present
tenseness and is a participatory forum and space of desire. These Utopian perfor-
mances are not only intellectually clear but felt and lived by spectators as well as
actors (Dolan, 2001a, 455–479). The book’s overarching concern is to consider the
efective power of performance (Kershaw, 2002) and the balance between repre-
senting women as victims and exploring how performance rescripts rape/gendered
violence in diferently empowering ways and how it responds to violence ethically
and with efcacy.
The explorations that energise this work embed these problems, but also extend
them:

1 How does theatre rescript rape/gendered violence in differently empowering

ways?
2 What does it mean for performance to be having an empowering presence, and
how does embodied presence become a political act?
3 How does the ethic of a script and performance take responsibility, and what
might it reveal to a sympathetic audience? Could it allow us to craft an ethical,
contemporary response to the rape’s representations?
4 How have changes over time in the general sense of the tag “feminist” influ-
enced the ways we might recognise theatre and performance work that identi-
fies as such – or that declines to be labelled as such? Are such performances
feminist? And if so, according to whose standards – theirs or someone else’s?
5 To the question of value: who defines it and to what ends?
6 Do the performances generate an in-between space which demands a self-
reflexive approach?
7 How do we as spec/actors respond to these politically conscious narratives?
8 What is the problem? What is the goal? Who are the audiences? What is their
attitude to the subject and how does the performer/performance want them
to respond?

The work does not propose to provide defnitive answers to these questions but
rather to ofer a symptomatic reading of the performance/performer and the con-
scious and empathic understanding of the problem of violence against women
that may serve to concretise and generate awareness and encourage activism/
refection via theatre. Along with the attentiveness to the political intent of these
 Introduction 3

performances, the study will focus on the medium, the theatrical elements – songs,
dance, music and movements – as publicly encoded signs. The recurrent empha-
sis is on researching the liveness of the performance event along with seeing the
Internet as an archival source, thereby creating an assemblage of real/virtual/digital
performance.
This book explores the question of how feminist beliefs are enacted within an
artistic context to engage in purposeful performance practices. The intersection
of violence, gender, performance and power is investigated through these inter-
ventionist performances. This leads the work on to the study of diverse styles of
performance, varying from one-woman performance to an interactive forum the-
atre, street plays and the urban proscenium stage, all accentuating the impracticality
of considering Indian performance practice under a unifed framework. There
are several reasons to choose these particular performances as case studies. My
language ability has restricted me to selecting performances in Hindi (Usha Gan-
guly’s Rangakarmee Theatre Group and Shilpi Marwaha’s Sukhmanch Theatre),
Bengali (Sanjoy Ganguly’s Jana Sanskriti, Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed),
English (Maya Krishna Rao) and Chhattisgarhi (Pandavani by Teejan Bai), and my
familiarity with the contexts, culture and language of performance allows me to
“soak and poke”, as Fenno (1986, 3–15) puts it. Genre, geography and the social/
cultural and linguistic contexts of these performances vary within the India setting.
The selected performance practices span several geographical areas within India
(West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and New Delhi) to indicate the heterogeneity of per-
formance spaces and cultures in India. The geographical spread encompassing all
these theatres has diferent contexts. Jana Sanskriti (1985) is a group based in villages
and small towns of West Bengal; its headquarters is located in Thakurhat Road,
Badu, Kolkata. Shilpi Marwaha’s Sukhmanch Theatre (2017) is based in New Delhi.
Pandavani is situated in Chhattisgarh village. (Chhattisgarhi is an Eastern Hindi lan-
guage is also known as Dakshin Kosali and Dakshin Hindi.) The urban proscenium
plays of Usha Ganguly’s Rangakarmee (1976) theatre group are from Kolkata; Maya
Krishna Rao’s free-fowing solo performance grammar with training in Kathakali
(English and Hindi) is located mainly in Delhi. The social, geographical and theat-
rical contexts that form these case studies vary widely, enabling the book to engage
with diverse styles of politics conveyed through the contextual specifcity of these
performances. All performances and practitioners address gender ideology in dif-
ferently enabling ways. All these performances have diferent standpoints fraught
with the socio-cultural dynamics of the space they inhabit. These performances are
not fashioned out of a scripted text/playscript but are based on an “event”, even
if they are based on some previous text, as in the case of Pandavani (sourced from
Mahabharata). These performances are primarily improvisatory, and the process of
embodiment is experienced and empathised by the actor and the audience alike.
This volume is an efort to analyse gendered violence represented in some
select performances attentive to the issues of gender violence. Each of the three
chapters that make up this book deals with the specifc performance expressions
which seem most appropriate to the issue under consideration. The three chapters
4 Introduction

further engage with the people involved in theatre, with history, genre, subjectiv-
ity, agency, author, character, performer, audience and the collaborations which
theatre entails among all those involved. It will explore what constitutes feminist
politics and how performance gets created within the rules of various theatre
genres to express those politics. In the performances selected, the female presence
is not projected as a historical essence but is both contextually and bodily created
and exercised by acting subjects. The performances then take multiple shifting
forms; they do not subscribe to a single way or militate for a coherent ideology.
To do this is to overlook the possibilities of the rich and varied feminist dramatic
activities around us. The work will further show how these performers bridge the
gap between form and content, which enables them to express their feministic
concerns.
This introductory chapter will unpack the methodological tools for interpreta-
tive criticism and performance viewing/reviewing; it will look at the emerging
feld of performance studies. Secondly, it will structure arguments initially by
analysing the conceptual implications of gender, violence and performance and
what the combination of all three means for a general defnition of performative
violence. It will further engage with four key terms used in the title of this work –
feminism, gender, performance, and violence –to see how these are interlocked in the
performances selected for study. Several conclusions will be drawn from this discus-
sion. The causes and efects of performative violence are tied together, for efects
feed into causes. Finally, as a self-critique, it questions the use of this approach.
Does this position permit us to transform anything in the world substantially? The
question is always open to deliberation.

The transformative possibilities of performance

Performance studies as a discipline emerged in the United States during the 1970s
at New York University and Northwestern University. It is heavily indebted to the
terminology and theoretical strategies in the felds of anthropology and sociology.
The writings of Richard Schechner are predominantly associated with the birth
of performance studies as a discipline in the United States. Performance studies as
a discipline, anti-discipline and trans-discipline has been mapped by writers such
as Dell Hymes (1981 [1975]), John J. MacAloon (1984), Philip Zarrilli (2002),
Richard Schechner (1988, 2002), Dwight Conquergood (2002), Janelle G. Reinelt
and Joseph R. Roach (1992), Jill Dolan (2001b), Philip Auslander (1999), Mar-
vin Carlson (1984, 1993, 1996), Peggy Phelan (1993) and Jon McKenzie (2001),
among others.
Performance means to do something; in common parlance, the term performance
is used to refer to artistic events such as the performance of a play, a show, a mime,
a dance and so on. Performance was defned in the 76th Burg Wartenstein Sympo-
sium, sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research,
as: “occasions in which as a culture or society we refect upon and defne ourselves,
dramatize our collective myths and history, present ourselves with alternatives, and
 Introduction 5

eventually change in some ways while remaining the same in others” (MacAloon,
1984). This, simply put, suggests that frstly, performance is a social occasion;
secondly, it gives us space to defne ourselves and thirdly, it opens space for rethink-
ing and altering ourselves. Richard Schechner (2002), the anthropologist Victor
Turner (1982) and Erving Gofman (1959), the sociologist, were the three major
contributors to establishing the connections between performance theory and the
social sciences (Carlson, 1996, 13).
In Performance Studies: An Introduction, Schechner says “Performance should
be construed as a ‘broad spectrum’ or ‘continuum’ of human activities includ-
ing ritual, plays, sports, popular entertainments, the performing arts, everyday life
performances, popular entertainments, enactment of social, professional, gender,
class roles, healing, the media, etc.” (2002, 2). He calls performance a “restored”
or “twice-behaved behaviour”. Performance, being a restored behaviour, exists as
“second nature” and is subject to revision and change. Seeking to describe cultural
performances not merely as entertainment, mostly performance scholars (Gofman,
Turner, Conquergood and Madison) stress what Schechner called the “efcacy” of
performance, its ability to feed back into and transform social life. Performance,
then, can be seen as a part of a wider nexus of social and cultural practices. It is,
to use Richard Schechner’s words, “the whole constellation of events . . . that take
place in/among performers and audience” (1988, 39).
This connection between performance and everyday life is also discussed by
the sociologist and performance theorist Erving Gofman in his well-known book
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), in which he uses the metaphor of
theatrical performance to highlight the importance of role-playing in everyday
social life. Gofman also stresses the fact that the performer tends to incorporate
and exemplify the ofcially accredited values of the society while presenting him/
herself before an audience (1959, 34–35). Performance seems an ideal space for the
exploration of cultural identity, holding within it the possibility of reconfguring
the ways that we think about each other and view the world (Conquergood, 2002).
Both in theatre and in everyday life, performance can be used to resist the authority
of the despotic social/ofcial values and customs, or it can be used to endorse the
difusion of those values and rules in society.
Conquergood explains performance (1) as a work of imagination, an object of
study; (2) as the pragmatics of inquiry (both as model and method), an optic and
operation of research; (3) as a tactic of intervention, an alternative space of struggle.
He further uses three a’s to describe it: artistry, analysis and activism. Or to change
the alliteration, a commitment to the three c’s of performance studies: creativity,
critique, citizenship (civic struggles for social justice) (Conquergood, 2002, 152).
Phillip Zarrilli, for example, speaks of performance as “a mode of cultural action”
and describes it as “not a simple refection of some essentialized, fxed attributes
of a static, monolithic culture but an arena for the constant process of negotiat-
ing experiences and meanings that constitute culture” (2002, 31–46). Schechner
proposes that performances “exist only as actions, interactions and relationships”
(1988, 24).
6 Introduction

By liminal activity, Turner, in his work From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seri-
ousness of Play (1982), means something that is in an “in-between state” – a border,
a margin. Defning the liminal, Turner says:

Liminal entities are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the
positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, conventions, and ceremonial.
. . . Thus liminality is frequently linked to death, to being in the wombs, to
invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality.
(1995, 89–130)

Similarly, theatrical performances as liminal works have the potential to create new
possibilities and the transformative power to afect changes in individuals and on
society (Turner, 1995, 94–130).
In the performances introduced in this work, the various staging techniques,
the diegetic narration of Draupadi’s humiliation and the performative evocation
of contemporary violence elicit from the audience empathy with victims and
provokes a conscientious engagement with their situations. For many of us, perfor-
mance has evolved into ways of comprehending how human beings fundamentally
make culture, afect power and reinvent their ways of being in the world (Madison
and Hamera, 2005, ix–xi).

Charting the feld

Before I initiate any discussions of my methodology, I map here a brief litera-
ture review to take stock of the work already covered in the feld of feminism
and theatre. Not much work has been done on contemporary Indian theatre and
even less on Indian theatre that is feminist. The bulk of works on feminist theatre
are primarily from the United States and Britain. They already have a dynamic
framework in place for understanding what constitutes feminist politics through
theatre. American and European feminist theatre scholars’ works can be located at
the intersection of theatre, sexuality and feminist theories. Some works to mention
are the following:
Elaine Aston’s An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre and Feminist Theatre Prac-
tice: A Handbook (2005) draw out the impact of feminism on theatre studies and
the range of practices and approaches made by it. Her works outline feminist the-
atre history, theory and practice in the context of conceptual and methodological
shifts within the discipline of theatre studies. In theatrical performance and texts,
Aston tries to locate how feminism consolidates the awareness of race, class and
sexuality with gender. Micheline Wandor’s Carry On, Understudies: Theatre and
Sexual Politics (1986) and Look Back in Gender: Sexuality and the Family in Post-
War British Drama (1987) can be located between sexual politics and alternative
theatre. Look Back in Gender echoes Osborn’s play and studies post-war British
plays with what Wandor calls “imperatives of gender” in the stage. Carry on is
an account of the struggle of women and gays and traces the history of British
 Introduction 7

fringe theatre movements, highlights agitprop and street and mixes fantasy and
realism. Wandor prefers a theatre of practical politics and lesbian and gay histories
in theatre practice. Lizbeth Goodman, in her Contemporary Feminist Theatres: To
Each Her Own (1993), attempts to reframe theatre studies in its historical, theoreti-
cal and practical contexts and to see how feminism has bought about a new shift
conceptually and methodologically in this new discipline. Theatre studies have
marked a change from historical background to theatrical contexts, the context
of productions. It attempts to understand the cultural and material conditions of
the feminist reframing of theatre history. The anthologies Feminist Stages (1996)
and The Routledge Reader in Gender and Performance and Feminist Stages (1998) by
Lizbeth Goodman and Jane de Gay gives ideas on the defnition of feminist theatre
and the constructing factors. It also documents the various viewpoints of contem-
porary feminist playwrights across the world and tries to schematise an agreeable
defnition for feminist theatre.
Helen Keyssar’s Feminist Theatre and Theory (1988) and Feminist Theatre (1984)
unravel the relations of drama to gender, detailing with theory and history in a
gendered context and engaging with debates about realism and non-realism. Her
works also draw attention to the rapid institutionalisation of feminist theatre and
the slew of critical writing it has engendered. Sue-Ellen Case’s Split Britches: Les-
bian Practice/Feminist Performance (1996), Performing Feminisms (1990) and Feminism
and Theatre (1988) afect her activism in overlapping areas of feminism and lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender rights. Her work asserts that women’s exclusion from
theatre history is the chief cause of the unavailability of women’s play texts, and
she continues to question the tradition of male-dominated playwriting and the-
atre through her writings. She was also the editor of the Theatre Journal and was
the founder of the journal Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory.
Through her work, she argues political afliations through diference. Jill Dolan’s
works Theater & Sexuality (2010) and The Feminist Spectator in Action (2013) incor-
porate the complexity of sexuality, gender identity and diference and explore
the history of LGBTQ rights, performances and practice through the theatrical
medium the female spectator, utopia in theatre. Acting Out: Feminist Performances
(1993) by Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan is an important reader for feminist theory,
sexual diference, queer theory and/or the politics of contemporary performance.
Gayle Austin’s book Feminist Theories for Dramatic Criticism (1990) looks at post-war
American drama by women, bridging the gap between theatrical theory and femi-
nist theory, and delves into the theoretical aspects with which feminist approach to
anthropology, psychoanalysis, flm theory etc. can incorporate dramatic criticism
into the feminist theatre. She tries to refocus on the multitasking role of women
from the standpoint of characters, writers, readers or audience. Women’s Theatrical
Space (1994) by Hanna Scolnicov reveals how, throughout history, conventional
plays have relegated female characters to interior private spaces while allowing
male characters to dominate the outer public arena. In analysing the relationship of
performance and literary theory, the book Theory/Theatre: An Introduction (2002)
by Mark Fortier provides an examination of current theoretical approaches and
8 Introduction

purviews from semiotics and post-structuralism to cultural materialism, postcolo-

nialism and feminist theory and its understanding of performance studies.
These works familiarise us with narrative disruptions (Diamond); the lesbian
aesthetic (Case); activism in feminism and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
rights and further, how the use of Brechtian interventions in performance can
ofer theoretical insight into gender complexities (Diamond). In short, American
and British feminist theatre practitioners have discussed a variety of performance
contexts, giving attention to lesbian performance, female performance artists and
theatres created by women of colour. However, these books do not speak immedi-
ately to Indian contexts. I fnd this a gap in feminist theatre research in India. Two
things emerge from this: frstly, the lack of adequate attention paid to theatre that
can be regarded as feminist, and secondly, the absence of an existing intellectual
and theoretical framework for understanding what embodies feminist performance
in India.
While mapping the Indian performance stage from the colonial period to the
present time, three books by Nandi Bhatia – Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance:
Theatre and Politics in Colonial and Post-colonial India (2004); Performing Women/
Performing Womanhood: Theatre, Politics, and Dissent in North India (2010) and Mod-
ern Indian Theatre: A Reader (2011) – provide an extensive study of theatricality for
pre- and postcolonial Indian plays. Her frst book analyses the colonial and post-
colonial Indian theatre and tracks the progression and change of theatre practices
during colonial rule and anti-colonial resistance. Bhatia argues that in the course
of constructing anti-colonial rhetoric, women are frequently reduced to their sym-
bolic value as victims of colonial violence. Her second book “brings visibility to
the work of women who performed on the borderlines of dominant theatrical
activity and engaged in dramatic enactments that contested middle-class codes of
female propriety, which became normalized in national popular consciousness”
(Bhatia, 2004, xix). It also adds a critical argument to the study of discovering a
signifcant paradigm for gender and theatre in the north-Indian context, especially
in the context of Hindi theatre. The last book of Bhatia collates history and theory
for modern Indian theatre and performance. In Bhatia’s discussion, postcolonial
modernity consists of such processes as the theorisation of a “national theatre”, the
development of a historiographic imagination, the recovery of marginal voices,
the critique of the nation-state and the redefnition of modernity itself through the
contest over form signifed by the theatre of roots.
Apart from Bhatia, in Indian perspective, Tutun Mukherjee’s edited volume
Staging Resistance (2005) in its prolegomenon gives an argument of how society
intentionally alienates women’s dramaturgy from mainstream theatre and what the
common impetus and impediments in fourishing the womanist theatre as a distinct
genre are. The anthology discovers the absence of women’s voices in the realm of
drama.
Another book, Feminist Theory and Modern Drama (1998), edited by Taisha Abra-
ham, collects literary essays which generally theorize the pedagogical purpose of
feminist theatre scholarship. Collected articles from Lakshmi Subramanyam’s edited
 Introduction 9

volume Mufed Voices: Women in Modern Indian Theatre (2002) look at the image of
women in the play texts and performance in post-independence India. The frst
unit of the book probes the representation of women in male texts, and the second
unit articulates the distinct voices of female practitioners. Vasudha Dalmia, in her
book Poetics, Plays, and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre (2006),
surveys the aesthetic and political issues in the modern Indian theatre. Questions of
modernity, nationalism and identity are all entangled in Hindi theatre. Her read-
ing shows how the urban interest and use of folk theatre ofered resources for new
experimentations in the modern stage in the 1960s and 1970s and how the women
directors of the last decades of the 20th century questioned and deconstructed the
categories of dominant theatrical discourse.
Aparna Bhargava Dharwadker’s Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and
Urban Performance in Indian since 1947 (2005) examines how the post-independence
theatre has assimilated the indigenous forms in its composition, thereby develop-
ing a unique mode of expression through “syncretistic practices” which dismantle
dominant cultural binaries of rural/urban, tradition/modernity and east/west. This
dissolution creates a space in urban theatre for folkloric productions that allow
alternate imaginings of feminine desire. Susan Seizer’s work on actresses of Special
Drama in Tamil Nadu (2005) provides an in-depth analysis of the stigma attached to
the genre of Special Drama performance in Tamil Nadu. Deepti Priya Mehrotra’s
Gulab Bai (2006) charts the life of Gulab Bai, reputed to be the frst female actor
who joined Nautanki in 1931, rose to dizzying heights as the heroine of numerous
dramas and later started the Great Gulab Theatre Company. Minoti Chatterjee’s
Theatre on the Threshold (2004) and Rimli Bhattacharya’s discussion of the Bengali
actress Binodini Dasi in My Story and My Life as an Actress (1998) illustrate how
the imageries, characters and lives of women as actors, performers and participants
involved complex negotiations with prevailing social ideologies and middle-class
assumptions that emerged in response to the derisive discourses of colonialism.
Bishnupriya Dutt and Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, in their work Engendering Per-
formance (2010), provide critical studies in the feld of performance space and the
role of women in it during the colonial and postcolonial periods in India, inter-
lacing questions of sexuality and colonialism and culture and society to aford an
all-inclusive record of women performers in India.
Acting Up (2015) is a book by A. Mangai, an artist, director and scholar for
the last three decades. The work signifcantly contributes to an understanding of
gender-space in the Indian context. It explicates numerous connotations and pas-
sages within progressive political theatre and feminist contributions to the feld of
Indian theatre, of which the writer herself has been a signifcant part.
Body Blows: Women, Violence and Survival (2000) is a collection of plays by
Manjula Padmanabhan, Polie Sengupta and Dina Mehta. The plays collectively
highlight the objectifcation of women and the crimes like rape, incest, dowry
death and female feticide committed against women in the name of tradition and
culture in a male-dominated society. Polie Sengupta’s anthology Women Centre
Stage: The Dramatist and the Play (2010) is a collection of six contemporary English
10 Introduction

plays which explore a wide range of familial, social, mythological and political
issues, with women as the foremost concern. The plays are diferent from each
other in their organisation and the issues they bring in but are linked by a unify-
ing thread, which is the status and agency of women in family, social and political
structures. Concerns such as sexual abuse, relationships, ageing, gender discrimina-
tion, love, desire and revenge are all woven in the matrix of the narrative. Gender,
Space and Resistance: Women and Theatre in India (2013), edited by Anita Singh and
Tarun Tapas Mukherjee, contains critical essays, play texts and interviews which
in some ways address the social issues associated with gender inequity. It proposes
to show just why and how relevant feminist politics is reimagining a vibrant and
inclusive concept of gender fairness and justice in contemporary India and thereby
constitutes a signifcant intervention of gender in the discourse of Indian theatre.
Lata Singh’s (ed.) Play House of Power: Theatre in Colonial India (2009) focuses on
theatre’s multifaceted relation to gender and provides an analysis of theatre in colo-
nial times. It deals with the politics of colonial theatre, theatre and modernity and
the intersecting domains of high and low culture and Western and Indian genres
and fnally theatre as a site of appropriation and contestation. Also, Betty Bern-
hard’s video recording of contemporary theatre activists (1998) represents a variety
of positions and perspectives.
The works on feminism and performance in the Indian context have explored
issues relevant to the socio-cultural context in India, and they also look at the
issues in a historical context and thereby expand and extend the context of theatre/
drama to the performance. My work seeks to locate Indian performance practices
in contemporary times and takes as its purview the rural, the street and the urban
performances and examines how they address the issue of violence in their respec-
tive genres and styles. The basic argument of the book, then, is that performance
practices in India are heterogeneous and diverse, catering to social, cultural and
geographical contexts and audiences, and they all deal with women’s issues difer-
ently and responsibly.

Methodology: reconstruction and reporting analyses

The performers selected for study here are informed with distinct theatre tradi-
tions, and they have evolved those traditions in specifc ways to create a unique
performance style and make particular interventions. They may not be considered
political theatre practitioners in very overt ways, but their theatre is determined by
their specifc aesthetics. They draw massive audiences and are popular performers.
They have done experiments with and evolved their distinct performance aesthet-
ics. The book will be attentive to the four layers of a performance event:

1 History of the genre.

2 The performer and the pre-production stages of performance.
3 The performance event.
4 Post-production appraisals.
 Introduction 11

Philip Auslander, in his book Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, cri-

tiques the notion that performance remains the domain of the live, the intimacy
and immediacy; he contends that live performance seems to have a self-evident
realness and value that the purportedly secondary “mediatized” ones do not. He
states that performance studies scholars must critically examine this hierarchy
of values, and he actively interrogates the presumptions undergirding both the
notion of “liveness” itself and the symbolic capital that accrues to it (1999, 59).
Similar to Auslander’s stance, I do not want to sanctify the idea of presence,
although I believe in its efect and power. Hence, as a performance reading
method, the ephemeral and the singular performance viewing will be supple-
mented with:

1 Details of the performance as a specialised form and its history because per-
formance is often a response to a social state. It will further show how the
genre proliferated and developed to adapt to changing meanings and changes
in audiences and authors.
2 Photos, audio-visual recordings, statements before the performance (advertise-
ments and announcements, flyers, documents outlining the project, a com-
mentary, artists’ statements of their intentions or interviews following the
opening): all this will also meld with the performers’ life narratives in this
pre-performance appraisal. It effectively brings the pre-production role of the
performer and the performance into the meaning-making process.
3 Then at the level of live performance: details of production and costume, the
bodily co-presence of the actors and spectators, their expectations, applause
encores of the audience in the heat of the performance, the stage space and the
mise-en-scene cumulatively brought into the fold of inquiry.
4 And lastly, the post-production review responses and reception, previous per-
formance details retrieved from the archives, footage of the enactment (record-
ing, pictures and videotapes): in short, the understanding of the play retrospec-
tively. Foregrounding the enmeshed sense of personal and political concern,
performance as a resistive act and post-performance political engagement are
also vital to understand. The semiological analysis of signs and the network of
vectors, a hermeneutic interpretation of the work and the critical discourse
which follows the performance.

The paratext is the context, occasion, incidents and/or some previous texts that
give rise to the actual performance. In this engagement with theatre, there are also
all-embracing and over-determining socio-political and theatrical contexts. I will
pursue hybrid inquiries combining performance viewing with refexive being.
Dominant methods of knowing are those of empirical observation and analysis
from a distanced perspective. “Knowing that and knowing about” is a diferent way
of knowing that deals with an active, intimate hands-on involvement and subjec-
tive connection: “knowing how” and “knowing who” (Conquergood, 2002, 146).
This view is from ground level in the thick of things, structured around a set of
12 Introduction

key words, such as embodiment and situated knowledge, knowing which is contextual,
embroiled within the specifcs of place, time, body and culture and which col-
lectively constitute enactment. Donna Haraway locates this homely and informal
“view from a body” as distinct from the theoretical and controlling “view from
above” universal knowledge that pretends to transcend location (1988, 196). This
work will then employ the two types of analysis – reporting and reconstruction –
mentioned by Pavis (1997). By reporting analysis, he means seeing the performance
“from within”, in the heat of the action, detailing the impact of the events, experi-
encing there and then everything that moves the spectator. Reconstruction analysis,
on the other hand, always collects clues, relics or documents from the performance,
as well as artists’ statements of their intentions, which were written down during the
performance’s preparation, and all mechanical recordings from all angles and in all
possible forms. Reconstruction analysis is particularly concerned with the study of
the performance’s context and nature and extent of this context or contexts.

Semiotic approach: the stage as sign

Performance analyses for best results combine semiotics and a phenomenological
approach. I begin by examining the historical evolution of semiotics from its initial
theoretical concerns with the prospect of locating a defnite and distinctive sign to
the recent engagements in the feld of theatre semiotics or the semiotic approaches
to the study of theatre and performance. As early as 1936, Jan Mukarovsky, in
his essay “Art as a Semiotic Fact”, upheld the semiotic perspective for evolving
the “objective study” of art. For the linguist Saussure (1857–1913), semiology is
a “science”, which studies the role of signs as part of social life. “Semiology” was
associated with the European tradition and articulated as a comprehensive science
of signs. Almost all semiological works in the 20th century borrow basic tenets
from Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics (1960). On the other
hand, for the American philosopher Charles Peirce (1839–1914), the feld of study
of semiotics is the “formal doctrine of signs”, related closely to logic supported
by a triadic model of the sign whereby something (the signifer) took the place of
(signifed) something else (the referent) (1975, 2).
By the second half of the 20th century, semiotics had released itself from an
exactingly linguistic work. It diverged out into a broader philosophical feld while
simultaneously placing focus on the social aspects of sign production and recep-
tion. France, in particular, saw a spectacular increase in the number of semiotic
applications to a wide variety of topics, which included analyses of the fashion
industry, mythology and narrative, just to name a few. The Prague School semioti-
cians cultivating critical models for understanding performance phenomena played
an essential role in the evolution of semiotic theory for the theatre by establishing
the idea of the theatre as consisting of a variety of sign-systems; everything on stage
was now considered a sign. The drama ceased to be an annex of the property of
literary critics’ theatre and was now considered a distinct semiotic system using
heterogeneous materials.
 Introduction 13

The Prague School initiated the specifc application of semiotic theory to the-
atre and performance. They looked at acting as a sign (Mukarovsky, 1976; Honzl,
1976) dramatic action (Veltrusky, 1981), language in the theatre (Jakobson, 1987;
Bogatyrev, 1938) and the theatrical implications of the dramatic text (Veltrusky,
1976). An important contemporary text on the semiotics of drama, Keir Elam’s
The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, refers to two articles in particular that truly
mapped out the stage semiotics: Jindrich Honzl’s “Dynamics of the Sign in the
Theater” and Jiri Veltrusky’s “Contribution to the Semiotics of Acting” in Sound,
Sign, and Meaning.
Semiotics enabled the discipline of performance studies by bringing in “new
critical vocabulary for performance” (Cambell, 1996) and not merely analysing
a dramatic text as it was traditionally done. However, many scholars and artists,
for example, have expressed reservations about semiotics being too abstract and
theoretical and about understanding the performance as a series of signs (States,
1987, 7) and the totalizing and the “almost imperialistic confdence” (Villeneuve,
1989, 25) of semiotic theory, arguing that it perpetuates a singularizing and,
consequently, limited understanding. The semiotic approach may not be a compre-
hensive method, but it does liberate the text and expedites and encourages pluralist
analyses. Semiotics analysis facilitates the deducing of meanings as signifed through
the act of performance at the same time, and there is always this awareness that
meaning is determined by complex intersections of social categories and theatrical
codes. Within theatre studies, phenomenology has become a complement to semi-
otics in performance analysis in recent decades. Theatre has been primarily seen
as an image-making medium, and the live embodied presence of the performer
and audience in performance has largely been ignored. In the semiotic approach,
there is an erasure of the body, and this transpires through a sole dependence on
the image-making approach. A phenomenological approach enables where the
semiotic approach blinds.

Phenomenology: fnding a voice, fnding a body

The current trend in performance analysis is a return to the material and concrete
reality of the stage, a return to the body of the performance, the “erotic in the
theatre process” (Lehmann, 1989, 48). The theatre is primarily a form of live per-
formance; in other words, theatre requires the performers’ embodied presence to a
perceiving audience during a performance.
Phenomenology ofers an image of the stage practices which is at the same
time a theory of action and a theory of the spectators’ reception of the perfor-
mance. “Theatre does not ‘reach’ someone; someone has the theatre ‘reach’ him”
(Tindemans, 1989, 55). When we are looking at a painting or an event or see-
ing a performance, eye and mind are active and not merely recording. “To think
means to try, to operate, to “reform, regulated only by an experimental control in
which only the most highly ‘wrought’ phenomena intervene, phenomena which
our mechanisms produce rather than record” (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, 10).
14 Introduction

Phenomenology as a method of inquiry was developed by German philoso-

phers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger in the 19th century. It was based
on the premise that reality consists of objects and images (phenomena) as they are
perceived. It studies experience and how we experience, the structures of con-
scious experience along with its intentionality. Experience is mainly understood
as imagination, action, thought, desire and volition. Some other thinkers who
used phenomenology are Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), Max Scheler
(1874–1928), Edith Stein (1891–1942), Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889–1977),
Alfred Schutz (1899–1959), Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) (a student of Heidegger,
Husserl and Karl Jaspers, with her existentialism and theory of political action, she
bought phenomenology within political thought) and Emmanuel Levinas (1906–
1995), not only as a political philosopher but also as a member of the second wave
of phenomenological thinkers (such as Merleau-Ponty and Sartre), who brought
insights from classical phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger) to a range of ethi-
cal and political concerns.
Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), widely known as the founder of modern phe-
nomenology, conceived phenomenology in three important ways. Firstly, it was
considered as a science which endeavoured to discover the basis of consciousness.
Secondly, it was seen as a philosophy, and the third idea of phenomenology was that
it was seen as transcendental idealism. This view conceives the transcendental ego
as the source of all meaning, known as the frst wave or classical phenomenologist.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s contribution lies in his insistence on the materiality
of the body: the lived experience of being implicated in a body. As Grosz explains
“Merleau-Ponty locates experience midway between mind and body and that
experience is always necessarily embodied, corporeally constituted, located in and
as the subject’s incarnation” (Grosz, 1994, 95). The basis of phenomenological
thought is that any experience of perception has a form or gestalt that contains
organised, defned wholes standing out against a background,1 and as Merleau-
Ponty has said, “it is impossible . . . to decompose a perception, to make it into
a collection of sensations, because in it the whole is prior to the parts” (States,
1987, 15).
The live body is central to Elaine Aston. In Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook,
which asserts the “centrality of the live body to the theatre” in Chapter 3 (titled
“Finding a Body, Finding a Voice”), she proposes to put women back in touch
with their bodies. She weaves the chapter through three basic points:

1 Body size.
2 Body image.
3 Permission to touch.
(Aston, 2005, 43–65)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s claim that the body is a historical idea, rather than a
natural entity, has been accepted by Simone de Beauvoir, who seems to suggest that
the body is a historical situation and to be a woman or man is to conform oneself
 Introduction 15

to a particular historical situation. Hence, the sex or the body is a socio-cultural

and historical construct. Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex (1949), defnes the
body as a situation. To be a woman is not a fxed reality; women are always in the
process of becoming, of making what they are. Toril Moi, in her book What Is a
Woman? And Other Essays (1999), considers what de Beauvoir means by the body as
a situation. To this proposition, Moi adds the idea of women’s “lived experience”,
which also plays an essential role in making what women are.
In Performance as Political Act, Martin seeks to re-embody the political subject.
His study goes against the conventional wisdom of the three areas it aims to synthe-
sise: politics, the performing arts and the body. A sustained theoretical discussion
that critiques semiotic and phenomenological approaches to the body and outlines
a body politics links the two studies: for instance, in the way so-called identity is a
bundling of personal, cultural and political entities; aspects of that identity can then
be valued and circulated beyond the actual individual (1990, 211).
Martin contends that Foucault’s account of discipline sees mostly the docile
body, a narrative that recognises how discourses become potent weapons of con-
trol, while Merleau-Ponty sees the body-subject as a joyous free play without
creating its constrictions. For Martin, dance and theatre are closely allied art forms
as they are both performance arts in which the body “overfows” the socially fash-
ioned restraints. Martin shows how performers act and react to each other in the
kinetic feld that they collectively create (1990, 97–126). Theatre audiences also
act and react in the kinetic feld that they create. In Martin’s terminology, when a
performer with powerful presence is in the kinetic feld of the body subjects which
constitute the audience, these body subjects actively register the material existence
of the performer. The impact of the presence in general and theatrical presence in
particular is possible because the body is conscious, because the body subject expe-
riences the world through sensation. Presence is not just experienced through the
body; it is afrmed through the body. Randy Martin’s “body subjects” recognise
the body as subject that is, “a body subject who is always constructing a world by
the space it inhabits” (1990, 36). For Butler, “There is no gender identity behind
the expressions of gender. . . . [I]dentity is performatively constituted by the very
‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (1990, 25). In other words, gender is a
performance; it’s what you do at particular times, rather than a universal “who you
are”. Butler calls gender a “continuum act”; then we retain the power to challenge
gender by expanding “the cultural feld bodily through subversive performances of
various kinds” (282).
By claiming a sentient body which perceives/knows the world as a social body,
Martin provides a framework for understanding how theatrical presence makes an
impact on the audience.

The experience of body subjects in society, a sort of phenomenology of

social physics, walking down the street, one finds it easy to become aware
of the surrounding environment as a complex of objects or physical entities.
But rather than identifying the objects (building, person, and light stand)
16 Introduction

we could become aware of them as physical obstacles, as forms with which

we cohabit space for a period of time. . . . [T]he body subject is constantly
registering this field, and the sensed reformation of motion.
(Martin, 1990, 75)

This notion of knowing the body corporeally draws from Maurice Merleau-Pon-
ty’s work with the performers. Theatre brings material bodies as well as bodies
and objects. The performer and audience attend theatre as body subject within
dynamic space feld, which is created by the event of performance. Performance
allows us to engage with the sentient nature of our experience when we apprehend
the embodied presence of the theatre performer. The theatre is undoubtedly an
ephemeral art; the experiential impact, once a moment is performed, is gone – it
cannot be recovered in any way that doesn’t fundamentally change it. By positing
presence as energy, theatre parlance captures the experiential quality of presence
in the theatre. Performers’ felt presence is sensed by the audience; it is known cor-
poreally between body-mind and mind-body, establishing the body as subject and
subject as bodied: “I am my body . . . at least wholly to the extent that I possess
experience and yet at the same time my body is as it were a natural subject, a provi-
sional sketch of my total being”. Our body, according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
constitutes our being in the world: “[M]y body concerning the world is the general
instrument of comprehension” (1964, 235).
Theoretically, historically and more vibrantly in recent years, there has been
continual assimilation between phenomenological and semiotic methods (Cadiot
and Visetti, 2002; Fontanille, 2015; Bondì and Mantia, 2015). Both semiotics and
phenomenology have by now given rise to highly developed applications to theatre
and performance studies in the works of Erika Fischer-Lichte, Marvin Carlson,
Susan Melrose, Bruce Wilshire, and Bert States. They argue that performance
makes use of signs, and signs are produced by cultural systems. The two are not
seen as hostile but compatible methods of analysis.
Common to both semiotics and phenomenology is the notion that the object
or mark operates as a kind of signifer that, through the hermeneutic process, is
linked to a signifer. In place of the language of the sign, phenomenology uses the
discourse of the givenness of phenomena and the apprehensions of embodied con-
sciousness. Theorists, such as Pavis, for instance, develop elaborate models to help
interpret performance phenomena. This should not be read as an attempt to limit
and oversimplify a work of art; instead, it should be seen as an efort to articulate
and schematically draw out the intricacy of performance with the understanding
that this “mapping” is never complete. Phenomenology allows us to recuperate the
material body. A theatre analysis that does not engage context is as inadequate as
a theatre analysis that does not involve the embodied presence of the performer.
A form of social interaction, theatre clearly reckons with the history and ideology
of the society it belongs to. A phenomenological method preserves the theatrical
experience alive in my written analyses and enables me to understand the circum-
stantial efect of the embodied performance presence.
 Introduction 17

Models from Pavis, Carlson and Fischer-Lichte

Methodologically, my approach will borrow from recent performance analysis
research, mainly using insights from three theorists and their works: Erika Fischer-
Lichte, The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics (2008); Marvin
Carlson, Theatre Semiotics: Signs of Life (1990) and Patrice Pavis, “The State of Cur-
rent Theatre Research” (1997). Both semiotic and phenomenological approaches
have given rise to highly developed applications to theatre and performance studies
in the works of these writers.
Performance can efectually be engaged in a multilateral and holistic perspec-
tive as what Patrick Pavis calls “integrated semiotics” (1997). Integrated semiotics
and phenomenology are twin procedures as key performance analysis tools in this
work. Pavis considered traditional semiotics inadequate in its search for “minimal
units” and attempted to “reconstruct” performance texts on their grounds (Pavis,
1997, 255). In his essay “The Discourse on the Mime”, Pavis draws attention to the
importance of “coherence” in understanding mime, which he calls the theatre of
the body. In mime, the signs do not stand in for the referent. Instead, they relate to
one another in the form of systematic language. The coherence within the system
is required to understand this theatre of the body (1982, 55). Theatre, like mime,
does not use atomised signs but signs which function together systematically. This
“systematicity” places the signs in a relationship of disparity with the ordinary world
of voice, movement, gesture etc. Thus, on stage, the theatrical signs cohere, or they
have presented en masse within the system of theatre; these signs are to be inter-
preted and analysed by the audience to elicit symbolic meaning (Counsell, 1996,
10–12). While emphasising the systematic way in which signs function, Patrice
Pavis employs the semiotic model of Saussure, according to which there is neither
essential relationship between signifer and signifed nor contiguity and similarity.
The relation between signifer and signifed is one of culturally agreed link. Hence,
signifcation, as emphasised by Saussure, is the construction of meaning with the
help of culturally framed signs, unlike Peirce, who seems to suggest that signifcation
is the communication of already existing meaning (Counsell, 1996, 11–12).
Patrice Pavis’s “model of concretization” and “theory of vectors” argue that his
work echoes a new trend in contemporary performance studies that are oriented
toward multilateral and holistic perspectives in its refusal to separate production
from reception, the written from the performance text or a narrative structure
from ideology.
Marvin Carlson, in his short collection of essays, Theatre Semiotics: Signs of Life,
contends that theatre semioticians are primarily engaged with the dramatic text.
Carlson defends the power of the performance over the power of the dramatic
text, which is all too often the subject of semiotic study. He adds three concerns to
the semiotic theory of theatre that he claims have generally been underdeveloped:

1 The semiotic contributions of the audience to the meaning of a theatrical

performance – how the audience receives and interprets signs;
18 Introduction

2 The semiotics of the entire theatre experience – the “appearance of the audi-
torium, the displays in the lobby, the information in the program and countless
other parts of the event as a whole”; and
3 The iconic relationship of theatre to the life it represents.
(1990, 27)

For him, theatre is not merely a physical realisation of a text on stage; perfor-
mance is a complex event, and he advocates the opening out of semiotic analysis
onto diferent theoretical approaches as the reception theory and materialist
analysis phenomenology, thereby making performance analysis a rich, varied and
total experience engaging in and exploring the interplay of society and culture.
One can safely say that Carlson extends and moves beyond the narrow concern
of Keir Elam’s work The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (1983), whose emphasis
was on the semiotics of the text and its representation. Theatre does not exist in
an abstract space. It interacts with its audience and the public through advertise-
ments, programs, playbills, reviews and posters, as well as through its external
location and appearance inside and out in ways largely neglected by traditional
theatre semioticians.
Carlson elaborates Elam and C. S. Pierce’s defnition of theatrical realism as “an
attempt to create an iconic performance as the medium will allow” (1984, 76).
For Carlson, the spectator encounters on stage multiple perceptions of presences
which he calls the “corporeality of theatrical signs” (96), from which the spectator
is necessarily left free to choose. The performance has the compensating power of
“psychic polyphony” (1984, 101) through the way the actors ofer multiple psychic
perspectives to the observer. Each successive performance of a text means that it
undergoes mediation; therefore, for Carlson, the semiotic study of consecutive
performances is a study of the culture they refect. Carlson places the theatrical
experience in its cultural context, which instantaneously relativises the experience
and releases it up to extensive meanings.
Erika Fischer-Lichte explains the concept of performance by pursuing four
arguments:

1 Performance comes into being by the bodily co-presence of actors and specta-
tors, by their encounter and interaction.
2 What happens in performances is transitory and ephemeral. Nonetheless,
whatever appears in its course comes into being hic et nunc and is experienced
as present in a particularly powerful way.
3 Performance does not transmit pre-given meanings. Instead, it is the perfor-
mance which brings forth the implications that come into being during its
course.
4 Performances are characterised by their eventness. The specific mode of an
experience they allow for is a particular form of liminal experience.
(Fischer-Lichte, 2008)
 Introduction 19

Performances are not passive events happening on stage; they attain meaning by the
co-presence of and the transactions between the actors and the performers. Erika
Fischer-Lichte, in The Transformative Power of Performance, writes

for hermeneutic and for semiotic aesthetics, a clear distinction between sub-
ject and object is fundamental. The artist creates a distinct, fixed, and trans-
ferable artefact that exists independently of its creator. This condition allows
the beholder, the subject, to make it the object of their perception and inter-
pretation. The fixed and transferable artefact, i.e. the nature of the work of
art as an object, ensures that the beholder can examine it repeatedly, continu-
ously discover new structural elements, and attribute different meanings to it.
(2008, 17)

Commenting on the neglect of the phenomenal body of the performer and the
spectator in performance, as opposed to the attention paid to the semiotic body,
Fischer calls for a more integrated approach that pays attention to the semiotic and
the phenomenal body of the performer and the spectator:

[S]ince the phenomenal and the semiotic body are indissolubly bound to
each other – what allows to think of the phenomenal body without referring
to the semiotic body, albeit not the other way round. It seems quite produc-
tive to relate both of them to one another via the concept of embodiment.
(Fischer-Lichte, 2000, 65–75)

From all these approaches, I will take on the combination of historical, social and
cultural underpinning, coupled with artistic techniques, performative experimen-
tation and gender perspectives. An appreciation of the various forms of theatrical
communication can never be (and should never be) reduced to one vision. Theatre
and performance are too vast and varied for any one, all-inclusive and comprehen-
sive theory. Therefore, these theoretical models are, at best, indicators or perhaps
even signs that can help us understand performance as all performances are always
open to multiple meanings and receptions.

Feminisms in India: a local habitation and a name

I have used the term feminism in the title of this book to qualify the performances I
intend to study, but the term feminism has its discomforts. It is fraught with glitches
of categorisations and defnitions. It is presumed and deciphered diferently in dif-
ferent contexts. It is more practical to speak of it in the plural as feminisms. I feel my
stand is almost like that of Humpty Dumpty, who asserted in Alice in Wonderland,
“When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor
less”. When further questioned by Alice (“You make a word mean so many difer-
ent things”), Humpty stressed, “The question is which is to be the master”. The
20 Introduction

concepts feminism and feminist resist defnitive statements (Bowen and Wyatt, 1993,
2). Feminism remains a contentious term, and I use it as a handy and usable con-
cept in thinking about the gendered experience from a human rights perspective.
People troubled about discrimination on the grounds of gender or sexual orienta-
tion will have some afnity with the term.
Feminism has been defned as “embracing movements for equality” (Jayawar-
dena, 1986, 2). The term indicates a variety of campaigns around issues important
to women (Kumar, 1993). It is seen as transformative politics, managing and tran-
scending class, caste and community diferences (Rajan, 1999). Feminist discourse
seeks to dissect and explore power structures and patriarchies, social practices and
institutions, all of which have collectively entrenched inequality between men,
women and transgender and also between women and women. Raka Ray men-
tions shifts that occurred in the last decades of the 20th century with regards to our
understanding of feminist theory “universalizing to particularizing and contextual-
izing” (1999) women’s experiences. It is no longer seen as a Western ofshoot as
commonly misunderstood but has its own specifcity in indigenous roots (Jain,
2011; Jayawardena, 1986; Narayan, 1997).
In the Euro-American model, feminism has witnessed diverse trajectories from
the initial feminist investigation, the silence of women’s voices and images of
women as misogynistic and representations/misrepresentations of women to cyber-
feminism and post-feminism. To name some of its varied tracks:
Liberal feminism focuses on the centrality of an ideal state granting and pro-
tecting equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men (Wollstonecraft,
1792/1998; Mill, 1869; Friedan, 1963; Rossi, 1970). Marxist feminism focuses on
class division, the liberation of women via a concern for the production of labour
in family life (Andermahr et al., 1997; Gimenez, 2005; Holmstrom, 1982; Jaggar,
1983; Malos, 1980; Young, 1980). Radical feminists (e.g., Daly, 1978; Morgan,
1974; Dworkin, 1981; Mackinnon, 1989) view society as primarily patriarchal
where all men oppress women. Psychoanalytic feminists explain women’s oppress
as rooted in psyche (Horney, 1950; Kristeva, 1984; Klein, 1984; Chodorow, 1978;
Gilligan, 1993); one set of feminists believes that women are dominated because
they are misrepresented in literature, media and flms (Millet, 1970; Ellman, 1968;
de Beauvoir, 1949; Mulvey, 1975) while some others attempt to understand the
psychodynamics and socio-cultural context of women’s writing/female tradition
(Spacks, 1975; Showalter, 1997; Gilbert and Gubar, 1979/2009; Woolf, 1928).
The French feminists were active in investigating language as a prison house and
fnding a new term: ecrtiture feminine (Irigaray, 1985; Cixous, 1981; Kristeva, 1984;
Wittig, 1980; Daly, 1978). Ecofeminists claim that environmental issues are feminist
issues because it is women and children who are the frst to sufer the consequences
of injustice and ecological destruction, “reinforcing ideologies of racism, sexism,
classism, imperialism, naturism and speciesism” (Gaard and Gruen, 1993; War-
ren (1990), expanding the agenda of legal recognition into women’s equality in
work, pay, welfare, control over one’s body and access to child care and abortion,
eradication of violence against women and generally extend full human rights for
 Introduction 21

women. A cyborg feminist perspective is a way of theorizing women’s connection

to science and technology. Haraway asserts: “Perhaps, ironically, we can learn from
our fusions with animals and machines how not to be man, the embodiment of
Western logos” (1991, 173). Lesbian feminism includes some writers and activists
such as Charlotte Bunch, Rita Mae Brown, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Mary
Daly, Sheila Jefrey and Monique Wittig.
Postmodern feminists (e.g., Butler, 1990) focus on issues of meaning and
identity, arguing that these categories are fuid and cannot be pinned down to
any fxed and rigid categorisation. Critique of mythical homogeneity and rais-
ing the question “Who is we?” (Butler, 1990). The debates around the notion
of the overdetermined efects and resistance to multiple oppressions and exploit-
ative process, the limitations of the Western paradigm, the colonial implications
of the Western feminist framework, rejection of a global homogenizing sister-
hood (Walker, 1983; Kandiyoti, 1988; Collins, 2001). Frames of Womanism
assert contributions made by women of colour (Anzaldúa, 1981/2015; Collins,
2001; hooks, 1984); Oyewumi, 2002). They afrmed the lives of Black, queer,
trans and disabled people; illegal Black folks and all Black lives along the gen-
der spectrum. Race, class and gender represent the interlocking systems and a
socio-historical context, and this interlocking analysis is seen as absent in other
feminisms. International feminist movements/global feminisms (Mohanty, 2003)
invoke the plural form to signify a multiplicity of perspectives. In multicultural
feminism (Russo and Vaz, 2001), the diverse theories of multiracial feminists
embed strategies of social justice (Anzaldua, 1981/2015; hooks, 1984). Feminists
are leveraging on online networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr,
hashtags, Instagram, blogs and social media (Ghorbani, 2013; Goldberg, 2014;
Joyce, 2010; Valenti and Martin, 2012; Watson, 2013) to promote gender equal-
ity and response to sexism.
The overarching signifcance of feminism for me is

1 It enables us to put power relations into the centre of analyses we make.

2 It addresses systems of marginalisation, invisibility, oppression of gender, class,
caste, ability, locations and other and many more intersections.
3 It enables us to build valid coalitional theories (Butler, 1990; Kimberlé, 1989).
4 It is forming grassroots alliances (Kalpagam, 2011, 1994; Arunachalam and
Kalpagam, 2007) on the commonality of interests, and these coalitions have
increased vocabularies and awareness about gender.
5 It is like the “boundaries of a quilt or collage” emerging from the multiplicity
of voices of women in a cross-cultural context; the design will change over
time. It is not something static.
(Warren, 1990, 331)

It is committing to the contextual nature of knowledge that permits us to claim

that it is simpler and more possible for the oppressed to have perceptive under-
standings into the circumstances of their own subjugation than it is for those who
22 Introduction

live in diferent realms. This means that women’s diferences are connected in sys-
tematic ways. “Feminism is situated knowledge” (Haraway, 1988, 581).
However, despite the discipline’s specifc epistemological, ontological and
methodological postulations, there is no one monolithic feminist standpoint; in
its place, there are multiple perspectives, with diverse theoretical foundations
(Andermahr et al., 1997). This work is rooted in the idea that feminism has pro-
gressed in diverse grounds rather than as one cohesive concept, and the labels that
defne those felds have varied.
In India, for over 200 years, our engagement with feminism has been fashioned
by the colonial presence: on the one hand, our resistance to the imperial rule, on
the other, the structures of internal hegemony. Feminist discussion is often seen as
a counter-discourse to the colonial civilizing mission/imperialism (Chakrabarty,
1992; Chatterjee, 1992; Sinha, 1995). Women became the “site” on which the
debates were conducted (Mani, 1989; Murshid, 1952) they became the iconic
representation of the nation (Sen, 1993). Early articulations of nationalism resisted
the subordination of the domestic to the civilizing scrutiny of colonial missionaries
and bureaucrats and the transformative will of modernity (Sen, 1993; Chatterjee,
1989; Chakrabarty, 1994). This domestic sphere became, in colonial discourse, the
fount of India’s distinctiveness, of Indianness (Sen, 1993). Certain formulations
were clearly established of the good woman, chaste wife, domesticity, marriage as
sacramental (as opposed to the contractual nature of marriage in Islamic law) and,
therefore, irrevocable (O’Hanlon, 1997; Nair, 1994; Sen, 1993). The public and
the private sphere accommodated and prescribed appropriate behaviour (Forbes,
1996, 123–124). Gandhi’s invocation to icons like Sita, Savitri and Mira drew on
traditional gender ideology, which not only appealed to women but also reassured
men (Forbes, 1996).
The 1970s saw the campaigns against domestic violence, anti-dowry, the Self-
Employed Women’s Association, mass movement of women seeking consumer
protection, the student movement against price rises in Gujarat, localised struggles
such as the Chipko movement, the Bodhgaya movement (with a radical demand
for women’s land rights). New organisations were local and tightly knit, with
focused agendas, raising consciousness about gender issues (Desai and Patel, 1985).
This period saw the formation of women’s organisations on a track completely
diferent from pre-independence ones. Around 1978, city-based women’s groups
were created, some of which had frm origins in leftist politics (Mies, 1986; Jain,
2011; Omvedt, 1980; Shiva, 1988).
If 19th-century feministic concerns were engaged with colonial and national
elitist debates and the social reform movement, which led to the construction of
a new woman, the 20th century was embattled in the context of an independent
state. The issues raised were wide ranging: land rights, the nature of development,
political representation, divorce laws, custody, guardianship, sexual harassment at
work, alcoholism, dowry, rape (Sen, 1993) and the Toward Equality report (1974).
The Shramshakti report (1988) underscored the plight of women in the informal
sector, wherein a large section of women worked for wretchedly low wages with
 Introduction 23

no job security (Kalpagam, 1994). Globalisation and 20th-century debates have

shaped women’s questions quite diferently; we now grapple with the troubling
issues of Dalit women (Rege, 2006; Chakravarti, 2003), women of minority reli-
gious communities (Shah Bano divorce case, 1985, and Hadiya Jahan’s Love jihad/
conversion case, 2011), sexual minorities, transgender people, women’s reserva-
tion, moral policing, women in informal sectors and ecological concerns. Food,
water and reproductive health were also routinely addressed.
In the 21st century, new contestations emerged; global capitalism, environmen-
tal concerns, intersecting marginalities, caste, class and regional identities came
into play. Also, it has always struggled to create space for women to fght against
cultural impositions and religious restrictions, which underline and reinforce the
economic, social, political and psychological suppression. Many scholarly works
on feminism and women studies (see John, 2008; Omvedt, 1980; Sangari and
Vaid, 1989; Bhasin, 1999) have addressed these issues. Choudhuri’s edited volume
Feminisms in India (2005) traces the history of feminism from the colonial period
to contemporary time and explores the infnite variety of feminist ideas and the
subsequent theoretical trajectories. Padma Anagol’s The Emergence of Feminism in
India (2005) explores women’s identity, autonomy, assertion and resistance in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries in the background of Maharashtra as well as in
India. Radha Kumar’s History of Doing (1993) and Field of Protests: Women’s Move-
ments in India (1999) by Raka Ray argue that women’s movements are neither
homogeneous nor mere products of modernisation but are embedded in particular
sociopolitical felds. The doings and feld then shape the movements’ identity and
strategies of protest. In an edited volume Embodiment: Essays on Gender and Identity
(1997), Meenakshi Thapan deals with the social construction of the female body,
and the work titled Gender (2002) by V. Geetha focuses on the facts of gender rela-
tions, patriarchy and the intangible power relations between women and men. And
along with these works, the feminist resource centres2 in India actively demonstrate
against cases of domestic violence, rape, sexual harassment, communalism, war,
discrimination against women in the law, unsafe contraceptives, sex determination
and the unscrupulous sale of emergency contraceptives. Rising dogmatisms, mili-
tarisation, globalisation and state authoritarianism are some of the other challenges
they routinely address.
The density, variety and uneven nature of women’s questions are a feministic
concern, and to declare “I am not a feminist” (Despande, 2002; Kishwar, 1999)
then seems like a tale. Hence, this is my justifcation for the use of the adjective fem-
inist in the title of this work. More importantly, the concern that this work seeks to
address is the gendered nature of the violence. The discourses about women have
constituted an idea of women, and the imperative to subscribe to that idea of a pure
woman persists and thus hampers women’s mobility and access to resources and
assertion of their choices. The women performers chosen for this book may not
subscribe to the ideology or call themselves feminists, but I nevertheless see their
performances as questioning the cultural stereotypes. They take multiple shifting
forms and do not subscribe to a single way or militate for a coherent ideology.
24 Introduction

To do this is to overlook the possibilities of the rich and varied feminist theatrical
activities around us. The readings in the following chapters will show how the per-
formers bridge the gap between form and content/structure, which enables them
to express feministic concerns.

What is feminist performance anyway?

There are several caveats to this study. First, this work does not undertake an
exhaustive discussion of but instead attempts to give a comprehensive, general
coverage of those theatrical forms that seem appropriate to the study of feminist
theatre in India. Secondly, most of the performers analysed here do not subscribe
to the label of being “feminist” or prefer to call their play “feministic”. Neither
do they explicitly claim to be a women’s theatre; nevertheless, their performance
centres women as the central character and depicts their personal experiences. The
term feminism has been employed more like an overarching strategy to underscore
the point that feminism is not a homogeneous way or expression but manifests itself
diferently in diferent contexts. It is multiple interlocking oppressions of women,
numerous layers of diference, the simultaneity of efect. The term is political,
and the gender rearrangement and responsiveness that the performers practice are
surely very overtly political. Thus, the questions posed about feminism are not
merely rhetorical expressions of academic concerns but are practical questions to
which one hopes to fnd some answers. We can read these plays with one basic
idea: making performance can be an efective means of afecting social change.
Such performances do not necessarily ofer solutions but raise provocative ques-
tions that help us think about issues diferently.
Feminism is often seen as a hegemonic construction. This book will be alert
to the complexities and contradictions of a feminist reading of contemporary per-
formances. There are, indeed, values attached to the word feminism. There are
diferences in the forms of feminism. The positions of all these performers make
defnitions challenging to agree upon but need not make the politics of the perfor-
mance any less cohesive. The diferences in the practitioners are diferences based
on location, class, gender, caste – bell hooks (1984) has argued that contradiction
is not necessarily a bad thing; “we have to be willing as feminists to work with
contradictions and almost to celebrate their existence because they mean we are in
the process of change and transformation”. The term feminism is difcult to defne;
it will always be fexible and in need of continual revision. Ambiguity is an efective
safeguard and can be embraced as an expression of positive diference. The more
such diferences are recognised and respected, the less treacherous the gap between
theory and practice. The multiplicity of perspectives presented, both on stage and
in the role of playing everyday life, give feminism their uniquely efective ambigu-
ous identity. At times, ambiguity seems destructive, and we argue that we need
to determine a clear set of standards to prevent the genre from being dismantled
forever. Still, of course, the ambiguous identity of feminist performances is a tre-
mendous strength for new kinds of performances, new places and ideas are added
 Introduction 25

to the map. Contemporary feminist performances take many forms and use many
diferent working methods. They embrace performances in various measures for
diferent reasons, yet nearly all contemporary performances focus to some extent
on the role of the audience, on the self in performance. Their ways and means of
questioning dominant social norms have afected new moves to discuss political
action in performative terms, in performative actions, in political terms: how con-
tent and form work together to open ways of understanding a play as a feminist.
I will engage with the legacy of the term feminism from a political concept to
a social movement to an aesthetic category, all particularly in the Indian context,
and besides these, my analysis will draw upon theories of “doing gender” (West
and Zimmerman, 1987) and notions of masculinity and hegemonic masculinity
(Connell, 1983, 1985; Donaldson, 1991; Stacey and Thorne, 1985; Kimmel, 1995,
2008).
The women performers chosen for this book may not subscribe to the ideol-
ogy or call themselves feminists, but I nevertheless see them as questioning the
cultural stereotypes through their performances. Their ways and means of chal-
lenging prevailing social norms have afected new moves to discuss political action
in performative terms and performative actions in political terms: how content and
form work together to open ways of understanding a play as a feminist. The femi-
nist politics rampant in plays lend themselves to complex analysis. These plays can
additionally be read as enlightening, exploratory and interrogative performance,
inviting the participation of the spectator with the prospect that the production
of meaning will continue after the plays’ end, leading to the spectator’s choice
and action. Situating these plays beyond the proscenium arch into the social-cul-
tural space recognises and attempts to make overt the feminist politics implicit in
such playwrights’ work, as well as ofering a means for spectators to engage with
these plays’ complex politics of the gendered body. The performances under dis-
cussion demonstrate not only the multiplicity of theatrical forms informed by or
infected with feminist critiques but also the hybrid intentions that constitute their
participation in contemporary political performance as a cultural practice. These
performances address the structural inequities and established patterns of inequali-
ties rather than just engaging with individuated instances of subjective violence,
such as rape, violation, and humiliation.

Gendering violence/performing agency

Violence against women both violates and impairs or nullifes the enjoyment by
women of their human rights and fundamental freedoms. . . . In all societies, to a
greater or lesser degree, women and girls are subjected to physical, sexual and psy-
chological abuse that cuts across lines of income, class, and culture.
– Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, paragraph 112

The book focuses primarily on the politics of gendered violence and its repre-
sentation/interrogation in performance. I am aware of the limits of the choice of
26 Introduction

performances that solely concentrate on violence done to women and the response
of the performers. As a feminist, my concern is for the subordination of women, and
this does not mean that others are any less signifcant issues of concern. Body as a
site for executing violence does not apply to the female body only; it is also relevant
to the male body, girls and boys, persons of colour, religion, transgender, LGBT
and subordinated masculinities, and, conversely, women can be perpetrators of
violence too. It is also acknowledged that men and transgender individuals are also
raped, and sexual abuse is not a women’s issue alone, although some theoreticians
also have problematised the treatment of violence as primarily a male phenomenon
(Messerschmidt, 1993; Miedzian, 1991). I even recognise the insularity of my work
grounding the subject of gender violence within a single gender and national con-
text in a period of transnational organisations against gender violence.
Gendered violence is a performative act. The concept of violence is linked to
the idea of performativity. Violence inficted to the self or meted out against oth-
ers is a performative act. The woman’s body becomes a site where diferent acts of
violence are enacted by diferent social agencies. Violence against women is one
such reality that is being represented from diferent perspectives in the selected
performances. The readings presented here will act as an interface connecting the
two performances:

1 Gendered violence itself as a kind of performance taking place on the social

stage, and
2 Gendered violence as a consciously performed representative work on the
theatrical stage.

Three plays – Hum Mukhtara, Dastak and Walk – deal obliquely with the 2012
Nirbhaya gang rape. From folk artist Teejan Bai’s Pandavani, the episode I have
selected is the humiliation and disrobing of Draupadi in the kaurava court. The last
play by Ganguly, Sarama, is about the rape of a girl in village and issues of honour
and politics that are played out in the background. Misogyny, violence and rape are
issues shared by all the performers discussed in this work.
Representation of gendered violence on stage may incite more violence if it
is a titillating, voyeuristic and sensationalised representation, a kind of representa-
tion not done with conscious awareness of the issue. Aesthetically, the plays I have
chosen experiment with theatrical strategies to evoke “critical empathy” (Hesford,
2005) rather than voyeurism and sensationalised representation – always a concern
when representing sexualised violence. These performances can be seen as a turn to
agency; they speak of or encourage women’s capacities for agency, autonomy, per-
sonal responsibility and resistance. The intention of all the plays gravitates towards
an apparently liberating turn to agency. This can be termed agency-afrming femi-
nism. This work will analyse violence directed against women not only in terms
of its representation but also taking into account how the performance, with its
multiple possibilities, could also be used to represent violence against women and
create responsiveness towards it.
 Introduction 27

Counter-images of female agency

The selected performances can be read in the light of several interpretive frames.
Women encounter violence in both domestic/private and public domains. Femi-
nists place gender disparity at the core of debates on the nature of violence (cf.
Brownmiller, 1975; MacKinnon, 1989; Miedzian, 1991; Scully, 1994). Some opin-
ions trace the source of violence to patriarchy (Millet, 1970; Eisenstein, 1979;
Mies, 1986; Daly, 1978). For feminists, power and control are the core of male
violence. Gender informs power relationships and regulates behaviours within and
across location, class, caste, ability, age and all others classifcations. The forms of
violence that have long concerned feminists – sexual assault, rape, murder and
domestic abuses – are not limited to interactions between men and women, even
if, as is invariably the case, the vast majority of perpetrators are men, and the vast
majority of suferers are women.
Along with the feminist theoretical paradigms cited earlier, the analysis here
will also be built on the concept of “doing gender” (West and Zimmerman, 1987)
and hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1983, 1985; Donaldson, 1991). When per-
sons “do gender”, they participate in ongoing interactional practices in which
they invoke, create and perform polarised images of the two/three genders. For
West and Zimmerman, these polarisations debase women and place men in cen-
tral positions. Individual enactments of gender are termed genderism (Gofman,
1959) and build on Cooley’s notion of the looking-glass self (1902). Doing gender
often involves gender as performance, and these enactments range from author-
itarian to democratic role-playing. Gender as display posits that persons enact
gender-linked behaviors to meet situational contingencies. These culturally based
systems of meanings and practices, therefore, are both descriptive and prescriptive
for individuals in particular situations. Gender is thus constructed, and culture is
created within situated contingencies. Violence is predominately perpetrated by
males against females (Levinson, 1989; Gelles, 1997; Gelles and Straus, 1979).
Subordinate social status and the beliefs, norms and social institutions support a
patriarchal structure. Behaviours and ways of being for women are regulated; these
can be any behaviours that males deem inappropriate. They may involve talking
to a strange man, talking back to one’s husband, criticising in-laws, laughing a lot
or failing to fulfl expectations of appropriate feminine behaviour (Lateef, 1992).
For much of the 1970s and 1980s, it was possible to distinguish two alterna-
tive positions. Violence committed by men against women is “an expression of
physical power; a conscious process of intimidation; a blunt, ugly sexual invasion
with possible lasting efects on all women”. This view tends to regard rape as a
gender-neutral assault on individual autonomy (Brownmiller, 1975). The second
view favoured by many critical legal feminists followed Catharine MacKinnon’s
Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws in arguing, to the contrary, that rape is a logical exten-
sion of heterosexuality and that rape is an essential pillar of patriarchy. Sexual
harassment is sex discrimination because the act reinforces the social inequality of
women to men.
28 Introduction

The last few decades in India have seen a series of sexual violence incidents
against women: the Mathura rape case (1972),3 the Bhanwari Devi case (2011),4
the Shakti mill case (2013),5 the Suryanelli rape case (1996)6 and the Nirbhaya gang
rape (2012).7 Each of these is unspeakable damage inficted on women’s bodies, a
continually updating map of violence against women. Concurrently, these incidents
have sparked debates and resulted in the enforcement of protective laws to check
the exploitation of women and sexual harassment in the workplace. The Preven-
tion, Prohibition and Redressal Act, 2013, and the Protection of Women from
Domestic Violence Act, 2005, recognised the psychological and emotional efects
on recipients and perpetrators. Domestic violence was widely acknowledged as a
public health issue. Following the enactment of the Criminal Law (Amendment)
Act, 2013, the defnition of rape was not merely limited to cases of penile-vaginal
penetration but was extended to include the penetration of the vagina, mouth,
urethra, anus or any part of the body of a woman by a man using any object or
part of his body. All this underlines how sex and gender, and the enforcement of
particular standards of sexual conduct, are matters of political and legal, as well as
cultural and social, signifcance.
The gang rape of Jyoti Singh, renamed “Nirbhaya”, meaning “the fearless one”,
by the media, sparked a series of protests, and this forms the concern of three plays
included in this work. Nivedita Menon, in her book Seeing Like a Feminist (2012),
points out the distinction between the perceptions of rape by patriarchal forces and
by feminists:

For patriarchal forces, rape is evil because it is a crime against the honour of
the family, whereas feminists denounce rape because it is a crime against the
autonomy and bodily integrity of a woman. This difference in understand-
ing rape naturally leads to diametrically opposite proposals for fighting rape.
(Menon, 2012)

In the patriarchal context, the victim is guilty for her rape because either she
moved outside the prescribed female boundaries of the private into the public
space, or she was not dressed appropriately and decently as a woman should, hence
alluring the rapist. In such environments, where rape is seen to be the fault of the
victim rather than the rapist, women often prefer not to report the crime and stay
silent instead. Kapur (1996), in the context of the Nirbhaya rape case, describes it
as a crisis of Indian masculinity and discusses how the movement of women into
the public space has disturbed the way men defne themselves. Initially, the activ-
ism concealed Jyoti Singh’s name by using pseudonyms like #Nirbhaya, #Damini
and #Amanat (Losh, 2014, 10–12). The political collective actors felt that hiding
her real name under the pretext of protecting her reputation and identity did not
empower the cause, but instead perpetuated the existing gender power relations
(Losh, 2014, 10–12). Jyoti Singh’s parents supported the revealing of her name,
saying that they were not ashamed of her name, and the country as a whole should
be ashamed of the perpetrators instead of the victims (Saf, 2017). The movement
 Introduction 29

insisted that sexual violence should be seen as an ofence against a woman’s auton-
omy, as an action divesting her of her rightful agency, as opposed to the generally
held patriarchal perception of rape as a disgrace to the victim and her family.
The outrage8 that followed the attack opened up a previously nonexistent space
for victims and those close to them to speak out against sexual violence. The
intensity of these protests at the national and international levels led the Indian
government to implement specifc changes. Justice Verma was appointed the
chairperson of a committee tasked with the restructuring of the anti-rape law.
Most importantly, a space for public discussion of sexual violence that had not
existed before was created. More female ofcers were added to Delhi’s police force;
security was tightened, and night patrolling was increased; the police now had to
undergo gender sensitisation courses; six fast-track courts were set up to deal with
rape cases exclusively; laws against sexual assault were made stricter and, since one
of the accused was 17 years old at the time of the crime, a discussion of modify-
ing juvenile laws was initiated. Since 2012 the demands for security, the efcient
use of technology, safety apps, rape alarms and charting unsafe places are some
of the initiatives which are seen on the rise. Drones with night-vision cameras
were employed to guard the streets of metropolitan cities; improved policing, more
women cops with better facilities and more women on the streets were insisted on.
Writing in the context of campus rape, Kapur9 critiques the increased surveillance
and security and writes that it is doing absolutely nothing to advance women’s
rights or eradicate the sexist attitudes about women; the need is to start treating
women who demand change not as belligerent, menacing or lacking maternal
qualities, but as committed, conscientious and committed to ensuring an afrma-
tive experience for all, rather than a distressing experience for even one.
The heinous nature of Singh’s rape, in an urban and supposedly safe setting, and
the apathetic attitudes of the authorities led to protests for a fundamental transforma-
tion in the way rape is perceived in the legal discourse and the society at large. On a
practical level, there was an overall demand for better laws for the conviction for rape.
Public Secrets of Law: Rape Trials in India (Baxi, 2014) details the convoluted ways in
which rape trials are executed and how rape victims are harassed by law enforcement
ofcials and the medical examiners. The author simultaneously emphasises the need
for structural changes like safe public transport and better city infrastructure.
Feminist legal scholar Kapur argues that the focus on legal strategies has

invariably strengthened law and order, criminal justice framework as well as

the security apparatus of the state. . . . It furthers a protectionist and pater-
nalistic approach that has little to do with respecting women’s rights to bodily
integrity and sexual autonomy.
(2013)

It is generally perceived that legal reforms have debatably efected a meagre transfor-
mation in the way society perceives violence against women. Regulatory norms such
as returning early to hostel or home and wearing covering clothes are presented as
30 Introduction

cautious solutions for safety rather than as further restrictions on women’s freedom.
These refect cultural anxieties about female sexuality and a way to control the behav-
iour of women according to morally and culturally acceptable ideas of femininity
rather than to protect their right to enter public spaces free of harm or fear. Kapur has
described them as “protectionist and paternalistic” (2013). Some explicitly feminist
campaigns have begun to challenge mainstream arguments about women’s safety by
asserting that women’s freedom and rights cannot be compromised in the name of
protection. To cite just a few that have burgeoned in the last couple of years:

1 “Why Loiter”10 was created by a young Mumbai-based professional named

Neha Singh in May 2014. The core idea behind the movement was that fear
and danger of public spaces eventually led to the exclusion of women from
the public spaces. The movement encouraged women to post narratives and
images of their loitering.
2 “Blank Noise”11 was begun by Jasmeen Patheja in 2003 and encourages
women to share personal stories. It is a participatory fact-building project to
reject narratives of victim-blaming.
3 “Take Back the Night”12 was started by journalist Shreya Ila Anasuya in 2013.
This movement organised groups of women and other marginalised individu-
als who identify as queer, trans or gender-variant to occupy a public space or
take public transport at an “unsafe” hour, generally late at night.
4 “Sinjar Tod”13 (Break the Cage) was initiated by female college students liv-
ing in hostels in Delhi in 2015. It calls for greater freedom for women living
in hostels, which typically impose sexist rules, curfews, dress codes and other
restrictions on female tenants in the name of “safety”.
5 The “Pink Chaddi”14 (or Pink Panty) campaign was a nonviolent campaign
started by the Consortium of Pub-Going, Loose and Forward Women in Feb-
ruary 2009, initiated by Nisha Susan, an employee of Tehelka, a political maga-
zine, when a group of women were attacked in a pub in Mangalore.

With increasing incidents of violence against women, vigilante groups like the
Pink Sari gang and the Red Brigade gained popularity. The Gulabi (Pink) Gang is
a women’s group. The group was formed in the Banda district in Uttar Pradesh by
Sampat Pal in 2006. The members wear bright pink saris and carry lathis (sticks).
The group initially started to fght oppression by men in their families. Ofend-
ers were publicly shamed; women even resorted to wielding their sticks when the
men resisted. The group now works against corruption, child marriages, domestic
abuse, violence against women and dowry deaths. The Red Brigade, founded in
2010 by the 35-year-old Aparna Ganesh Darade, is known in Pune for its relentless
determination to bring cases to justice and for the bright red saris members wear
when they protest, which is the reason for its being nicknamed the Red Brigade.
Ahilyatai Rangnekar Brigade members chant, drum and march until the accused
agrees to reform. This method has proven to be so efective that when perpetrators
are sent the initial warning letter by the Red Brigade, they are invariably pressured
 Introduction 31

by family, friends and police to comply to avoid being shamed by further action. In
addition to addressing the cases submitted to them, the Ahilyatai Rangnekar Brigade
also runs an emergency clinic out of their ofce in an area of Pune called Akurdi to
ofer legal and medical assistance to victims of domestic violence.
These diverse movements signify a new track to feminist activism and have added
to the conversation around reimagining public spaces for women with an emphasis
on attaining the access to the public spaces without fear and with the freedom to
exercise their choices in their private and public lives. Although the defnition of
the ofence of rape under Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has under-
gone several amendments since its inception in 1860, it carries on referring to the
outmoded concept of rape. Also, it is restricted to a gender-specifc idea and presup-
poses the victim of a rape can only be a woman. The perpetrator can only be a man,
and it disregards the instances of sexual assault on the body of a male or a transgender
person, or where the ofender is a female or a transgender person, as constituting an
act of rape. Marital rape remains a private matter and is still considered beyond the
jurisdiction of the law. After the protests that ensued following the Nirbhaya rape
case, there was a notable increase in the reporting of rape cases. The survivors were
more at ease in reporting rape, but this also indicated that these atrocities continue
unabated, and more stringent measures were essential (Balaji, 2013). In 2011, there
were 572 rape cases reported in Delhi, and the number rose to 706 in 2012, more
than doubled to 1,441 in 2013 and increased to 1,813 in 2014 (Pandey et al., 2013);
(Rukmini, 2015). It is apparent that much remains be addressed at the structural
level. Zizek states that violence takes three forms (Zizek, 2008): subjective (crime,
terror), objective (racism, hate speech, discrimination) and systemic (the catastrophic
efects of economic and political systems), and often one form of violence blunts
our ability to see the others, raising complicated questions. Theoretically, structural
analysis of violence seems helpful to fnd the cause of it. Structural violence refers
to the structural modeling of the family, cultural customs and values and also the
political and economic organisation of a specifc society that determines who will
harm and who will sufer. However, legal and policy responses to all these as crimes,
as misdemeanors, are unsatisfactory. We can even go as far as to state that the same
disparity is germane to all states of the developing and developed regions. Feminism
is political in that it seeks to change the structure of gender-linked violence; to that
end, it seeks to alter gender and the customs that normalise the ways of men and
women. The diferential gender norms, which are established and enforced, inform
these practices of violence and, indeed, provide them with legitimacy.

“Can I, will I, shall I walk?”

Militant new ways of creatively rescripting the

gendered grammar of rape
How performers perceive gender violence and its aftermath shapes the politics of
performance. All fve performances selected for study function as interlocutors in
32 Introduction

feminist debates about gender, vulnerability and the politics of eliminating sexual
violence and progress a politics in which there appears to be no room to speak
of women as vulnerable victims who require protection. All these enactments
encourage women’s capacities for agency, autonomy, personal responsibility and
resistance – the feminist beliefs that the performers espouse critique and counter
the image of women as victims.
Feminist theorists Marcus (2013), Heberle (2009) and Kapur (1996) argue that
feminist rape law reform eforts are counter-productive because, in the attempt
to make various forms of rape socially and legally as wrong, they merely reinstate
patriarchal constructions of femininity as embodied weakness, thereby extending a
chauvinist relating of femaleness with victimhood, rather than agency and empow-
erment. Sharon Marcus’s essay “Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and
Politics of Rape Prevention” (2013) critiques emphasising only the aftermath of
rape as a political strategy because it accepts that women are vulnerable and will be
raped. Rape is often seen as a script of gendered cultural narratives. This narrative
enables the viciousness of rape by producing woman as subjects of shame and fear
and men as subjects of aggression backed by physical prowess. Rather than ascrib-
ing rape to the terrifying facticity of the penis, Marcus suggests we should turn
our attention to the cultural scripts that write women’s bodies as penetrable or
violable and challenge these scripts. Towards the end of the essay, Marcus calls for
new cultural production and reinscription of our bodies and our geographies that
can help us revise the grammar of violence and represent ourselves in militant new
ways (2013, 400). Marcus’s alternative “rape prevention” approach suggests that a
better answer to the problem of rape lies in afrmative counter-images of women
as agents who are capable of preventing rape. Drawing on Marcus’s critique of
feminist anti-rape politics, Heberle similarly argues that we need to supplant the
language of vulnerability and victimhood with counter-images of female agency
and resistance (2009).
The performances/performers discussed in this book all share Marcus’s faith
in a “politics of fantasy and representation to resist rape” as well as other forms of
gendered violence. They talk of a woman’s right to loiter, reclaim the streets at
night and rest on a park bench without forever watching the clock. “Can I Will I
Shall I walk . . . raatke bara baje I want to walk . . . sade chaar, paune paanch baje . . .
sochne ke liye mujhe poori raat chaahiye . . . bus mein baithoongi, letoongi park bench pe”
(Maya Krishna Rao, Walk).

Performance effcacy
This work will investigate the potential efcacy of theatrical performance. The
main lever for such is the immediate and transient efect of the performance:
applause, encore, tears, laughter and other such active audience responses. The
purpose of this chapter was to advance a paradigm that will facilitate the investi-
gation into feminist performance potential for efcacy, at both the micro level of
individual performance events and the macro level of the movement as a whole.
 Introduction 33

This requires this work to address several fundamental questions about the rela-
tionship between performers and spectators, between performers and immediate
context and between performance and their location in cultural formations. The
answers will show how the nature of performance enables the members of an
audience to arrive at collective “readings” of performance “texts” and how such
reception by diferent audiences may impact the structure of the broader socio-
political order. The focus is on oppositional performances because such practices
highlight the issue of efcacy, but the argument should be relevant to all kinds of
performances.
To conclude, this work is interested in exploring the interplay of aesthetics and
politics in the contemporary Indian performance, or, to use Foster’s words, it is
concerned with studying in performance

The body’s role in the production of narrative, in the construction of col-

lectivity, in the articulation of the unconscious, in the generation of postco-
loniality . . . in the new relations between history and memory, the aesthetic
and the political, the social and the individual.
(1996, xv)

The ubiquitous notions of empowerment and agency that inhere in these perfor-
mances are particularly troubling, as argued by Kalpana Wilson (2008, 2015) as
they create new discourses for the modern woman, the phenomenon of women’s
higher efciency and the rhetoric of individual responsibility. Neoliberal appropri-
ation of feminist empowerment concepts such as “agency” and “choice” has come
to be put to the service of neoliberalism (Elson, 2001; Rottenberg, 2014; Wilson
et al., 2018). In such celebratory protests, the individual victim and her sufering
are erased or efaced. We need to return and reafrm liberating dimensions address-
ing an agenda for structural change and create possibilities of social transformation.
Reclaiming empowerment as a feminist strategy calls for reframing it in ways that
reinscribe a concern with changing the structural power relations that produce
inequality and oppression.
Although the chapters of this book can be read separately, they are all woven as
nodes in a network. Structurally, each chapter locates the cultural scripts that write
women’s bodies as penetrable or violable and challenges these scripts. The work
traces the variable meanings of violence and its contestation by diferent performers
in diferent genres. The performances which will be taken up for discussion in the
subsequent chapters demonstrate not only multiplicity of theatrical forms but also
their acts of political intervention, challenging systemic social problems and inci-
dents of rape and sexual violence. The diacritical apparatus has not been used in the
arrangement of the material and arguments in this work. All words of Indian origin
have been translated into English. As a disclaimer, this book is not an attempt to
ofer solutions to the problem of gendered violence but rather an efort to under-
stand the nature of represented violence and then perhaps to begin to comprehend
the theatre’s role and/or responsibility in a culture of violence.
34 Introduction

Notes
1 Phenomenology applied to the theatre can be found in Bert States, Great Reckonings in
Little Rooms (1987), Marvin Carlson, Theories of the Theatre (1984).
2 Feminism in India (FII) is a resource centre; the principle of FII has been about amplify-
ing the voices of marginalized groups and challenging the status quo. https://feminisminindia.
com/fii-feminist-resource-centre-india/; Saheli as an autonomous women’s movement
in India was set up in 1981 in New Delhi, India, and a non-funded feminist collec-
tive, primarily as a crisis intervention centre. https://sites.google.com/site/saheliorgsite/
home; Sakhi, set up in 1996 in Kerala, builds campaigns and capacity-building programs
and creates networks for movement building. http://sakhikerala.org/history-of-sakhi/;
Nirantar: A Centre for Gender and Education has been actively involved with the wom-
en’s movement and other democratic rights movements since its inception in 1993.
www.nirantar.net; Jagori, a Delhi-based feminist resource centre, works towards stop-
ping sexual abuse and violence against women. Established in the year 1984 in Delhi
as an unregistered society with a vision of “spreading feminist consciousness for the
creation of a just society”, Jagori describes itself as a “Women’s Resource and Training
Centre”. www.jagori.org.
3 Refers to the custodial rape on 26 March 1972 of Mathur, a young tribal girl. The
Supreme Court acquitted the accused policemen. Large-scale public outrage led to the
Criminal Law Amendment Act 1982 (No. 43).
4 Bhanwari Devi was a low caste auxiliary nurse midwife who was allegedly gang-raped
and subsequently murdered by her high-caste neighbors in the state of Rajasthan. The
case created a scandal with the involvement of high-profile political leaders. It was her
case that resulted in the Indian Supreme Court formulating guidelines to deal with sexual
harassment in the workplace.
5 Refers to the gang rape of a photojournalist from Mumbai. She was raped, photos were
taken of the incident and she was threatened by the accused that they would release the
photos on social media if she reported the attack. After investigations and court proceed-
ings, the rapists received the death penalty.
6 Refers to a case of abduction and consequent molestation of a minor schoolgirl from
Suryanelli, Kerala, India in 1996. The girl was supposedly enticed with the promise of
marriage on 16 January 1996 and kidnapped. She was then gang-raped by 37 men over
a period of 40 days. The case was later politicized, due to a then-upcoming general elec-
tion. The court proceedings were inconclusive and the verdicts controversial. Several
women’s rights activists and women’s organizations showed active involvement in the
case.
7 The 2012 Delhi gang-rape case involved a rape and fatal assault that occurred on 16
December 2012 in South Delhi. The incident took place when a 23-year-old, Jyoti
Singh Pandey, was beaten, gang-raped and brutalised in a bus in which she was travel-
ling with her friend. All the accused were arrested and charged with sexual assault and
murder. Widespread protests followed the incident; the governments at the centre and
in various states announced several steps to ensure the safety of women, fast-track courts
were formed, the Justice Verma committee was created and on 3 February 2013, the laws
were amended and the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, was promulgated.
8 Barn, Ravinder. “Social Media and Protest: The Indian Spring?” Huffington Post, 9 January
2013. www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/professor-ravinder-barn/india-social-media-and-
protest_b_2430194.html.BBC; “India Police Fire Water Cannon at Gang-Rape
Protesters”. BBC India (BBC News), 2 June 2014. www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
india-27659446.Bennett; “Delhi Gang Rape: India Gate Turns into a Battleground”.
15 January 2016. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Delhi-gang-rape-
India-Gate-turns-into-a-battleground/articleshow/17735879.cms (accessed March
3, 2017); Harris, Gardiner and Hari Kumar. “Clashes Break Out in India at a Pro-
test over a Rape Case”. Asia Pacific (The New York Times), 3 March 3 2015. www.
nytimes.com/2012/12/23/world/asia/in-india-demonstrators-and-police-clash-at-
 Introduction 35

protest-over-rape.html; Tiwari, Noopur. “Amanat.” Case: Grief, Anger and Protests Reach
Paris (NDTV), 1 January 2013. www.ndtv.com/india-news/amanat-case-grief-anger-
and-protests-reach-paris-509123.
9 Kapur, Ratna. “Campus Rape: Sexism Is the Biggest Problem, Not Security”. Huffpost,
19 April 19 2015.
10 See: https://thinkmatter.in/2014/09/14/why-loiter/.
11 See: http://blog.blanknoise.org/.
12 See: www.facebook.com/takebackthenightfoundation/.
13 See: www.facebook.com/pinjratod/.
14 See: https://twitter.com/pinkchaddi?lang=en.

Bibliography
Abraham, Taisha (ed.). (1998) Feminist Theory and Modern Drama: An Anthology of Recent
Criticism. New Delhi: Pencraft International.
Anagol, Padma. (2005) The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850–1920. Farnham, UK: Ashgate
Publishing.
Andermahr, Sonya, Terry Lovell, and Carol Wolkowitz. (1997) A Glossary of Feminist Theory
and a Concise Glossary of Feminist Theory. London: Arnold.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1981/2015) This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color,
4th edition. Co-edited with Cherríe Moraga. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Arunachalam, Jaya, and U. Kalpagam (eds.). (2007) Rural Women in South Asia. Jaipur, Raj-
asthan: Rawat Publication.
Aston, Elaine. (1994) An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre. London: Routledge.
Aston, Elaine. (1999) Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook. London: Routledge.
Aston, Elaine. (2005) Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook. New York: Routledge.
Auslander, Philip. (1999) Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New York: Routledge.
Austin, Gayle. (1990) Feminist Theories for Dramatic Criticism. Michigan: University of Michigan
Press.
Balaji, R. (2013) “Frightening and Heartening, Rape Cases Skyrocket in Post-December 16
Delhi”, The Telegraph, October 31. Available at: www.telegraphindia.com/india/frightening-
and-heartening-rape-cases-skyrocket-in-post-december-16-delhi/cid/250460 (Accessed:
6 June 2018).
Baxi, Pratiksha. (2014) Public Secrets of Law: Rape Trials in India. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
Beauvoir, Simone De. (1989 [1949]) The Second Sex, trans. H.M. Parshley. New York: Vintage
Books.
Bernhard, Betty. (1998) Women Theatre Activists of India. 1 Hour 6 Minutes, Claremont, CA.
Available at: https://search.alexanderstreet.com/preview/work/bibliographic_entity%
7Cvideo_work%7C2662191 (Accessed: 18 July 2019).
Bhasin, Kamla. (1999) Understanding Gender. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Bhatia, Nandi. (2004) Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance: Theatre and Politics in Colonial and
Postcolonial India. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Bhatia, Nandi. (2010) Performing Women/Performing Womanhood: Theatre, Politics and Dissent
in North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Bhatia, Nandi. (2011) Modern Indian Theatre: A Reader. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Bhattacharya, Rimli (ed.). (1998) My Story and My Life as an Actress. New Delhi: Kali for
Women.
Bogatyrev, Peter. (1976 [1938]) “Semiotics in the Folk Theater”, in Ladislav Matejka and
Irwin R. Titunik (eds.) Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 31–38.
36 Introduction

Bondì, A., and F. La Mantia. (2015) “Phenomenology and Semiotics: Crossing Perspec-
tives”, Metodo: International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy, 3(1), 7–18.
Bowen, S., and N. Wyatt (eds.). (1993) Transforming Visions: Feminist Critiques in Communica-
tion Studies. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Brownmiller, Susan. (1975) Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. London: Random
House Publishing Group.
Butler, Judith. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge.
Cadiot, P., and Y.M. Visetti. (2002) “Linguistic Motives and Construction of Semantic
Forms: Schematic, Genericity, Figurality”, Conference Proceedings Representations of Lin-
guistic Sense. Munich: LINCOM Europa.
Cambell, Patrick. (1996) “Introduction: Interpretations and Issues”, in Analysing Perfor-
mance. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.
Carlson, Marvin. (1984) Theories of the Theatre. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Carlson, Marvin. (1990) Theatre Semiotics: Signs of Life. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Carlson, Marvin. (1993) Places of Performance: The Semiotics of Theatre Architecture. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Carlson, Marvin. (1996) Performance: A Critical Introduction. London and New York:
Routledge.
Case, Sue-Ellen. (1988) Feminism and Theatre. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Case, Sue-Ellen (ed.). (1990) Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre. Baltimore
and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Case, Sue-Ellen. (1996) Split Britches: Lesbian Practice/Feminist Performance. London: Routledge.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. (1992) “Postcoloniality and the Artifce of History: Who Speaks for
Indian’ Pasts?”, Representations, 37, 1–26.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. (1994) “The Diference-Deferral of a Colonial Modernity Public
Debates on Domesticity in British India”, in David Arnold and David Hardiman (eds.)
Subaltern Studies, VIII: Essays in Honour of Ranajit Guha. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
Chakravarti, Uma. (2003) Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens. New Delhi: Sage
Publications.
Chatterjee, Minoti. (2004) Theatre beyond the Threshold: Colonialism, Nationalism, and the-
Bengali Stage, 1905–1947. New Delhi: Indialog Publications.
Chatterjee, Ratnabali. (1992) The Queen’s Daughters: Prostitutes as an Outcast Group in Colo-
nial India. Report, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen.
Chatterjee, Partha. (1989) “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question”, in K.
Sangari and S. Vaid (eds.) Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. New Delhi: Kali
for Women, 233–253.
Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. (ed.). (2005) Feminism in India. London: Zed Books Ltd.
Chodorow, Nancy. (1978) The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of
Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cixous, Hélène. (1981) “The Laugh of the Medusa”, in Elaine Marks and Isabelle de Cour-
tivron (eds.) New French Feminisms. New York: Schocken.
Collins, Patricia Hill. (2001) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics
of Empowerment, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.
Connell, R.W. (1983) Which Way Is Up? Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Connell, R.W. (1985) “Theorizing Gender”, Sociology, 19, 260–267.
Conquergood, Dwight. (2002) “Interventions and Radical Research”, TDR (1988–),
46(2), Summer.
 Introduction 37

Cooley, Charles H. (1902) Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner’s.
Counsell, Colin. (1996) Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre.
London: Routledge.
Dalmia, Vasudha. (2006) Poetics, Plays, and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Daly, Mary. (1978) Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press.
Desai, Neera, and Vibhuti Patel. (1985) Indian Women Change & Challenge in the International
Decade 1975–1985. New Delhi: Popular Prakashan.
Despande, Shashi. (2002) Writing from the Margin and Other Essays. London: Penguin.
Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava. (2005) Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban
Performance in Indian since 1947. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.
Dolan, Jill. (2001a) “Performance, Utopia, and the ‘Utopian Performative’”, Theatre Journal,
53(3), October, 455–479.
Dolan, Jill. (2001b) Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Performance.
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Dolan, Jill. (2010) Theater & Sexuality. London: Macmillan International Higher Education.
Dolan, Jill. (2013) The Feminist Spectator in Action: Feminist Criticism for the Stage and Screen.
London: Macmillan International Higher Education.
Donaldson, M. (1991) Time of Our Lives: Labour and Love in the Working Class. Sydney: Allen
and Unwin.
Dutt, Bishnupriya, and Urmimala Sarkar Munsi. (2010) Engendering Performance: Indian
Women Performers in Search of an Identity. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Dworkin, Andrea. (1981) Pornography: Men Possessing Women. London: Women’s Press.
Eisenstein, Zillah. (1979) “Developing a Theory of Capitalist Patriarchy”, in Zillah Eisen-
stein (ed.) Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism. New York: Monthly
Review Press.
Elam, Keir. (1983) The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London: Routledge.
Ellmann, Mary. (1968) Thinking about Women. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
Elson, D. (2001) “Gender Justice, Human Rights and Neo-Liberal Economic Policies”,
in M. Molyneux and S. Razavi (eds.) Gender Justice, Development and Rights. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 78–114.
Fenno, Richard. (1986) “Observation, Context, and Sequence in the Study of Politics”,
American Political Science Review, 80(1), 3–15.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. (2000) “Embodiment: From Page to Stage: The Dramatic Figure”, in
Assaph, Studies in Theatre (16), 65–75.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika. (2008) The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics.
London: Taylor & Francis.
Fontanille, J. (2015) “Forms of Life: From Language Games to the Phenomenology of Cul-
tures Metodo”, International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy, 3(1), 21–40.
Forbes, Geraldine. (1996) Women in Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Fortier, Mark. (2002) Theory/Theatre: An Introduction. London: Routledge.
Foster, S.L. (ed.). (1996) Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture and Power. London:
Routledge.
Friedan, Betty. (1963) The Feminine Mystique. New York: W. W. Norton.
Gaard, Greta, and Lori Gruen. (1993) “Ecofeminism: Toward Global Justice and Planetary
Health”, Society and the Nature, 2(1), 1–35.
Geetha, V. (2002) Gender. Calcutta: Stree.
Gelles, R.J. (1997) Intimate Violence in Families. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
38 Introduction

Gelles, R.J., and M. Straus. (1979) “Determinants of Violence in the Family: Toward a
Theoretical Integration”, in W.R. Burr, R. Hill, F.I. Nye, and I.L. Reiss (eds.) Contem-
porary Theories about the Family, Vol. 1. New York: Free Press, 549–581.
Ghorbani. (2013) “Tweeting Feminists Exploring Feminism and Social Media”, Fem2.0,
February 10. (Accessed: 10 June 2018).
Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. (1979/2009) The Madwoman in the Attic after Thirty Years,
ed. Annette R. Federico. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press.
Gilligan, C. (1993) In a Diferent Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, 2nd edi-
tion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gimenez, M.E. (2005) “Capitalism and the Oppression of Women: Marx Revisited”, Science
and Society, 69(1), 11–32.
Gofman, Erving. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor. Available at:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3282045W/The_presentation_of_self_in_everyday_
life (Accessed: 10 July 2018).
Goldberg, Michelle. (2014) “Feminism’s Toxic Twitter Wars”, The Nation, January 29. Available
at: www.thenation.com/article/feminisms-toxic-twitter-wars/ (Accessed: 4 March 2019).
Goodman, Lizbeth. (1993) Contemporary Feminist Theatres: To Each Her Own. London:
Routledge.
Goodman, Lizbeth, and Jane de Gay. (1996) Feminist Stages. London: Routledge.
Goodman, Lizbeth, and Jane de Gay. (1998) The Routledge Reader in Gender and Performance.
London: Routledge.
Grosz, Elizabeth. (1994) Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Australia: Allen and
Unwin.
Haraway, Donna. (1988) “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the
Privilege of Partial Perspective”, Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
Haraway, Donna. (1991) “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism
in the Late Twentieth Century”, in Simians (ed.) Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of
Nature. New York: Routledge, 149–181.
Hart, Lynda, and Peggy Phelan. (eds.). (1993) Acting Out: Feminist Performances. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Heberle, Renee. (2009) “Deconstructive Strategies and the Movement against Sexual
Violence”, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 11(4), January, 63–76.
Hesford, Wendy S. (2005) “Rhetorical Memory, Political Theatre, and the Traumatic Present”,
Transformations, 16(2).
Holmstrom, N. (1982) “Women’s Work, the Family and Capitalism”, Science and Society,
42, 186−211.
Honzl, Jindrich. (1976) “The Hierarchy of Dramatic Devices”, in Matejka and Titunik (eds.)
Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 35–38.
hooks, bell. (1984) Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. New York: Routledge.
Horney, Karen. (1950) Neurosis and Human Growth. New York: Norton.
Hymes, Dell. (1981) “Breakthrough into Performance”, in ‘In Vain I Tried to Tell You’: Essays
in Native American Ethnopoetics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Irigaray, Luce. (1985) This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine Porter. Ithaca, NY: Cor-
nell University Press.
Jaggar, A. (1983) Feminist Politics and Human Nature. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefeld.
Jain, Jasbir. (2011) Indigenous Roots of Feminism: Culture, Subjectivity and Agency. New Delhi:
Sage Publications.
Jakobson, Roman. (1987) “The Dominant”, in Krystyna Pomorska and Stephan Rudy
(eds.) Language in Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
 Introduction 39

Jayawardena, Kumari. (1986) Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World. New Delhi: Kali
for Women.
John, Mary E. (2008) Women’s Studies in India: A Reader. Delhi: Penguin Books.
Joyce, Mary (ed.). (2010) Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change. New York:
International Debate Education Association.
Kalpagam, U. (1994) Labour and Gender: Survival in Urban. Delhi: Sage Publications.
Kalpagam, U. (2011) Gender and Development in India: Current Issues. Jaipur, Rajasthan:
Rawat Publication.
Kandiyoti, Deniz. (1988) “Bargaining with Patriarchy”, Gender and Society, 2(3), 274–290.
Kapur, Ratna. (1996) Feminist Terrains in Legal Domains: Interdisciplinary Essays on Women and
Law. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Kapur, Ratna. (2013) “Behind the Global Rape Epidemic”, [interview via satellite] Inter-
viewed by Redi, Esack and Kleijn, Al Jazeera, March 9.
Kershaw, Baz. (2002) The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention. New
York: Routledge.
Keyssar, Helene. (1984) Feminist Theatre. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Keyssar, Helene. (1988) Feminist Theatre and Theory. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kimmel, Michael (ed.). (1995) The Politics of Manhood. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press.
Kimmel, Michael. (2008) Guyland: The Inner World of Young Men. New York: HarperCollins.
Kishwar, Madhu. (1999) “Why I do not Call Myself a Feminist”, Of the Beaten Track:
Rethinking Gender Justice for Indian Women. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Klein, Melanie. (1984) Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works 1921–1945. New York:
Free Press.
Kimberlé, Crenshaw. (1989) “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black
Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine”, University of Chicago Legal Forum,
140: 139–167.
Kristeva, Julia. (1984) Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. Margaret Waller. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Kumar, Radha. (1993) The History of Doing an Illustrated Account of Movements for Women’s
Rights and Feminism in India, 1800–1990. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Lateef, S. (1992) “Wife Abuse among Indo-Fijians”, in D.A. Counts, J.K. Brown, and J.C.
Campbell (eds.) Sanctions and Sanctuary: Cultural Perspectives on the Beating of Wives. Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 103–141.
Lehmann, Hans-Thies. (1989) “The Staging: Problems of Their Analysis”, Journal for Semiotics,
1(11).
Levinson, D. (1989) Family Violence in a Cross-Cultural Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications.
Losh, Elizabeth. (2014) “Hashtag Feminism and Twitter Activism in India”, Social Epistemol-
ogy Review and Reply Collective, 3(12), 10–22.
MacAloon, John. (1984) Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals toward a Theory of Cultural Per-
formance. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.
MacKinnon, Catharine A. (1989) Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Madison, D. Soyini, and Judith Hamera. (2005) Sage Handbook of Performance Studies. Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Malos, E. (ed.). (1980) The Politics of Housework. London: Allison and Busby.
Mangai, A. (2015) Acting Up: Gender and Theatre in India, 1979 onwards. New Delhi: Left-
word Books.
40 Introduction

Mani, Lata. (1989) “Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India”, in
Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds.) Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History.
New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Marcus, Sharon. (2013) Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Preven-
tion. Abingdon, UK: Routeldge.
Martin, Randy. (1990) Performance as a Political Act: The Embodied Self. New York: Bergin
and Garvey.
McKenzie, Jon. (2001) Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance. London and New York:
Routledge.
Menon, Nivedita. (2012) Seeing Like a Feminist. New Delhi: Zubaan.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. (1964) The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on Phe-
nomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, History, and Politics. Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press.
Messerschmidt. (1993) Masculinities and Crime. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefeld Publishers.
Miedzian. (1991) Boys Will Be Boys. New York: Lantern Books.
Mies, Maria. (1986) Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale. London: Zed Books Ltd.
Mill, John Stuart. (1989 [1869]) The Subjection of Women. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Millett, Kate. (1970) Sexual Politics. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. (2003) Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing
Solidarity. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.
Moi, Toril. (1999) What Is a Woman?: And Other Essays. Oxford, UK: Oxford University
Press.
Morgan, Robin. (1974) “Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape”, in Going Too Far:
The Personal Chronicle of a Feminist. New York: Random House.
Mukarovsky, Jan. (1976) “Art as a Semiotic Fact”, in Ladislav Matejka and Irvin R. Titunik
(eds.) Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mukarovsky Jan. (1978) “An Attempt at a Structural Analysis of a Dramatic Figure”, in
Structure, Sign, and Function. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Mukherjee, Tutun. (2005) Staging Resistance: Plays by Women in Translation. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press.
Mulvey, Laura. (1975) “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Screen, 16(3), 6–18.
Murshid, Ghulam. (1952) Reluctant Debutante: Response of Bengali Women to Modernisation,
1849–1905. Rajshahi: Sahitya Samsad.
Nair, Janaki. (1994) “On the Question of Female Agency in Indian Feminist Historiogra-
phy”, Gender and History, 6, 82–100.
Narayan, Uma. (1997) Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third-World Feminism.
London: Psychology Press.
O’Hanlon, Rosalind. (1997) “Issues of Masculinity in North India History”, Indian Journal
of Gender Studies, 4, 1–19.
Omvedt, Gail. (1980) We Will Smash This Prison. London: Zed Books Ltd.
Oyewumi, Oyeronke. (2002) “Conceptualizing Gender: The Eurocentric Foundations of
Feminist Concepts and the Challenge of African Epistemologies”, JENdA: A Journal of
Culture and Women Studies, 2(1), 1–9.
Padmanabhan, Manjula, Dina Mehta, and Poile Sengupta. (2000) Body Blows: Women, Vio-
lence and Survival. Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Pandey, Alok, Tanima Biswas, and Surabhi Malik. (2013) “Delhi Witnessed over 700 Rape
Cases in 2012”, Highest in Last 10 Years. (NDTV), January 19. Available at: www.
ndtv.com/delhi-news/delhi-witnessed-over-700-rape-cases-in-2012-highest-in-last-
10-years-510785 (Accessed: 12 April 2018).
 Introduction 41

Pavis, Patrice. (1982) Languages of the Stage: Essays in the Semiology of the Theatre. New York:
Performing Arts Journal Publications.
Pavis, Patrice. (1997) “The State of Current Theatre Research”, Applied Semiotics/
Sémiotiqueappliquée, 1(3), 203–230.
Peire, C.S. (1975) Semiology, quoted in Pierre Guiraud. London and Boston: Routledge &
K. Paul.
Phelan, Peggy. (1993) Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. New York: Routledge.
Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder. (1999) Signposts. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Ray, Raka. (1999) Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Rege, Sharmila. (2006) Writing Caste, Writing Gender: Reading Dalit Women’s Testimonios.
New Delhi: Zubaan.
Reinelt, Janelle G., and Joseph R. Roach (eds.). (1992) Critical Theory and Performance. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Rossi, Alice S. (ed.). (1970) Essays on Sex Equality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rottenberg, C. (2014) “The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism”, Cultural Studies, 28(3), 418–437.
Rukmini, S. (2015) “Delhi Is Now India’s Rape Capital, Show NCRB Data”, The Hindu,
August 19.
Russo, Nancy Felipe, and Kim Vaz. (2001) “Addressing Diversity in the Decade of Behavior:
Focus on Women of Color”, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 25(4), December, 280–294.
Saf, Michael. (2017) “Delhi Rape Victim’s Parents Call for Her Real Name to Be Used
to End Stigma”, The Guardian, February 16. Available at: www.theguardian.com/
world/2017/feb/16/jyoti-singh-parents-call-for-honorary-museum-nirbhaya-to-use-
her-real-name (Accessed: 8 June 2018).
Sangari, Kumkum, and Sudesh Vaid. (1989) Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History.
New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Saussure, Ferdinand De. (1960) Course in General Linguistics. London: Peter Owen.
Schechner, Richard. (1988) Performance Theory. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Schechner, Richard. (2002) Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge.
Scolnicov, Hanna. (1994) Woman’s Theatrical Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scully, Diana. (1994) Understanding Sexual Violence: A Study of Convicted Rapists. London:
Psychology Press.
Sen, Samita. (1993) “Motherhood and Mothercraft: Gender and Nationalism in Bengal”,
Gender and History, 5(2), 125–151.
Sengupta, Polie. (2010) Women Centre Stage: The Dramatist and the Play. New Delhi and
London: Routledge.
Shiva, Vandana. (1988) Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. London: Zed Books Ltd.
Showalter, Elaine. (1997) A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte
to Lessing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Singh, Anita, and Tarun Tapas
Mukherjee (eds.). (2013) Gender, Space, and Resistance: Women and Theatre in India. New
Delhi: D.K. Printworld.
Singh, Lata (ed.). (2009) Theater in Colonial India: Play-House of Power. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Sinha, Mrinalini. (1995 [1997]) Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Efemi-
nate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Spacks, Patricia Meyer. (1975) The Female Imagination. London: George Allen Unwin Ltd.
Stacey, Judith, and Barrie Thorne. (1985) “The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology”,
Social Problems, 32, 301–316.
States, Bert O. (1987) Great Reckonings in Little Rooms: On the Phenomenology of Theater.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
42 Introduction

Subramanyam, Lakshmi (ed.). (2002) Mufed Voices: Women in Modern Indian Theatre. New
Delhi: Shakti Books.
Thapan, Meenakshi. (1997) Embodiment: Essays on Gender and Identity. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Tindemans, Carlos. (1989) “The Uncertain Islands: The Object of Theatrical Semiotics”,
Protée, 17.
Turner, Victor. (1982) From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York:
Performing Arts Journal Publications.
Turner, Victor. (1995) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New Brunswick and
London: Transaction Publishers.
Valenti, Vanessa, and Courtney E. Martin. (2012) “#FemFuture: Online Revolution
(Report)”, Barnard Center for Research on Women. (Accessed: 29 March 2019).
Veltrusky, Jiři. (1976) “Contribution to the Semiotics of Acting”, in Vladislav Mateika (ed.)
Sound, Sign and Meaning. Ann Arbor, MI: Department of Slavic Languages and Litera-
ture, University of Michigan Press, 553–605.
Veltrusky, Jiří. (1981) “The Prague School Theory of Theater”, Poetics Today, 2(3), Drama,
Theater, and Performance: A Semiotic Perspective, Spring, 225–235.
Villeneuve, Rodriguez. (1989) “Analysis of Theatrical Representation: Some Thoughts on
Methodology”, Theater of Always, from Aristotle to Kalisky. Tributes to Paul Delsemme,
Brussels, ed. of the University.
Walker, Alice. (1983) In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich.
Wandor, Michelene. (1986) Carry On, Understudies: Theatre and Sexual Politics. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Wandor, Michelene. (1987) Look Back in Gender: Sexuality and the Family in Post-War British
Drama. London: Methuen.
Warren, Karen J. (1990) “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism”, Environmental
Ethics, 12(2), 125–146.
Watson, Tom. (2013) “Networked Women as a Rising Political Force, Online and Of”,
Tech President, February 10. (Accessed: 13 March 2019).
West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. (1987) “Doing Gender”, Gender and Society, 1(2),
June, 125–151.
Wilson, K. (2008) “Reclaiming ‘Agency’, Reasserting Resistance”, IDS Bulletin, 39(6),
83–91.
Wilson, K. (2015) “Towards a Radical Re-Appropriation: Gender, Development and Neo-
liberal Feminism”, Development and Change, 46(4), 803–832.
Wilson, K., J. Ung Loh, and N. Purewal. (2018) “Gender, Violence and the Neoliberal State
in India”, Feminist Review, 119(1), July, 1–6.
Wittig, Monique. (1980) “The Straight Mind”, Feminist Issues, 1(1), 103–111.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. (1792/1998) A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. New York: Norton.
Woolf, Virginia. (1928) A Room of One’s Own. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Young, I. (1980) “Socialist Feminism and the Limits of Dual Systems Theory”, Socialist
Review, 10, 173−182.
Zarrilli, Phillip B. (2002) Acting (Re)Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide. Worlds of
Performance. London and New York: Routledge.
Zizek, Slavoj. (2008) Violence. London: Picador.
2
FEMINISM AND FOLK EPIC
Draupadi, Dharma, performance and
protest in Teejan Bai’s Pandavani

This chapter is a reading of Teejan Bai’s Pandavani1 (Songs and Stories of the Pan-
davas) performances. Pandavani as a mono artiste performance form is a gatha (ballad)
form of lyrical narration of events from the Mahabharata, popular predominantly
in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh.2 Pandavani as a ballad, which tells the story of
the fve Pandava princes, belongs to a tradition of storytelling, and like all tradi-
tions, it manifests in multiple ways. As a performance practice, it is a re-creation
of the stories from the epic. It is not about rehearsed lines; it is more about impro-
visation of the already well-known stories. The Mahabharata is undoubtedly one
of the “defnitive cultural narratives in the construction of masculine and femi-
nine gender roles in ancient India” (Brodbeck and Black, 2007, 10–11), and its
numerous narrative tellings and retellings have conceptually confronted and framed
social and gender identities, either maintaining and reproducing or resisting gender
construction (Brodbeck and Black, 2007; Hiltebeitel, 1991; Bhattacharya, 1989,
2011). In keeping with the stated bias of the book, this chapter will interrogate
and demonstrate the ways in which contemporary performance practices see the
“ordinariness” and “pervasiveness” of violence (Das, 2007) and how violence is
woven into the fabric of everyday lives, societies, and structures and also provide a
counterpoint through determination of sites of interventions in performances. My
reading will be attentive to the performance practice, hitherto essentially a male
preserve, to see how Teejan’s interpretation is interspersed with feminist revision-
ism and thereby enriching the performance with a diferent understanding, which
comes to her from her life experiences and sustained performances. In an inter-
view, she says, “I am an artist. I use my art as a medium to express my pain. . . .
Real art comes from one’s own life experiences” (Sai, 2017). Teejan Bai’s treatment
of Draupadi is clearly not a modern-day instance of injustice towards women, as
in the case of other performers chosen for this study in the subsequent chapters,
although she draws her parallels in attempting to contemporise the epic and fnds
44 Feminism and folk epic

diferent ways of foregrounding gender discrimination. Out of the huge corpus

(18 Parvas) of the Mahabharata episodes that she enacts, this chapter will engage
primarily with Draupadi’s humiliation and the question and challenge she raises in
the Sabha Parva and the retribution she enacts in the episode of Dushasan vadh. Her
depiction of Draupadi and her expressive behavior will be seen as “refective of the
intentional creation of identity” (Farrer, 1975).
This chapter has two threads: frstly, the idea that knowledge, authority, power
and harm call for feminist intervention, and secondly, that performance itself dis-
places the idea of truth, essence and any pre-given stable identity but to reclaim
them as multiple sites of knowledge and ways of being. I will reconcile these two
strands through a reading of Teejan Bai’s enactment of Draupadi’s predicament in
the Sabha Parva and the episode of Dushasan vadh. Draupadi refuses to accept the
hegemonic script of shame that the abuses of sexual violence are meant to evoke.
Teejan interprets Draupadi from the perspective of a woman who espouses “difer-
ence of view, the diference of standard” (Woolf, 1957, 50). Further, I will elucidate
this by four nodes of:

1 The Mahabharata and Pandavani.

2 Performance and performativity.
3 Dharma3 and Draupadi.
4 Body and embodied presence.

My concerns in this chapter are manifold. I place all these as questions:

1 How is the genre (Pandavani as a ballad, lyrical, monodrama) shaped by the

geography? And how do the context and history determine the modeling of
the Pandavani performance practice in contemporary times?
2 How appropriate is the folk label widely assigned to this performance practice?
3 How judicious is it to assign the troubling label “feminist” to Teejan Bai’s
performance? Often feminism is denounced as elitist; can the labels like grass-
roots/indigenous/experiential feminism be adequately deployed in her case?
And how does Teejan Bai’s performance serve as feminist engagement with the
canon?
4 How does a particular performer inject different meaning in this practice?
How do her life narrative, subjective experiences and unique story give new
meaning to the form? What are the appropriations and transformative recep-
tion of the form by Teejan Bai?
5 How can bodies on stage be produced in differently empowering ways?
How does Teejan Bai use the trope of femininity as power through her
performances?

All these questions lead to an understanding as to how performances unravel the

patriarchal symbolic order, which is normalised and naturalised in the dominant
symbolic universe. The performer rearranges the scene and its meaning through a
 Feminism and folk epic 45

performative insistence on female subjectivity, voice and agency. The study done
here broadly concurs with Shulman (1986, 107–113) and Ramanujan (1989, 217–
226), who hypothesise that the heroine in folk versions of the epic is mostly more
controlling and commanding than in the classical variants of the same epic. This
analysis of gender in the Pandavani performance builds upon folklore scholarship
concerned with appropriation and resistance (Bauman and Briggs, 1992, 1990;
Kapchan, 1996; Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1983) and points to an interesting set of
future inquiries relating to the ways that folk and feminism may traverse in terms
of critical theory and practice. Gurang Jain, a sociologist and a tribal activist based
in Ahmedabad, says,

Tribals feel more attracted to episodes which talk of displaying power, valor,
and prowess. Also, instances, where women are emancipated and respected,
are given special attention; reflecting the fact that tribal communities are
respectful of their women and consider the women-centric episodes of the
Mahabharata as praiseworthy.
(Jha, 2017)

As scholars like Gadamer (1989), Burke (1931) and Abrahams (1968) have shown,
folk forms can be important resources for invention precisely because mostly they
are immensely iconic yet multidimensional. Gadamer is constantly urging us to “a
critical appropriation of the traditions that have shaped us” (1989, 15–29).

Pandavani as Vaacha (storytelling) performance practice

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.
(Didion, 2006)

Firstly, I place Pandavani in the bardic tradition (Kathavachan) of storytelling. Every

tradition has its own unique way of storytelling, and tellers of the tale exist in
mostly all traditions (like Baul4 singers of Bengal and Kathak5 performers), where
tales, epics and anecdotes are narrated or re-enacted to instruct and entertain the
masses. In India, we have several narrative forms which have developed into the-
atres, such as Oja-Pali of Assam, Tal-Maddale of Karnataka, Burra katha of Andhra
Pradesh and Gondhal of Maharashtra. All these forms were in gatha (ballad) form;
gradually incorporating abhinaya (mimes), they have developed into theatre forms.
These forms often involve professional storytellers (kathavahchak or vyas or sutas)
who recite Hindu religious texts. In the case of Pandavani, it is the recitation of the
episodes from the Mahabharata.
In my reading Teejan Bai’s Pandavani, storytelling becomes a mode of purpose-
ful action (praxis) that simultaneously discloses her subjective uniqueness and her
“subjective-in-between” or the intersubjective connectedness to others (Arendt,
1958, 182–184) and resists and questions the mechanisms of power, author-
ity, knowledge, ideology, violence, honor and shame. A feminist reading of this
46 Feminism and folk epic

cultural experience and creative artistic expression as performance practice asserts

that the performer Teejan Bai attempts to reveal ways in which female experience
was ignored, denied and devalued in the production of knowledge. Storytelling
enables her to transform private meaning to public meaning (Arendt, 1958, 55).

The Mahabharata and its tellings

Numerous oral tellings circulated in ancient North India between approximately
350 BCE and 50 CE. These tales also multiplied into several versions in numer-
ous Indian languages as texts of heroism, battles and a distinct philosophy of life.
Written texts in Sanskrit evolved from what was likely a rich cloud of oral and
performance traditions through the eighth and ninth centuries BCE (see Buitenen,
1975; Fitzgerald, 1991, 2004, 2006; Hiltebeitel, 2001). The written Mahabharata
sought to bring the most signifcant streams of this epic together in one monu-
mental text (Fitzgerald, 1991). Tracing the genesis to the oral epic traditions and
establishing the purpose of the written Sanskrit Mahabharata, Fitzgerald argues,
“the transformation of an old Bharata epic had the purpose of arguing a new ide-
ology of kingship fundamentally loyal to a new Brahmanic vision of the world”
(Fitzgerald, 1991, 150–170). Winternitz maintains that one person did not write
the Mahabharata, nor was it written at one point in time. “What is Mahabharata?”
asks Winternitz and answers it as: “The Mahabharata is not a poetic production but
a whole literature” (1927, 465). It is very often presented along with the Ramayana
as a national text and has also been referred to as “the quintessence of everything
that is Indian” (Sanyal, 2006, 197). However, having said that, cultural imperialism
of dominant narratives has always been a part of the nation-building process. Every
nation is a story in the making, and every story is undecided. We cannot regard the
classical or the Sanskrit Mahabharata as the standard Mahabharata, thereby arrogating
tenets of originality and authenticity. Any attempt at treating the Mahabharata as a
singular entity and one grand narrative amounts to an act not only of suppression
and domination but also of marginalizing its vernacular, oral and performative ver-
sions. The model for the Mahabharata cannot be that of the trunk of a tree that arises
ontologically with one singular narrative and only later branches out as several ver-
sions of this epic narrative. Shanta Rameshwar Rao describes in her version of the
Mahabharata: “Stories told by word of mouth will naturally change in the telling”
(Rao, 1968, IX). I argue that since communities have distinct identities, histories
and modes of being and seeing, their identifcation with and responses to epics
also vary. Each community sculpts is owns identity, its own stories, epics, customs
and practices, and each narrative addresses the needs of a particular community or
a society united by a shared outlook. I have not made any attempts to locate the
reciprocal relations between textual and performative traditions of the Mahabharata.
My purpose is to see the Mahabharata as Thapar defnes it – a civilisational text –
because, among other things, it speaks to debates on social ethics (2010). I see it as
a story that remains story only as much it is that aporia, refusing fnality that efects
claim. A story exists in its telling, and every telling unbuilds another.
 Feminism and folk epic 47

Classical, folk and many other traditions have taken the same stories and pre-
sented them in a wide-ranging variation of literary, artistic, performative, ritual and
political ways. Over the centuries, these tales have evolved as fuid, multilayered,
mobile, open and contextual. The teller of the narrative, the times in which she is
writing/narrating/telling, the nature of the audience whom she is addressing and
fnally the reception of the work all infuence the narrative, as there exists a syner-
getic and symbiotic link between cultures and literatures. Thus, what we have are
manifestations of synchronous, analogous and apparently autonomous tales fash-
ioned by diverse social groups and communities.
The Mahabharata has been read, critiqued, interpreted, sung, narrated, danced
to, speculated on and theorised about for epochs now. New trends in reading the
text have proliferated. The infuence of this text has been immense, on both the
literary and social fronts. Every age fnds it pertinent. Some look into it with a
pure venerating vision; some take a critical position; for some, it acquires a con-
temporary relevance. The review prepared here is clearly selective and focuses on
works on the Mahabharata that are women-centered. A brief look at some of the
studies reveals the critical stance adopted in its rewriting and exploration from a
gendered perspective. Here, I will underline two trends that have become preva-
lent among feminist readings of the text: one is critical, and the other is creative
rewriting/recasting. Mostly such studies and rereading do not focus on the text
as a whole but rather are micro studies immersed in individual characters or epi-
sodes. Studies based on the “socio-cultural milieu” of the Mahabharata (Pande,
1990; Moorthy, 1990; Brockington, 1998) become interesting and useful when
considering the issues of gender in the text and the social context. Studies focus-
ing on individual characters are more popular in recent scholarships, and these
retell the epic from the point of view of one of its heroines, thus reclaiming female
agency (for studies on Draupadi, see Chaudhury, 2014; Das, 2014; Blackwell,
1978; Dhavalikar, 1992; Diesel, 2002; Falk, 1977; Sutherland, 1989; Hiltebeitel,
1991). Many works focus on a feminist perspective, emphasising the epic’s andro-
centric assumptions, gendered stereotyping and subordination of women and
critiquing the hyper-masculine heroes and their devoted wives (see Kelkar, 1995;
McGrath, 2009; Aklujkar, 2007; Brodbeck and Brian, 2007; Bhattacharya, 1989,
2011; Karve, 2008; Bhawalkar, 2002). There have also been a handful of studies
on male characters in the Mahabharata that explicitly address issues of sexual mas-
querade, masculinity and sexuality (see Pelissero, 2002; Dhand, 2009). Draupadi
has been subject to varied kinds of storytelling and interpretations. She has been
defned as “an arrogant, opinionated [sic], selfsh, untrustworthy young woman,
and an inveterate troublemaker throughout her life”(Brown, 2006, 2) and held
responsible for the devastations of the Kurukshetra war. During the colonial rule,
she was seen as Mother India, symbolizing the nation (Chatterjee, 1989; Sarkar,
1987). Her disrobing served as a metaphor for the colonial atrocities and the reams
of cloth descending for her rescue as a symbol of the khadi from Gandhi’s Charkha
(spinning wheel), and the Charkha stood for Krishna’s sudarshanchakra (spinning
discus). Maithili Sharan Gupt’s6 (1886–1964) Sairandhiri (“Flower Stringer”, 1927)
48 Feminism and folk epic

is one such example in which she is treated as Mother India and Kichaka and the
Kauravas as the colonial oppressors.
In a postcolonial context, Draupadi no longer occupies the same sacramental
position in most retellings; rather, she is the subversive voice of the subaltern, and
her nakedness is transmuted as a “tool of defance and resistance” (Sarkar Munsi,
2016, 12–15) as in Mahasweta Devi’s “Draupadi”, set against the backdrop of the
Naxalite revolt, which began in the late 1960s in the Naxalbari region of West
Bengal. It is a story about Dopdi Mehjen of the Santhal tribe. Devi engages with
the complex politics of West Bengal, where the government operation Bakuli
sought to clamp the tribal uprising and kill the so-called rebels. Dopdi is recon-
structed subverting the narrative here. She is not rescued by Lord Krishna; rather,
she defes the shame associated with rape and sexual abuse, uses her violated body
as a weapon and challenges the armed men, “You can strip me, but how can you
clothe me again? Are you a man?” (Devi, 1988, 196). Senanayak as a symbol of the
patriarchal state is shocked at the sight of her resistance. His weapon has failed in
the face of the bold resistance by the people from the margins, and it makes the
armed men “terribly afraid”. In 2000, theatre director Heisnam Kanhailal adapted
Mahasweta Devi’s short story “Draupadi” as a play in the Manipuri language, and it
was performed in the political framework of the counterinsurgency state terrorism
in Manipur.7 The veteran actress Sabitri Heisnam performed the role of Draupadi.
Travelling across time and geopolitical spaces, Draupadi becomes represented
in enactments through the performances of the scene of the game of dice and her
disrobing. Dr Ratna Roy reconstructs the Mahari Panchakanya dance tradition in
Oriya, Kanak Rele’s Yuganta in Shastra (classical) Mohiniattam style. Other signif-
cant creative works which creatively render Draupadi are Pratibha Ray’s Yajnaseni
and Chitra Banerjee’s The Palace of Illusion. Mallika Sarabhai’s Draupadi in “In
Search of the Goddess” (2013) complains to Bhishma, “What kind of husbands
these that are tied by the Dharma of lies?” (3). Shaoli Mitra uses the tradition of the
Kathak, the tellers-of-tales, in her one-woman show, Katha Amrita Saman (Words
Like Nectar). She portrays of the angst of Draupadi, fve-husbanded yet husband-
less, in “Five Lords, Yet None a Protector” (2006):

Wonderful, Dharmaraj, Wonderful! Only the kingdom? And what about

Yagnaseni’s dishonor? You are under some sort of a spell; you’ve taken leave
of your senses; your Kshatriyahood has been destroyed! . . . You speak of
Dharma and the scriptures. Why then did you play the game of dice? . . . The
Shastras say that gambling is a vice. Yet you played the game of dice. Played
and staked everything.
(47–48)

The regional versions8 as performance/recital/song/storytelling/ritual interfused

the local specifcities, stories and histories in the fabric of the main text (Hiltebei-
tel, 1991; Dirks, 2002; Muthukumaraswamy, 2006). In Bheel Bharath (a Mahabharata
of the Bheel tribe of Gujarat), Draupadi is a protector and a nurturer (Verma,
 Feminism and folk epic 49

2015, 59–60). She is also called the “Daayan Devi” (witch goddess) and has sexual
relations with the snake king Vasuka Naga (Bandyopadhyay, 2016). In the annual
Draupadi-Amman9 Festival of the Vanniya Community of Tamil Nadu, Draupadi
is constructed as a goddess. The traditional folk song “Pucari” (The Priest) is sung
in the festivals in the rural market town of Gingee of Tamil Nadu to acclaim the
maternal and beautiful Draupadi. Therefore, in this incarnation, she is not talked
about in terms of her disrobing since this does not work out for her stature as a
goddess (as constructed by the Vanniya Community). Hiltebeitel says that even
the Pucari songs omit the scenes of disrobing (1991). Draupadi has been depicted
variously in local rituals and oral narrations: she takes the form of kalirupa (as god-
dess Kali), Aghorarupa (the dreadful one) and Ammanpancali (born from red fre)
(Hiltebeitel, 1991, 2011). She is also referred to as Shakti (power) and Virapancali
(valiant Panchaali), and in her universal form (vishwarupa), she is a terrifying god-
dess, sexually voracious and cannibalistic as the demons and becomes the protector
of the Pandavas (Hiltebeitel, 1991). In popular ritualistic performances of “Pandava
Lila”, among the people of Garhwal, Uttarakhand (Sax, 2002), the Kalirupam myth
describes the traditional performance of sradhha (rituals for the dead ancestors).
Draupadi (thought to be the ancestor of the people of Garhwal) is widely associ-
ated with the goddess Kali in this region and is ofered a blood sacrifce by the
people gathered for the ceremony. Folk artists from Tamil Nadu performed the
play Terukuttu,10 Delhi’s Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. In the play, Dushasana addresses
Draupadi as “Amman” and pulls her by the rope. Defying the deus ex machina,
there is no supernatural power (Krishna) coming to Draupadi’s rescue, but she
herself turns into a God-like fgure (Jha, 2017). Shulman (1986), Coburn (1984),
O’Flaherty (1980), Hiltebeitel (1991, 2011) and Sax (2002) have all looked into the
various accounts of the local versions that are at variance with the classical Sanskrit
epic. The local retellings of the Mahabharata create new narrative pathways (Hilte-
beitel, 2001, 44). They seldom served as mere translations but rather as enhanced
and infused new connotations and narratives suited to the local needs.

Region
Chhattisgarh, situated on the southeastern borders of the Hindi-language belt in
central India, (Gondwana-Dakshin Kosala Bastar-Dandakaranya) claims a collective
Adivasi legacy and its shared Mahabharata heritage. The region has a long-standing
tradition of anthropological and ethnographic studies of oral narratives, myths and
songs by Elwin (1942, 1944, 1946, 1949, 1950), the Anthropological Survey of
India (ASI) and Chhattisgarh area study project.
Pandavani can be traced to the oral tradition of Pardhan Gonds of central India,
which was known as Gondwana around the 14th to 16th centuries. Pardhan is a
sub-tribe of Gonds, and the community is known as the bards and genealogists of
the Gond tribe. Pardhan is a corrupt form of the word Pradhan, which means chief.
Pardhans are also priests of the Gonds; that is why they are given this title. As itin-
erant performers, Pardhan bards visit their Gond yajmans (clients, hosts) after the
50 Feminism and folk epic

harvest and render Pandavani narratives and their genealogies. The language of the
performance is Chhattisgarhi,11 which is spoken in the Mandla district; it has the
infuence of Bundeli and Bagheli dialects. Often, they were paid in cash or kind.
By accepting doles from their Gond patrons, they degenerated in the social hier-
archy. The Dewar12 ballad singers of Chhattisgarh also took to Pandavani singing.
The Gonds have four narrative epics – Godwani, Ramayani, Karamsani and Panda-
vani. These legends have incorporated many tribal myths and their socio-cultural
aspects. Although Pandavani is based on the Mahabharata, several Gond myths and
legends are also interwoven in it. Local elements enrich the text.
Folk tales rampant in the Chhattisgarh-Gondwana-Dakshin Kosala Bastar-Dan-
dakaranya region tell tales of the Agyatvasa (exile) of the Pandavas with Kunti and
Draupadi. In parts of Chhattisgarh, Bhimsen is worshipped as a rain god (Elwin,
1950, 41). Undoubtedly, Bhima remains the central fgure in most Adivasi folk
tales, wherein he is called Bhima, Bhimma, Bhimsen, Bimai and Bhimul. In this
region, there are many sacred shrines, ponds, hills and waterfalls named after Bhima.
For Das (2015) and Singh (1993), Pandavani, the Adivasi Mahabharata, needs
to be recognised as a part of indigenous creativity and of the indigenous oral his-
tory of India, which exists as rich and vibrant folkloric traditions, as narrations of
their cultural, ethnic oral traditions and memories. These local communities are
inventive in portraying women in their performances, and they exclude all those
episodes in the Mahabharata that show women as weak and helpless. The revered
folk hero, Bhima, is worshipped because he exhibited his fearlessness in the face
of familial obligations to fght for his wife Draupadi’s tribulations. The same inter-
pretation of the narrative can be observed in Teejan Bai’s rendering. Pandavani is
replete with divergences and local interpretations. Divergence is acute in naming
patterns too. Thus, Pandava mother Kunti of the Hindu epic becomes Katama in
Pandavani. Hastinapur is Hasna-Nagari. The Kauravas, who are Kanvaras, are hardly
close in any manner to their classic counterparts; the Kanvaras of Pandavani are just
21 brothers, as following lines depict:

Jait Nagari ma panch putur pandva, Ar Hsna Nagari ma ikkis bhai kanvara, Hain
re Bhaiyaa.
[Jait Nagari had five Pandava sons, and Hasana Nagari had 21 Kanvara
brothers.]13

Pandavani remained a village-level afair till the early 1970s, when it was a male-
dominated mode of singing, describing the events associated with the Pandavas
and their wives and mother. Pandavani as we know now is a fairly young practice;
it is folk only in the sense that its roots are in villages. Research at the Adivasi Lok
Kala Parishad, Bhopal, suggests that the nomadic tribes learned Pandavani from
the neighboring Gonds and brought it into Chhattisgarh plains about 60 years
ago (“Pandavani”, 1987). The old style, which was rendered by Pardhan (a com-
munity of bards) and Dewar singers, was Kapalik14 as it was based on smriti.15 The
documentation of the oral Pandavani was done and published in the year 1962. Shri
 Feminism and folk epic 51

Sheikh Gulab, who was a folklorist and a schoolteacher, did the documentation,
and T. B. Nail of the Tribal Research Institute at Chindwara edited them and pub-
lished them (Mahawar, 2012, 1–3).
Now there are two shailis (versions) of Pandavani that are popular – the Kapalik
(the oral traditions for rendering stories) and Vedamati.16 Vedamati, based on the
Vedas, consists of pure ballad singing, mostly by a single performer who sings the
couplets from the text, set to folk tunes, from a seated position. Punaram Nishad17
is an important exponent of this style. The Kapalik variety, with its rustic vernacu-
lar narrative, is considered an indigenous version. It peripherally touches the broad
scale of the epic, localises the Mahabharata within the Gondwana/Chhattisgarh
region and establishes Bhima as its leading and a highly vibrant character. Accord-
ing to Niranjan Mahawar,

It [the Kapalika form] simply means “Smriti”, or oral tradition. The Kapalika
style of Pandavani is older in this region [Chhattisgarh] than Vedmati. . . .
Some scholars have misunderstood the standing performance of Pandavani as
Kapalika and the sitting performance as Vedmati.
(Mahawar, 2012, 30–31)

Gradually, the new demands helped incorporate singing, dancing, mime and Angika
chesta (physical actions) to create a theatrical show through Pandavani. Narayan Das
Verma, a legendary Pandavani performer, had helped Pandavani be performed on
the stage. Later, the extremely energetic Kapalik form was mastered and popula-
rised by performer Teejan Bai. It is mainly since around the 1980s that women
entered the feld of Pandavani performances, like Teejan Bai, Shantibai Chelak,
Ritu Verma, Prabha Yadav and others. The present mono theatre form of Panda-
vani is based on the text of Sabal Singh Chauhan and not on the oral tradition of
the Pardhans, but it is still called Pandavani. Although the modern performers, like
Teejan Bai, follow the stories from the text and not the metrical pattern, they cer-
tainly make their own improvisations. When asked where she had got the episode
of the Mahabharata, Teejan said:

I don’t keep to any text; things that “could have happened” just flow in as
I narrate. Should daanvir [generous] Karna have grinned during Draupadi’s
cheer Haran? If Duryodhana had his thigh broken for slapping it in glee as
Draupadi was being stripped, Karna could also be punished before his spirit
becomes pure enough to be united with Krishna. . . . I chose the Kapalik
style of Pandavani, where the narrator depicts a scene from the epic and
improvises consistently. This gave me more freedom to think, to enact the
dramatic elements, to be fearless and to make the story mine.
(Sarkar, 2010)

So this makes her style hybrid as she straddles the two styles: she follows Sabal
Singh Chauhan’s version selectively; she recreates and improvises and critiques and
52 Feminism and folk epic

contemporises extensively. When asked if she has written or desires to publish her
18 or more kathas, such as Draupadi Swayamvar, Draupadi Cheer Haran, Duryodhana
Vadh, Karna Vadh and Abhimanyu Vadh, she said: “No time to write down or pub-
lish” (Sarkar, 2010). She composed each episode orally, and the story changes and
develops diferently for diferent audiences.

Pandavani as a hybrid form and the problem of classifcation

Any study of Pandavani is necessarily a study of continuity and change. Pandavani
as a form is now widely performed in rural and urban spaces for national as well
as for international audiences. The problem of labelling Pandavani lies in its trans-
formation with time and its hybridity. For the convenience of classifcation, it is
consistently and uniformly referred to in all government of India sites and institu-
tions as traditional art,18 a lyrical folk ballad and intermediary and popular ballad
form.19 Researchers in the feld label it as Lok Natya Shaily (folk theatre form) and
Adivasi (tribal) traditions (Mahawar, 2012; Singh, 1993; Das, 2015). The Ministry
of Culture, Government of India’s “Parampara Project: Documenting Eforts to
Conserve India’s Living Traditions” refers it to as lyrical folk ballad form. San-
geet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, and the MP Kala Parishad, Bhopal, are not just
documenting this art form but also taking measures to promote and popularise it.
Sangeet Natak Akademi has a library of several audiovisual documentation materials.
However, its categorisation as folk20 according to its generic attributes can be
contested. Tracing the history of Pandavani, the Adivasi Lok Kala Parishad states that
the form is 60 years old; following this claim, then the form is somewhat new with
rural and tribal trappings and rooted in the region. Jhaduram Devangan21 began
performing in 1947–1948. He was literate, and it is stated that in order to refne or
Sanskritise the Pandavani performance and intent on enhancing Pandavani’s status as
the textual authority, he memorised Sabal Singh Chauhan’s Pandavani in Awadhi.22
He initiated the Vedamati version in opposition against the Kapalik version that was
prevalent then. The Kapalik version was devalued and was seen as a vulgarisation of
the classical epic. The origins of this singing style are not known, and according to
its foremost singer, Teejan Bai, “it might be as old as the Mahabharata itself; a few
people could read in those times and that is how perhaps they passed on their sto-
ries generation after generation” (Sarkar, 2010). She popularised the Kapalik style
and emphasised its orality by asserting that she had learned it from her grandfather,
and further, she makes it a point to assert before her performances, especially when
performing in urban spaces, that she is an illiterate (unpad, angootha chap) and that
she has learnt this art by word of mouth. Two strains became quite apparent: Jhadu-
ram Devangan, attempting to make it textual and give it a classical aura, and Teejan,
on the other hand, endeavoring to give it a folksy character. Pandavani’s popularity
rests on its authentic folk status, an age-old tradition, unadulterated and unchanged.
It is appropriated as “ethnic, indigenous” and “fashionable”. Nonetheless, the fact
that Pandavani as an in-between theatre aspires to a sort of legitimacy in telling and
brings the folk-classical contrast into the context of power, government regulation
 Feminism and folk epic 53

and competition for social, political and economic rewards. In the India of today,
the folk arts compete for ofcial patronage in an urban environment. Forces within
and outside the Pandavani tradition exert persistent pressure to “classicise” the form
in the expectation of garnering funds for artists and setting up training institutes.
Several works that trace the trajectory of Indian theatre often categorise Indian
theatrical forms like classical, folk or modern (Gargi, 1966; Jain, 2003, 2007;
Mathur, 1964). They are unequivocal in claiming that the classical theatre sourced
from the Natya Sastra and the Sanskrit dramatic tradition, which depended on
literary texts, was sophisticated in its form and nature. This classical theatre was
wholly urban oriented and fourished with the help of royal patronage. These tra-
ditions and practices went out of court around the 11th century to acquire a living
presence among communities in various regions of India. The change of political
set-up in India and religious movements like Vaishnavism (12th century) and the
Bhakti movement (15th century onwards), which developed regionally around dif-
ferent gods and goddesses emphasised a direct communication with God, as well as
the coming into existence of diferent regional languages in all parts of the country,
were also instrumental in the development of folk theatres (Gassner and Quinn,
1969, 450–452). Folk theatres came up in such large varieties that some of these
theatres remain undocumented to this day. And it was somewhere around this time
that the Pandavani also became a practiced performance form, although there are
no authentic historical records.
Balwant Gargi, in his book Theatre in India, distinguishes between Sanskrit and
folk theatres as follows:

Sanskrit drama, addressed to a sophisticated audience of courtiers, used a

highly ornate language that did not touch the life of the people. It is the folk
theatre in its diverse forms, which is rooted in their lives. It has changed,
adapted and developed, adjusting itself to changing social conditions.
(1966, 82–83)

Vatsyayan (1996), Baumer and Brandon (1981) and Blackburn and Ramanujan (1986)
problematise the hierarchies of folk and classical and conceptualise folk-classical as a
continuum rather than a hierarchy. Kathryn Hansen critiques the oversimplifed cat-
egorisation of classical and folk performance (1983, 77–89). Dharwadker has equally
negotiated middle ground for theatrical performances. She has borrowed the term
“intermediary popular forms” (2005, 310) for theatrical forms, which is neither a
village nor a city form, to suggest a classical/folk, “metropolitan/provincial, elite/
popular, sophisticated/crude, urban/rural, and written/oral” duality (311). Having
originated from the indigenous culture and characterised by a simple, direct and
naïve style of expression, Pandavani can claim itself as an intermediary popular form.
Terms like folk and classical are therefore insufcient when used in an essentialist way
to designate inherent diferences located within the cultural forms. We cannot be
immune to these cultural negotiations, but we can make reference to them and con-
sider their infuence on our perceptions and our interpretations. Pandavani as a form
54 Feminism and folk epic

does not ft into the rigid binary of classical and folk theatres. As a genre, it has its
own unique history of evolution and assimilation in the life of communities; hence,
it defes any fxity to a single defnition due to its ongoing permutations.
Post-independence national policy initiated a reappraisal of indigenous theat-
rical forms and emphasised regional diversity of traditional cultures. Considered
depraved and moribund during colonial days, in the 1950s and 60s, regional folk
traditions were upheld as markers of India’s diversity and celebrated in festivals
organised with central government funding. Intellectual interest in folk theatre
started around the same time. Cultural institutions were inaugurated in Delhi: the
Sangeet Natak Academi, the Lalit Kala Akademi and the National School of Drama,
set up in the 1950s and delegated with the charge of preserving indigenous forms
through direct government funding and support, research and exhibitions, per-
formances and showcases. In the Round Table on the Contemporary Relevance
of Traditional Theatre, organised by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1971, a clarion
call for creative artists was “to confront the traditional, especially in our case where
tradition is a continuous living vital force” (Awasthi, 1971, 7).
However, postcolonial development harbored an ambiguous relation to rural
space and culture. On the one hand, the Indian theatre canon was reinvented in
classical terms (Ramanujan, 1990, 6–7); the Sanskrit tradition in literature was per-
ceived as being pan-Indian and folk traditions as being localised, the hierarchical
structure between the “Great” and “Little” traditions was set in India. The redis-
covery of folk theatre had, in fact, heightened the sense of a rural-urban cultural
dichotomy among the educated elite. Rural cultural practices were represented as
a heritage of cultural glory and resilient markers of a living tradition and as key to
anti-colonial rhetoric. (For more on the imagined national culture and canon, see
Dharwadker, 2005; Dalmia, 2006.) Urban theatre was perceived more and more
as imitative of the West and non-Indian, while the term rural was acquiring the
prestigious connotation of “indigenous”. This view of folk systematically neglected
to see it as equally a construct of postcolonial segregations and representational
inequality (Costa, 2010, 53). The suggested historical link to Sanskrit drama has
validated the claims of these theatres to recognition and appreciation. Their status
has been enhanced by an intellectual reappraisal which views them as the surviv-
ing fragments of the ancient Sanskrit dramatic tradition, on the basis of common
features such as preliminary rituals, stylised acting and gestures, stock characters like
the stage director (sutradhdra) and clown (vidushaka) and abundant song and dance.
In the early 1970s, Urdu playwright Habib Tanvir23 brought Pandavani artists
to Delhi from the rural area to perform among the urban audience. Tanvir stated:

It is in its villages that the dramatic tradition of India in all its pristine glory and
vitality remains preserved even to this day. It is these rural drama groups that
require real encouragement. . . . [I]t is not until the city youth is fully exposed
to the influence of folk traditions in theatre that a truly Indian theatre, modern
and universal in appeal and indigenous in form, can really be evolved.
(1977, 5–10)
 Feminism and folk epic 55

In the emerging globalised world, the marketability and appropriation of folk pro-
duce fetishisation; it functions as a symbol of idealisation of a certain way of life. In the
rhetoric of the state, “folk” became the ideal candidate to showcase at various festivals
and cultural events; its cultural policy strategically was to reclaim and relive tradition
through folk forms. Through annual festivals held in the capital, folk theatre groups
from all over India performed for urban audiences and displayed great potential in the
international market because of their packaging of traditional aesthetic sensibility and
authenticity. Western scholars have also been attracted to studying the traditions and
politics around the (re)presentation of the folk forms through the medium of theatre
within various socio-political contexts and the idea of the “festivalisation” of the local
and global public sphere generated by performing arts festivals. Artists have been
provided sinecure, economic incentives and cultural festival showcasing. Teejan Bai
was ofered a position in the Bhilai Steel Plant and has been on BSP rolls since 1987.
The gendered economy has transformed Pandavani as a female form – Kumari
Ritu Verma, Kumari Bai Nishad, Usha Barle, Shanti Bai Chelak, Parvati Verma,
Phul Bai and Chekki Bai Sahu are all female names (Ahmad, 1989). Women are
perceived as potent preservers of traditional cultures, and hence, we can describe
it as the cause of the popularity of women in practicing this form. And as Partha
Chatterjee contends, the nationalist resolution to the women’s question ever since
the 19th century has given the Indian woman the burden of preserving Indian
culture while men strove to fnd a place in modernity (1989, 233–253). One can
argue that this early form of rural entertainment and interaction is now sexed,
mongrelised and mobilised for the market.

Source text for contemporary Pandavani performance

Sabal Singh Chauhan’s Awadhi Mahabharata (c.1661–c.1724) translation of the
Mahabharata is the source for the Pandavani performers of Chhattisgarh and greatly
infuenced performers like Jhaduram. Not much is known about Chauhan; Sen-
garin, his Śivasiṃh Sāroj, records that though some people believe that Chauhan
was the king of “Candgaṛh” or the king of “Sabalgaṛh”, he considers that Chau-
han could have been a zamindar (landlord) in the Etawah district in Uttar Pradesh
(Sengar, 1970, 500). Chauhan adapted the Pandavani in Awadhi language in verse,
making it similar to the original Sanskrit Mahabharata. He has followed the text of
the original Sanskrit Mahabharata and acknowledges it: “Sabal Singh is not intelli-
gent, what Vyas has said I have repeated it”. He wrote this book around 1770–1836;
it was frst published in the year 1881 by Nawal Kishore Press of Lucknow, but it
remained incomplete. The complete book was fnally published in the year 1920–
1921 by Laxmi Venkateshwara Press, Bombay. This was based on an old handwritten
manuscript, which was in the possession of Phataharam Mathur. Unlike many other
vernacular Mahabharatas (including Vishnudas’s 15th-century Madhyadeshi Bhasha
Pandavcarit), Chauhan’s Mahabharata covers all 18 parvans of the Sanskrit Mahabharata
and is written in Doha Chaupai24 meter. The most popular example of Doha Chaupai
is Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, a popular rendition of the Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana.
56 Feminism and folk epic

Gendering the genre and the making of Teejan Bai

Several works25 have examined the gendered and gendering ideology of the genres,
particularly of performance. The public space of performance was forbidden for
women, and it was thought that only the abhadra (indecent) women inhabited and
performed in the public space. Flueckiger (1996) examines in her work the cross-
overs of gender and genre in folk performances in Chhattisgarh. Till around the
1980s, Pandavani was an almost exclusively androcentric genre, and Teejan Bai’s
entrance gave the genre a new voice, subjectivity, experience and context. This
then can be seen as a political act of canon reformation. The improvisatory nature
of the performance allows her to appropriate, reconfgure and redefne the tradition
in both form and content. Pandavani had only male performers until she arrived.
She freely improvises and gives vent to her own creativity within the structural
framework.
Teejan Bai was born on 24 April 1956 in Ganiyari village, 14 kilometers (8.7 miles)
north of Bhilai.26 Her parents, Sukhwati and Chunuk Lal Pardhi, belonged to
the shikari (hunter) community tribe (the Pardhi Schedule Tribe of Chhattisgarh
state).27 The tribe, originally nomadic, were denied forest rights once the nation-
alisation occurred and were reduced to depending on income from making and
selling brooms and cots and even begging. She was the eldest of fve siblings. When
she was merely a child, she often heard her maternal grandfather, Brijlal Pradhi,
recite the Mahabharata written by Sabal Singh Chauhan in Chhattisgarhi Hindi.
She instantly took a liking to it and soon memorised much of it. She was married
at the age of 12. Her community, the “Pardhi” tribe, ostracised her for being a
woman and daring to sing Pandavani. Despite the adverse circumstances, she did
not forsake her singing, nor did she despair, but she built a small living space and
began living on her own with borrowed utensils and food from neighbors. Today,
she is employed at the Bhilai Steel Plant and lives with her fourth husband, Tukka
Ram, a former harmonium player in her troupe, and her fve children. She travels
extensively throughout the world for her performances. When she is not perform-
ing, she is training 150 shishyas (disciples) from India and abroad.
Recollecting her early experience of discrimination, she says:

I learned the art from my Nanaji while he did his rehearsals. He never taught
me directly. Girls were never allowed to think about performing, let alone
learning. Even he did not come to know that I had become his silent disciple
except once when he caught me at his door.
(Sarkar, 2018)

She recounts an incident when, for an entire week, she hid and eavesdropped on
her grandfather narrating the Mahabharata stories:

My grandfather caught me listening one day and offered to teach. But I

couldn’t tell my mother. So I would look after my brothers and sisters during
 Feminism and folk epic 57

the day and sneak out in the evenings. We didn’t have a door, just a straw mat
across the entrance. I would move it aside quietly and sneak out.
(Nair, 2017)

The infuence of Pandavani acted magically on her. “I couldn’t sit or sleep. I would
go to the felds to gather straw and dung but return home empty-handed. I couldn’t
think beyond Pandavani. I would even dream of ways to sing; it was pagalpana
[madness]”, she repeats (Nair, 2017). It wasn’t long before her mother learned her
secret. She was reciting Keechaka’s story to herself. “I was standing there with my
tamboora raised when I felt my mother’s hand descend on my back with a jhaapad
[slap]. The next day, I ran away in a bullock cart to the next village, Chandrakhuri”
(Nair, 2017). She was even ostracised by her community as it was considered inde-
cent for girls to perform. Detailing the insults she faced, she says,

I would be insulted every time I left my village with the Tamboora. They
would taunt me saying “Yeh anpad gawaar ladki fir se kahan jaa rahi hain dekho!
Isko kisne bualaya kahani sunaane?” [Where is this illiterate rustic girl again
going see! Who has called her to recite stories?]
(Sai, 2017)

Teejan is the frst woman from the Pardhi community (the one known to sing this
form) to perform Pandavani.

The day I decided that I was going to sing Pandavani, I was beaten black and
blue by my father. Nobody called me home. Nobody spoke to me at the
bridge. When the pot was full of water and I would ask for help to put it on
my head, they would blankly refuse and therefore id only get half a pot of
water. No woman had ever dared to sing this style of music. Music, outside
of one’s house was considered blasphemous anyway. Since ma and babuji
were not letting me sing, I ran away from home.
(Khurana, 2014)

Her determination was rewarded, and she gave her frst performance on a make-
shift stage in a Chandrakhuri village in Durg district for a sum of ten rupees. This
made news in her own village as no girl had ever achieved this sort of fame. Here
people came to know of her skill and asked her to perform, but she couldn’t fnd a
Ragi (accompanist). Umen Singh initially refused to be her Ragi, but later, he was
persuaded by the villagers to accompany her performances. For the villagers, Teejan
Bai was an outsider, and the notions of decency and honor were not applicable to
women who didn’t belong to their community. Teejan was more than happy at this
opportunity: “I am glad there were people who loved what I was doing and began
inviting me despite me living in a small hut away from everyone. Do you know I have
been to Paris eight times now?” (Khurana, 2014). Gradually, they began accepting
her and her style of art, after much hesitancy. She became popular in nearby villages,
and she began receiving invitations to perform at special functions and festivals. She
58 Feminism and folk epic

resolved to take some informal training under Umed Singh Deshmukh. She had, by
now, mastered the art of Pandavani and created her own genre in staging it. But her
professional success did not lessen her personal hardships at home and compounded
them with the stigma of a being a public performer. She recounts:
People in my village called me characterless because I sang and danced in
public. My second husband used to beat me and stop me from performing.
What could be more painful for an artist than not being able to perform?
I can never forget that difficult path I have left behind. . . . Indian women
have this amazing ability to tolerate things, keep the pain to their hearts and
continue doing what they are supposed to do; I did exactly that.
(Sai, 2017)
Teejan further recollects the gender discrimination she confronted:
My anger wasn’t directed towards people but towards God. I would ask him,
oh god! Why have you given birth to me in such a place? Why am I born
a girl and not a boy? If I was born a boy I could sing and play freely, but
because I am a girl, they ask me to stop this. So, the more beating I took, the
more I was determined to sing.
(Sai, 2017)
In the early 60s and 70s, Teejan Bai (Figure 2.1) was becoming popular. Habib
Tanvir noticed her talent and took her and Jhaduram Devangan and Puranaram

FIGURE 2.1 Chhattisgarh Lok Utsav, New Delhi, 1984

(Source: Courtesy Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi)
 Feminism and folk epic 59

Nishad to Delhi in 1982 to perform for the then–Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
She went abroad to perform in May 1985 and to the Festival of India in France in
1986. She performed at Apna Utsav in France in 1987 and at a similar festival in
Switzerland. Teejan Bai was now performing for the Prime Ministers and heads
of state and was hailed as the world’s frst female exponent of Pandavani. By 1986
she had given 2,000 shows. In 1987 she was ofered a position of resident artist
at the Bhilai Steel Plant. Since her frst performance in 1969, she has performed
in most major cities of India and even traveled and performed extensively in for-
eign nations like England, France, Switzerland, Germany, Turkey, Tunisia, Malta,
Cyprus, Romania and Mauritius.
For her continued contribution to the art form of Pandavani, she has received
many awards, starting with the Padma Shri in 1988 and the Padma Bhushan in
2003; the Padma Bhushan award (the second-highest civilian award of the Repub-
lic of India) in 2019 by the Government of India; an Honorary D. Lit from Bilaspur
University in 2003 and the Sangeet Natak Academy Award in 1995 from the
National Academy Music, Dance, and Drama. In 2018 she received the Fukuoka
Prize.28 The folk singer, along with other artists of the state, features in a short flm
titled Jan Gan Man,29 made by the Chhattisgarh Government, which was mandated
to play before every movie screening across Chhattisgarh.
In her performance, she employs a range of stylistic tools: the verbal rep-
ertoire, which contains plain speech, semi-musical narration called samvad
and songs (sourced from a rich Chhattisgarhi music song tradition); gestural
language; acting (abhinaya), including the use of props; tamboora and khartal (cas-
tanets), among others. In her Pandavani narration, she acts as the main artist
and has some four to six accompanying singers and musicians. Members of
her team include the following: the Ragi singer is Ramchandra Vishad, Teer-
endra Kumar Yadu plays the harmonium, Kewal Deshmukh is a tabla player,
Deleshwar Nirmalkar plays the dholak, Narottam Netam is a banjo player and
Manharan Sarwane plays the dhafi. As a Pandavani artist, she enacts and sings an
episode (prasang), using musical accompaniment: a tamboora (long necked lute/
chordophone) and a multi-string fddle-like instrument also known as Bana
played with the stringed bow decorated with small bells and peacock feathers
in one hand and sometimes kartal (cymbals), also with bells, on the other hand.
Both are used as accessories as well as decoration during the play when the
actor-singer invokes and re-enacts the character, through her multiple moods,
while kneeling or standing or moving around. Other instruments, used mainly
by supporter-singers/narrators, are tablas (membranophones) and manjira (small
cymbals) (Figure 2.2).
The tamboora emerges as the main instrument and a symbolic tool, and it assumes
diferent personifcations as Dushasana’s arm, Arjun’s rath (chariot), Draupadi’s hair,
a teer (arrow), Bhīma’s gada (mace), the Gandiva (bow) of Arjun and, at times, a
chariot; otherwise, it becomes the hair or sari of queen Draupadi, thus helping the
narrator-singer enact various events of the mythical story and various characters
with efective ease.
60 Feminism and folk epic

FIGURE 2.2 Instruments used in Pandavani performance

(Source: Courtesy Sourabh Kumar Gharami)

Teejan’s Tamboora has a bright red base and a tall bamboo reed jutting out of
it. On one end, there are a few peacock feathers attached and strings that can be
tuned by tightening them with knobs. The peacock feathers on top of her tamboora
connotes Krishna. As she performs, she plucks these strings with one hand to keep
a constant rhythm and a thin drone that her voice comfortably settles on. Her tam-
boora assumes mythical proportions, and she describes it this way:

While the strings are the throne of Ma Saraswati, if you add peacock feathers to
it, it comes to represent Lord Krishna, and it even assumes the role of Bhima’s
mace. At times, it becomes a bow and then a sword. It is my complete armor.
(Tripathi, 2011)

It takes on a subjective and spiritual connotation for her:

“The tamboora has always been a part of my life. As a child, I would see this in
my dreams and I didn’t know or understand what that signified. A kind vil-
lage elder told me that would be my destiny. I believe it is an Avatar30 of three
different gods I worship and always think of Hanuman31 ji, Saraswati32 Maa
and Krishna.33 I carry the blessings of these three with me where ever I go.
(Tripathi, 2011)
 Feminism and folk epic 61

She has a deep reverential relationship with the tamboora:

I think my Pandavani is a blessing from Krishna. I feel I was born to tell these
stories. Ups and downs are there in everyone’s life. I must have done some
good Karma34 so I can continue to take the Lord’s name. I am thankful God
didn’t make me blind or deaf or mute or handicapped. I am blessed with
everything and good art to spread in the world. So I have no regrets or noth-
ing against god. I pray every time there is a show for every show is fresh and
new to me. I feel some good energy within me when I pray. Without the
blessings of God, I wouldn’t be able to even move.
(Tripathi, 2011)

The instrument plays an important role in her concerts; it enables her to express a
range of emotions, almost becoming a character as she strides on stage, bouncing
between several roles.
The Ragi is an accompanist, and as a supporter-narrator, he is a constant co-
performer and an indispensable component as he juggles between multiple roles.
He is the symbolic audience and provides repartee and humor, manages improvisa-
tion, controls the rhythm of the performance, sustains a raga35 and provides a break
for the performer so that the performer has time to breathe and think. The ragi
is similar to the sutradhar (the anchor) who supports the main performer with his
nodding and often uttering monosyllables, such as “Hun, Hun, haho” (yes, yes, yes).
His interjections are both serious and comic. He helps spur the narrative onwards
with his “aichcha, hau, aichcha, hau” (“really, ‘I understand”) responses to the main
performer; this helps the performer to get the rhythm. He also uses Chhattisgarhi
words like kaabar (why?) instead of kya? Sometimes he speaks a sentence or two
to further elaborate the episode, but he neither performs nor plays an active role,
although his participation is important, and he is well versed in the narrative.
In the process of her performance, she has impersonated a host of roles: essen-
tially that of the narrator and various characters, from Bhima and Draupadi to
Shiva and Parvati. Teejan adds her unique style to the singing, often adding her
own words and invariably improvising and ofering a critique on current happen-
ings. As the lead narrator/singer, she interacts with the accompanying narrators/
singers, who give constant commentary and enhance the dramatic efect of the
Pandavani performance, which can last for several hours on a single episode of
the performance. The complete Pandavani is performed either in 30 days or in 21
days. On rare occasions, one-night programs are organised. The full performance
of Pandavani traditionally took 18 evenings to perform, but such long perfor-
mances went out of fashion with changing lifestyles and are no longer attractive
for the audience. Shorter versions of Pandavani, wherein a few stories from the
epic are taken up for depiction during one or two shows, became increasingly
popular. With the popularity of the form in national and international sites, the
singer-performer, to make the tale comprehensible for mixed audiences, along-
side the performance provides explanations as the narrative develops and mostly
62 Feminism and folk epic

uses Hindi as a medium of narration, peppered with Chhattisgarhi words, expres-

sions and songs.

Scripting model masculinity and the trope of

femininity as power: Draupadi in the Sabha Parva
and Dushasana vadh episode
Whom did you lose frst, yourself or me?
(Draupadi in The Mahabharata, II.60.7, Vyasa, 2012)
What is left of the dharma of kings? . . . This ancient eternal dharma is lost among the
Kauravas.
(Draupad in The Mahabharata II.62.12, Vyasa, 2012)

Teejan Bai has been performing all the 18 Parvas (from Adi Parva to Swargaro-
han Parva) from the Mahabharata in her unique Pandavani style over the past three
decades. In keeping with the specifed purpose of the book, I have specifcally
chosen to read the Sabha Parva36 (“Book of the Assembly Hall”) episode of dyuta,
or the gambling tournament, where Draupadi37 is humiliated and pawned like any
another commodity in the Kaurava court, and the 17th day of the Kurukshetra war
in the episode Dushasana Vadh, when Dushasana is killed and wherein Draupadi
enacts her revenge and repairs her dignity. In both these episodes, Teejan Bai takes
Pandavani out of the realm of the easily recognizable vaccha tradition and into the
realm of theatre (Iyengar, 1998, 70–79).
The performance begins with the purvaranga (rituals conducted before the com-
mencement of the play). Several elements of classical traditions blend with folk
traditions in the purvaranga. All the members of the troupe enter the stage and salute
the stage. The Ragi or the main performer opens the Mahabharata of Sabal Singh
Chauhan and puts it on a stand, and then he burns incense sticks and worships the
religious book. One framed picture of Lord Krishna is also kept near the book of
the Mahabharata. First of all, the prayer of Saraswati, the goddess of learning, is sung
by all the members of the troupe, then the prayer of Ganesh, the God of Riddhi-
Siddhi (prosperity and fulfllment). After the prayers of Saraswati and Ganesh, the
main performer touches the tamboora with her forehead as a mark of honor. All the
accompanists touch their musical instruments. After invoking the blessings of the
God, the performer then announces in a high pitch: “Bolo vrandban biharilaki jai”
(Triumph of Lord Krishna of Vrindavan). The atmosphere becomes exciting! All
the members of the troupe and the audience shout the jaikara (a slogan spoken in a
chorus) in support. This is customary as to how the purvaranaga rituals are observed.
The performer announces the episode to be performed.
After the warm-up tune that is played on the harmonium and Tabla, Teejan
Bai initiates her storytelling journey. She makes her entrance theatrically, walks
to the center of the performance space and stands in front of the accompanists.
Through her powerful portrayal of characters, her forceful narration and her nat-
urally engineered transformations, coupled with her commanding presence on
 Feminism and folk epic 63

stage, she weaves a rich tapestry of events from the epic tale. In the truest tradition
of a Chhattisgarhi performer, she helps the audience understand the narration,
sometimes through energetic gestures, sometimes through mime or body language
(Figure 2.3).
Commenting on her selection of episodes for various events, she says, “If it’s a
serious day with an intense audience and my mood permits, I choose to put out the
Draupadi Vastra-Haran/Cheer-Haran [literal translation: to forcibly take away some-
one’s clothes] episode”. And through her art, Teejan Bai has found a mode to depict
the adversities that she herself has experienced. “My favorite story is Draupadi cheer-
haran”, she says, “Through this story I want to tell people not to commit atrocities
against women. Otherwise, they’ll face the fate that befell the Kauravas” (Masih,
1997). I have been trailing several performances38 of Teejan Bai in the last couple of
years. The descriptions that follow are mostly based on these performances; I found
no two performances were quite alike. She performs diferent characters from the
episode of Draupadi Vastraharan to a large, enthralled audience at the Assi Ghat in
Varanasi and to a comparatively smaller audience at Kolkata. The heterogeneously
spirited audience at the Ghats intersperses her performance with loud shouts of
“Har Har Mahadeva” (Hail Lord Shiva). The almost consistently educated audience
at the Kolkata event is restrained and temperate in its responses (Figure 2.4).

FIGURE 2.3Spic Macay Classical Heritage Series in association with Ministry of Tour-
ism, Government of India, Assi Ghat, Varanasi, India, March 2018
(Source: Photographed by the author)
64 Feminism and folk epic

FIGURE 2.4 Performance at Hotel Hyatt in Kolkata organised by the Eastern Zonal
Cultural Centre (ECZZ) 19 January 2019
(Source: Photographed by the author)

As the performance unfolds, with her boisterous and overpowering voice and
her tribal identity, she shuttles in the stage space, making free use of it as she
plays her tamboora, sings, dances, delivers dialogue and, in between, comes forward
to communicate with the audience and then moves back to interact with her
 Feminism and folk epic 65

accompanists. The theatricality of her performance, her own inimitable style, her
large presence – she is a tall and well-built woman – and her uninhibited move-
ments on stage render her presence even larger and more powerful. She is usually
dressed in a bright red or pink sari with a dot of vermillion on her forehead, her
hair combed neatly into a long plait. With her tamboora on her shoulder, she walks
with a swagger on stage and begins to recite the ballad she has picked for the day.
Five to seven male musicians sit behind her, following every instruction Teejan puts
out for the musical arrangement.
She narrates the story of Draupadi’s disrobing at a certain point in the epic.39
The Kauravas invite the Pandavas to a dice game. Yudhishthira, the eldest Pandava,
stakes and loses his jewels, his property, almost all his material possessions and
continues to lose everything, including himself and his brothers. Finally, the most
disturbing part of the dicing scene rolls out when Duryodhana urges Yudhishthira
to gamble Draupadi. It is then that an enraged Bhima gets up and theatrically
hurls his mace and swears he will pull his out tongue if he (Duryodhana) dares to
utter Draupadi’s name in public. Yudhishthira heedlessly and unrelentingly wagers
Draupadi and loses her in the game. At this moment, Duryodhana orders that
Draupadi be brought to the Assembly of the Kauravas as a slave of her new mas-
ters. Duryodhana is pleased to see his retaliation against Draupadi realised and
states that it was Draupadi who had ridiculed him for being blind and had called
him “blind son of a blind father”.40 The scene is further narrated dramatically as
Dushasana (the second Kaurava brother) makes an entrance in Draupadi’s chamber.
The moment Draupadi sees him, she covers her head41 as he is her brother-in-law.
When Dushasana conveys to Draupadi that she is summoned to the Assembly Hall,
she politely declines to go as she is menstruating and euphemistically says “main
jaane kelaiyak nahi hoon” (I am not ft to go). At this, Dushasana interrupts and says
that summoning her is not a request but an order, and he has been ordered by
Duryodhana to pull her by her hair and drag her to the Assembly Hall. He also
informs her that now she is a servant since her husband Yudhishthira has lost her
in a game of dice. An enraged Draupadi refuses to come with Dusshana and ques-
tions Yudhishthira’s rights over her, especially after having lost himself in the game.
She demands an answer from Yudhishthira to her question: “Whom did you lose
frst, yourself or me?” She angrily makes this into a legal question of the rights of a
husband over a wife and the freedom of a wife/woman and poses it to the Assem-
bly of men, king, and lawmakers. Angered by her refusal to come to the Assembly
Hall, Dushasana grabs hold of Draupadi in the inner chambers and brings her to
the court. Teejan Bai as Draupadi is visibly shocked at the treatment she receives
at the hands of “not just her oppressors but also her husband’s and she responds
to it by mounting aggressive and outspoken attacks on her husbands” (as cited in
Shah, 2012, 110). Her question is individually a woman’s question and, in a bigger
context, the women’s question. “Is this really you who is doing this to me?” She
challenges and questions the ownership of women in contexts of patriarchy. She
seems to be asking, “Is it right or fair that a woman, let alone a queen, become
a slave because her husband staked her in a gambling game?” Draupadi’s question
66 Feminism and folk epic

is a question of dharma in the sabha, which is incidentally both the gambling hall
and the courtroom to dispense justice. The Kauravas continue to humiliate her.
Karna questions her chastity and honor (owing to her fve marriages). Dushasana
attempts to disrobe her, and Duryodhana makes an indecent sexual gesture towards
her. All this is happening in front of the family elders, including Bhishma, King
Dhritarashtra, other respectable men, and the Pandavas, but none can dissuade the
Kauravas. Teejan heightens the theatricality of this scene when Draupadi is brought
into the middle of the court, all bruised and wounded and shaken by what is hap-
pening. She appeals to all in the court in familial terms as “bahu” (daughter-in-law)
and “beti” (daughter) and pleads and cries: “Yahan koi kuchnahi kahne vala?” (“Will
no one say anything?) “Aap bhi nahi bologe? (Will you also not speak anything?) “Koi
kuch nahi bololega? (No one will speak anything?) The men in the Assembly Hall sit
in stunned silence. It is then Draupadi raises her hand in a supplicating gesture and
cries out for Dwarkanatha’s (another name for Lord Krishna) help. Lord Krishna
hears the cries of Draupadi, and Rukhmani, his wife, urges him to rush to Drau-
padi’s rescue in a melodramatic manner: “Jaldi ja jadli ja aur Drauapdikilaj bacha, aaj
draupadi ki laj nahi bacchi toh soch le ki bharat ki nari ki laj bachna bahut mushkil hai”.
(Make haste and speedily go and save Draupadi’s honor. If Draupadi’s honor is not
saved today, it will be very hard to save the honor of Indian women.) Teejan, again
through Rukhmani’s intervention, confates and contemporises Draupadi’s plight
with the predicament of Indian women. Krishna rushes to rescue Draupadi from
her anguish, and this episode comes to an end with Draupadi’s honor restored by
the divine mediation. The scene is clinched with a paean to Shri Krishna: “Tore
murali me jadu bhare Kanhaiya, tore murali mei jadulage Kanhaiya”. (Your fute is full
of magic, Krishna; your fute seems magical) and a slogan to extol the greatness of
Krishna: “Bolo vrandban bihari laki jai”. (Triumph of Lord Krishna of Vrindavan.)
Teejan Bai also introduces humor into this serious episode. When Lord Krishna
arrives and rescues Draupadi, she gently rebukes him, saying, “Dear Krishna, if you
continue to come late, how you will save the damsels in distress in India?” As a
response, Krishna, with playfully convoluted logic, retorts, “Why were you shout-
ing ‘Dwarkanath! Dwarkanath!’ You could have simply called out ‘Kanhaiya, Murari
or Girdhari’. I would have been here right next to you in an instant of time, but
because you were calling out ‘Dwarkanath’, I had to go all the way to Dwarkanath
and then return from there”. He sheepishly adds: “Thora sa late ho gaya” (It was a
bit late).
The feminist retellings of Teejan Bai’s tend to frame this issue within a diferent
matrix, thereby allowing Draupadi to critically engage with this issue and voice her
feelings. While performing the episode from Dyuta Parva, Teejan says, “These days
a lot of people ask me to perform the Draupadi’s cheerharan. Everything comes from
our surroundings”42 (Tripathi, 2011). Draupadi is Teejan Bai’s favorite character,
and she says that her character “allures you in a special way” (Bai, 2018). Describ-
ing this appeal of Draupadi, Sally Sutherland similarly writes that “there is a strong
realisation of her victimisation and she responds to it by mounting aggressive and
outspoken attacks on her husbands” (as cited in Shah, 2012, 110). Teejan is acutely
 Feminism and folk epic 67

conscious of the pervasiveness of gender-related violence, the increasing number of

gender crimes, the Nirbhaya incident, the mounting male sex ratio, dowry-related
deaths, son preference and domestic violence (Bai, 2018), and she has personally
experienced most of this in her own life:

People in my village called me characterless because I sang and danced in

public. My second husband used to beat me and stop me from performing.
What could be more painful for an artist than not being able to perform? I
can never forget that difficult path I have left behind, Indian women have this
amazing ability to tolerate things, keep the pain to their hearts and continue
doing what they are supposed to do, I did exactly that”, she adds.
(Sai, 2017)

In Teejan’s portrayal, Draupadi alternately appears to be vulnerable, confrontational

and fnally a fery woman who refuses to be victimised at the hands of her husbands
or the Kauravas and give in to the adversity she fnds herself in because of patri-
archal mores, thus initiating two knotted debates. The frst is whether Draupadi’s
forced entry into the hall is a violation of dharma, and the second is the validity of
Yudhishthira’s stake. Through this iconic story from the Mahabharata and with her
self-styled performance, Teejan as Draupadi refuses to acknowledge her dishonor.
In raising the question, she punctures and punctuates the masculine system of
jurisprudence, thereby exposing its follies and its weaknesses. Her resistance lies
in subverting the narrative of female honor, purity and shame through her defant
anger. She resists and counters the notions of Dharma and enacts her rhetoric of
revenge by overthrowing the patriarchal script of the subservience of women. In
this scene, Teejan draws attention to Draupadi and her strength in such an outra-
geous situation; four redeeming character construals who, according to Teejan,
are on the side of dharma are carved out powerfully in this episode: Draupadi as
an exponent of dialectics (Kumar, 2017, 257), her argumentativeness and agency;
Rukhmani as empathiser and arbitrator expressing female solidarity; Krishna as a
redeemer; Bhima as the only husband of Draupadi who is agitated by Draupadi’s
humiliation and cares for her dignity and who raises his voice against Duryodhana’s
violent act and is strongly at the side of Draupadi and dharma.
The concept of dharma has multivalent applications, interpretations, mean-
ings or values. It is widely understood as morality, law, responsibility, compassion
and goodness. It is a norm for the sustenance of human behavior, or, in other
words, it is the norm that governs our actions and behavior. Teejan as Draupadi
engages with the term in the episode of dyuta or the gambling tournament. At
the moment she cried out at the monstrosity of the events and the passivity of
the onlookers at the atrocity, her question was met by either silence or sidelong
glances. The irony of the whole episode is that Yudhishthira, who is known as
Dharmaraja (king of Justice), made that error to stake his wife. The question that
Draupadi asked concerned the rights or legality of her husband’s action and cou-
pled with it with the morality of the situation. She questions the very violence
68 Feminism and folk epic

that is perpetrated on her, mostly by appealing to the morality of the men, war-
riors and kings present in the Assembly Hall, the scene of violence. Her rage
in the court marks a paradigm shift in and punctuates the largely “masculine”
judicial system, thereby exposing its follies and its weaknesses, also anticipating
the possible progress in the socio-legal structure by rethinking masculine codes of
honor and conduct. The aforementioned questions raised by Draupadi and posed
before an Assembly Hall full of elderly, learned men; kings and great warriors
(by virtue of which they are accountable for decreeing justice to their subjects)
are left dangling or unresolved in the epic. Did Yudhishthira, having frst lost his
own freedom (as well as the freedom of the four brothers) and thus becoming a
slave of the Kauravas, have any right to gamble again with Draupadi as stake? She
challenges the wife’s freedom or autonomy as an independent person. In fact,
legal, moral and social codes designated by the pervasive term dharma turn out to
be more situational than universal.
Dushasanavadh (the killing of Dushasana) is an episode in which Draupadi gets
to keep her vow. Teejan portrays Draupadi’s ferocity at the injustice she has sufered
in the Kaurava court as she strides with the swagger of gadadhaari (mace bearer)
Bhima. She wears a bright red sari with a dot of vermilion on her forehead as she
enacts the scene of “Dushasana Vadh” from the war of Kurukshetra. The scene is
set during the heat of the Kurukshetra war. In a mallayuddha (“wrestling combat”)
Bhima has just literally pulled out Dushasana’s arms from his body, mutilating his
chest. He ofers Dushasana’s blood to Draupadi to redeem her oath of adorning
her hair with Dushasana’s blood. This episode is almost entirely male-dominated,
with Draupadi the single female character appearing just at the climactic moment
in the story when she comes to the battlefeld to bathe her hair in Dushasana’s
blood and thereby enact her revenge. Teejan is associated with Bhima, the most
masculine character in Mahabharata. Dramatically, with the tamboora fung over her
shoulder symbolizing Bhima through an imposing economy of gesture, she stoops
her shoulder in a pose slightly recognizable as Bhima, lurches her tamboora over
her right shoulder, assumes a slight swaggering gait, drops her voice a few octaves
and, in a spilt second, we visualise Bhima before us. In the episode Dushasana vadh,
Teejan unmistakably idealises Bhima; she rejoices in Bhima’s power and bravery.
Bhima is part of the prevailing cosmological myths of many tribes, which include
a supernatural account or explanation that describes the beginnings of humankind
and the earth. In these tribal communities, Bhima is reinterpreted as a folk hero
and as a rain god with many supernatural deeds ascribed to his credit. She portrays
him as a real warrior on the battlefeld. She does not venerate war, yet in another
subversive strategy, she reveals and displays how soldiers are afraid of war; they
are desperate for someone to protect them and are frantically calling out “Bach-
hao! Bachhao!” (Help! Help!) She confronts the reality of war and asserts that it is
no great valiant event; it does not make men heroes. On the contrary, it ridicules
them. Bhima is a hero because he cares for Draupadi’s fulfllment of revenge. Tee-
jan portrays Draupadi’s retribution as a euphoric moment. She celebrates with a
realisation that Draupadi could not have avenged on her own.
 Feminism and folk epic 69

When Nakul on Bhima’s command goes to summon Draupadi to the battle-

feld, she yells at him for leaving the battlefeld and bemoans her dependence on
men like Nakul: “Tohe sharam laaj na aaye Nakul” (Aren’t you ashamed of leaving
the battlefeld?). Frightened, he says that he has come as a messenger to convey the
news that Dushasana has been defeated by Bhima. Bhima’s kshatriyaic (baronage)
masculinity was not merely about conquest and strength; it had a protective side
too; even though protection was attained through an act of aggression. An angry
Draupadi, whose revenge is about to be fulflled, rushing to the battlefeld is staged
by Teejan Bai in terms of the ferocious goddesses like Kali43 and Durga.44 Teejan
Bai uses words like shringar45 (ornamentation) to describe Draupadi’s action. She is
full of joyous verve as she hurries to the battlefeld towards Bhima and Dushasana.
In this moment of victory, she holds her hair up as she immerses it sensuously in the
blood fowing from Dushasana’s severed arms. Adorning her hair with the blood of
Dushasana is the frst act of shringar. Teejan Bai’s Draupadi becomes almost a fgure
of the annihilator of evil forces. Kali like, furious, with disheveled hair embodying
Shakti (feminine energy): primal, sensuous and dangerous in fearsome guise as the
slayer of demons. Kali is no longer the other to be contained or domesticated but a
self to be realised; she claims it and celebrates it. She hails Bhima: “Jai ho!” (Glory
be yours! May you be victorious!) as he redeems his pledge and reinstates her dig-
nity to her. Bhima is the only person who is actively sensitive to the humiliations
and helplessness that Draupadi experiences. Bhima is described as an endearing
person and becomes the epitome of an esteemed man in Teejan’s construal of the
story; for her, “He is a bigger hero than Arjun, isn’t he? He stood at all times like
a rock with his mace, and unlike the others, he wasn’t yearning for kingdom or
power. His might was for the poor and the righteous” (Nair, 2017). His strength
does not lie in the physicality of his being but in his fortitude and responsiveness
to the sufering of others around him. His healthy masculinity is a cornerstone of
heroism; for Teejan, Bhima signifes the male hero as he does not kill Dushasana
but allows Draupadi to act her own revenge. Draupadi’s insult is an issue of his male
honor. Bhima is an agent who creates space for Draupadi’s agency. In this created
space, she enacts her own revenge by symbolically washing clean of her insult.
In these two episodes, she doubles up as a narrator and a character as she
denounces the conduct of male characters towards Draupadi while Bhima is
valorised as the male ideal because of his sensitivity in understanding Draupadi’s
predicament. Carrying the weight of the epic on her shoulders, Teejan danced,
enacted, sang, mocked, argued: it was thus a virtual one-woman Mahabharata, pre-
sented on the stage in the form of a dramatic interpretation combining the visual,
auditory and kinesthetic modalities. The signifcant aspects of her performances
can be enumerated as follows: frstly, she uses voice and body to communicate her
explicit views.
The efect of her two performances is achieved by her voice and body; her strong
visual appeal on stage; her identifably tribal accouterments, including her bright
sari in a tribal style called kachhora, baandha (a necklace made of coins) and suta (a
silver necklace) around the neck; phuli (nose ring); bali and khunti (earrings); ainthi
70 Feminism and folk epic

(made of silver); patta and choora (bangles and armlets); Pounchhi (a ring worn on
the upper arm); kardhani (a waist belt–like ornament made of silver) and bichhiya
(traditional ring worn on the toe, which is a symbol of marriage). Her thick black
kajal, beetle-stained teeth, bright red sindoor (vermillion), heavy tribal-style silver
jewelry typically worn on occasions and costumes in red and black, all against
the darkness of her skin, add to deepen the visual drama of her appearance. The
frame of her imposing body and her sartorial gestures connote visual and plentiful
excess. Simple signifers create a powerful image to gratify our imagination of the
folk. The vermillion and the toe ring become signifers to construct a respectable
public persona, thereby engendering social legitimacy. The signifers become rep-
resentational apparatus to denote her as a tribal woman and reputable woman on
the one hand, and on the other, they amplify the theatricality of her performance
and accomplish a normalizing function. The other members who accompany her
performance are dressed in plain white or cream dhotis (garments worn by men
wrapped around the lower half of the body) so as to juxtapose the main performer
dressed in gaudy shades embodying a repository of folk magnifed larger than life
also through her imposing form and powerful presence.
The performance establishes gender fuidity and the constructed nature of the
concept of gender. Through her performance, she displays unequivocally that
anatomy is not destiny and that gender is not a determinant of ability or power.
As a solo performer, she assumes role-playing with the ease of an artist. Her per-
formance questions the very edifce of masculinity and femininity. Imagination is
the core of expression; stripping away the dramatic illusion and using a distanced
acting style, Teejan switches to multiple roles. Playing with only her actions, voice
and the tamboora, in a split second, she becomes Bhima or Duryodhana or Krishna
or Draupadi. As an actor, she inhabits a range of personas (Figure 2.5).
When we say that gender is a performance, we usually mean that we take on a
role or we’re acting in some way and our role-playing is fundamental to the gender.
In Teejan Bai’s role-playing, gender is clearly a performance; she acts and walks and
speaks and talks in ways that consolidate an impression of being a man or being
a woman. She does not cross-dress; she does not change her costume to enact
Bhima; she remains in her sari, jewelry, vermillion, braided hair. With her female
contours, everything about her is a socially scripted woman. The only change
that happens to her is how she performs her body. In Teejan Bai’s performance,
masculine and feminine emanate from the same person simultaneously. Masculine
deportments coexist with a feminine voice, feminine accouterments and a female
body. There is no attempt at gender ambiguity. There is no gender confusion in
her acting with exaggerated gestures and actions. Using a distantiation efect (an
acting style in which the degree of identifcation is controlled), she never becomes
Bhima; she merely shows him through verbal and physical behavior. She strides up
and down the stage like Bhima as she turns to the audience and makes eye contact,
in the process unmistakably drawing attention to her act of showing Bhima. She
physically enacts Bhima but vocally retains her voice. She simultaneously com-
ments on his actions; neither the actor nor the character disappears.
 Feminism and folk epic 71

FIGURE 2.5 Pratha Parva, 29 December 2016, New Delhi

(Source: Courtesy Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi)
72 Feminism and folk epic

The notion of performance and performativity as a repetition of certain acts

comes from the long line of advocates of the “performative turn” afecting the
study of culture towards the end of the 20th century. This placed a new emphasis
on the production, processes and reception of cultural phenomena and on language
as a new vehicle for social activity. The “performative” and the theory of “perfor-
mativity” have been diferently framed by scholars since J. L. Austin’s How to Do
Things with Words (1962). Austin coined the term performative in the context of the
language of philosophy in his book. Here, he asserted that performativity functions
as a form of social action. It cannot be said to be true or false; utterances are judged
as unhappy or infelicitous. Language is not only a signifying medium but it also
makes something happen. Context, conventions, conscious actor and intentional-
ity were all marked for the success of a performative utterance. In Erving Gofman’s
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956) the notion of the “social actor” entails
the conscious choosing of setting and props, as well as of a particular costume for a
specifc audience. Butler would perhaps problematise the formulation of agency in
Gofman, noting that gender is not a form of self-constitution. Drawing on Michel
Foucault’s idea of subject constructed through discourse, Butler expounds on how
subjects are produced by their context because the possibilities of speech are prede-
termined. Judith Butler, in her work Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An
Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory (1988), introduced the term performa-
tive to cultural philosophy. Here, she argued that gender identity is not based on
ontology or biology but is formed by the continuous constitution of bodily acts;
it is an identity instituted through “a stylised repetition of acts” (270). The mate-
riality of the body arises out of the repetitions of a certain act. Butler’s defnition
corresponds to Austin’s “performative” as being “self-referential” and “constituting
reality – a shift from speech acts to bodily acts”. Butler criticises Austin for not
embedding the speech acts within historical contexts. In this sense, the derivative
character of speech associated with concepts such as “sedimentation”, “interpel-
lation”, “citation” and “iteration” is absent in Austin’s theory: “sedimentation, a
repetition that congeals, that gives the name its force” (Butler, 1988, 36).
Unlike these contemporary theorizations’ about an emptied-out essence or
substance, Teejan Bai believes in masculine and feminine traits as two preexisting
separate boxes, almost like the belief of the androgynous Ardhanarishvara,46 repre-
senting the two mutually coexisting attributes. However, she reassigns diferent
meanings to these two as she breaks with the gender script through performing
gender roles in new and often subversive ways. She resignifes masculinity and
femininity to suit her purpose. In her performance, the patriarchal trope of the
man as the noble protector persists; however, women are not projected as weak and
fragile beings, but they still need of safeguarding by strong menfolk. She does not
sack of chivalry totally while challenging the way in which we assign strength and
weaknesses based on gender. By coding strength as not just a decidedly masculine
trait, women cannot be dismissed for their ability and knowledge to question the
socio-politico-legal structures and to stand up against their own exploitation. Her
enactment shows that strength knows no gender; in embodying a challenge to the
 Feminism and folk epic 73

narrative story of female frailty, at the same time, she demonstrates the notion of
men as women’s natural protectors.
In rendering the character, Teejan Bai, through her bodily acts, maintains a
gendered split, having clearly diferent bodily behavior for men and women. How-
ever, her gendered spilt does not align masculinity with power and femininity with
powerlessness; instead, through her enactment of Draupadi and her presentation
of herself as narrator, she reconfgures femininity into an expression diferent from
but equally as powerful as masculinity. And her enacted masculinity is not toxic and
hegemonic but benign and respectful towards women, and femininity is not cowed
by oppressive patriarchal forces but stands up for self-dignity and self-respect. She
straddles with ease the masculine and the feminine, which are equally divided
within her. Furthermore, while seeming to retain the gendered divide, Teejan also
collapses gender in her own corporeal person. By expressing both masculinity and
femininity, she inserts herself into the specifc Indian discourse that posits per-
sonal wholeness in the coexistence of masculinity and femininity within oneself. In
doing so, she uses it to express the unlimited potential of the female subject. As a
narrator, she is always feminine in a powerful way and holds an idea of femininity as
power; citing herself as an illustration she says, “I am illiterate and have learnt only
to write my signature. But, women don’t need any qualifcation to gain respect.
They deserve it anyway” (Bai, 2018).
The confation of Draupadi and Teejan is sustained when she responds to my
question if she can describe herself as a feminist as her performance was so power-
fully about a powerful woman. She mingles her life struggles and Draupadi’s plight
in her response and says it’s

my atmabala [willpower] and atmasammana [self-respect] that has bought me

here that has enabled me to fight against all odds in life, and Draupadi does it
too; in that sense, we both are feminist. We have atmabala and atmasammana
that makes us not relent to the injustice that we see around us.
(Bai, 2018)

And in the same breath, she expresses her passion for Pandavani and says: “I may
be getting old, my hearing is afected, I am coughing incessantly but my tamboora
is my mate. As long as people gather to listen to me, I will continue to perform”
(Bai, 2018).

Notes
1 The vaani (words) of the Pandavas. The Pandavas were the five sons of Pandu in the epic
the Mahabharata.
2 The state was formed on 1 November 2000 by partitioning ten Chhattisgarhi- and six
Gondi-speaking southeastern districts of Madhya Pradesh. In ancient times, Chhattisgarh
was known as Dakshina Kosala (South Kosala). It is said that Chhattisgarh derives its
name from the 36 ancient forts in the area. Another opinion is that Chhattisgarh is an
altered form of Chedisgarh, meaning “Raj” or “Empire of the Chedis”.
74 Feminism and folk epic

3 It is derived from the root dhr, meaning to uphold, support and sustain as the norm
to upkeep human behavior or the model of action or the regulation of conduct. The
Oxford Dictionary defines it as follows: “(in Indian religion) the eternal and inherent
nature of reality, regarded in Hinduism as a cosmic law underlying right behavior and
social order” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dharma). Collins Diction-
ary defines it as follows: “In Hinduism, dharma refers to the things a person must do as
their religious and moral duty” (www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/hindi-english).
4 Group of syncretic religious singers, they are mainly Hindu Vaishnavites and Sufi Mus-
lims. The etymology of the word Baul is from the Sanskrit word Vyakula (restless,
agitated), signifying a person who is restless and inspired in his devotion to uniting with
the eternal power.
5 The Sanskrit word kathak means story, and the travelling Kathakars (storytellers) of north
India told stories of epics and legends using the song, dance and music.
6 Hindi poet who wrote in Khari Boli dialect, widely acclaimed for his nationalist poetry
collection Bharat Bharati.
7 On 15 July 2004, a group of Meitei women staged a naked protest in Imphal, the capital
of the state of Manipur in Northeast of India. The women were opposing the torture,
rape and murder of thirty-two-year-old Thangjam Manorama while in the custody of
the Indian Army’s Assam Rifles Battalion. The activists carried a long white banner with
the slogan “INDIAN ARMY, RAPE US” and cried, “Rape us, kill us, take our flesh”.
8 In several regions of India, we find retellings of the Mahabharata in written, oral and
ritual and folk performance traditions. Almost all these retellings contain evident and
not so evident deviations from what we know as the Vyasa’s epic to give free play to
their imagination and local flavor. In the eastern region, the first Bengali telling was by
Kabi Sanjay (early 15th century) and later in 1650 by Kasiram Das. In Oriya, there is a
version by Sarala Dasa (15th century). Sarala clearly gives out a voice of dissent against
the domination and orthodoxy of the Brahmins down the ages. Winternitz believes
that Sarala’s Mahabharata is not simply an epic but that it “represents more of entire
literature than a single and unitary work and contains so much and so many kinds of
things” (History of Indian Literature Vol. I & II, 305). In Assamese, there is a version by
the Vaisnavite poet Rama Saraswati (16th century). In Malayalam, there are several
versions across centuries. In the 15th century, we have versions by Sankara Panikkar,
Rama Panikkar and Cherusseri Namboodiri and in the 16th century, by Tunchattu
Ramanujan Ezutthachan.
Versions in Tamil were in Perum Devanar in the eighth century and, in the 14th
century, by Villiputhur Alvar (Tamil); Kumara Vyasa (Kannada, 1494–1520) and Nan-
nayya-Tikkana-Yerrapragda (Telugu). Mukteswar wrote Mahabharata in Marathi in 1660
and Moropant in 1749. Gokulnath wrote the epic in Hindi a full two centuries later
(i.e., in the 18th century). Bhagwan Das Patel is the author of Bheelo Ka Bharat; this is a
variation of Mahabharata from the Bheel tribe. Whether they are parallel to or divergent
from Vyasa’s Mahabharata, they are all creative work of art and stand out as independent,
autonomous pieces of art on their own merit. Singh documents the tribal and folk epics
forms of Mahabharata in his work Mahabharata in the Tribal and Folk Traditions of India.
9 Amman means mother or Mother Mari, also spelled Maariamma, associated with the
goddess Parvati, Durga and Shitala Dev.
10 Terukkuttu is from the Tamil words Teru (street) and Kuttu (theatre). It is a folk theatre
performed especially in the villages during temple festivals in Tamil Nadu. Many teruk-
kuttu performances enact scenes from the Mahabharata. In terukkuttu plays, song, music,
dance and drama abound. The plays are instructive and entertaining.
11 Chhattisgarhi is an Eastern Hindi language. Like Hindi, it is written in the Devanagari
script. It is also known as Dakshin Kosali and Dakshin Hindi and has several recognised
dialects of its own; these are Baighani, Bhulia, Binjhwari, Kalanga, Kavardi, Khairagarhi,
Sadri Korwa and Surgujia.
12 Dewar is a low caste of nomads. Originally, they were located in Mandla; now they are
spread throughout Chhattisgarh.
 Feminism and folk epic 75

13 These verses are drawn from “Pandavani”, published by Tribal Research Institute at
Chhindwada, Madhya Pradesh (1957 & 1963).
14 Kapalua meaning “skull” or smriti (memory) or oral tradition. Here, the Kapalik style
denotes recitations from memory. Kapalik is a style of narration in which the performer
is free to improvise consistently on episodes and characters in the epic. The term Kapal
is of significance here as it means to perform in a standing posture, making movements
on stage. This freely brings in local legends and myths stored “in the head”, existing in
the collective popular consciousness.
15 Smrti is a Sanskrit word from the root Smara, which means “remembrance, reminiscence,
thinking of or upon, calling to mind”, or simply “memory” (Williams).
16 Veda means knowledge. This style is based on textual tradition: the “classical” Hindu
source, Sabal Singh Chauhan’s Awadhi Mahabharata.
17 Punaram Nishad received the Padma Bhushan in 2005. Son of a bhajan (devotional song)
singer, Punaram started singing at age ten and later practiced the Vedmati form of Pandavani.
18 Sangeetnatak Akademi. http://sangeetnatak.gov.in/sna/citation_popup.php?id=1356&
amp;at=2.
19 Asia Pacific Database on Intangible Cultural Heritage. www.accu.or.jp/ich/en/arts/A_
IND6.html.
20 For some definitions of folk, see Jan Haravard Brunvand: “all knowledge, understand-
ings, value, attitudes, assumptions, feelings and beliefs transmitted in traditional forms
by word of mouth” (1998); “Folk drama originated in primitive rites of song and dance,
especially in connection with agricultural activities, which centered on vegetational dei-
ties and goddesses of fertility” (Abrahams, 1968). According to Durgadas Mukhopadhyay,
“In artistic terminology they are sometimes called folk – which imply community and
mean expressions that are participative and spontaneous and classical which indicate
highly contextual and codified forms” (1994). These definitions clearly reveal the impos-
sibility of classifying Pandavani as a purely folk form.
21 Jhaduram Devangan was born in 1926 in the village of Basin, Madhya Pradesh. He comes
from a family of traditional Pandavani artists of the Vedamati school. First to broadcast
Pandavani from Akashvani, Bhopal, in 1964, he has since performed widely in several parts
of the country. In the narration of episodes from the Mahabharata, the substance of Panda-
vani, Devangan combines speech, song and mime with exceptional skill. His success with
audiences has been responsible in some measure for the regeneration of Pandavani and new
recruitment to the art. He has received the Shikhar Samman, conferred by the Government
of Madhya Pradesh, in 1982, and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for his contribution
to Pandavani. (http://sangeetnatak.gov.in/sna/citation_popup.php?id=1212&at=2).
22 Eastern Dialect of Hindi.
23 Habib Tanvir (1923–2009) was a theatre director, poet and actor. Chiefly known for
being a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu theatre in India, he worked with Chhattisgarhi art-
ists in this Naya theatre. He was a recipient of several national and international awards,
which include the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1969, Jawarharlal Nehru Fellowship
in 1979, Padma Shri in 1983, Kalidas Samman 1990, Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in
1996 and the Padma Bhushan in 2002. His Agra Bazar (1954) and Charandas Chor (1975)
are very popular productions.
24 A Doha is a couplet consisting of two lines; a chaupai is a quatrain verse of Indian poetry,
especially medieval Hindi poetry, which uses a meter of four syllables. Chauhan’s Mahabharata
contains around 1,800 kaṛavak units that usually have eight to ten ardhalis, followed by a Doha
or soraṭha. This specific kaṛavak format is also found in Tulsidas’s Ramcaritmanas (c.1574).
25 Hansen, Kathryn. “Making Women Visible: Gender and Race Cross-Dressing in the Parsi
Theatre”, Theatre Journal, Vol. 51, No. 2 (May 1999), pp. 127–147; Singh, Lata. (ed.). Play
House of Power: Theatre in Colonial India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010.
26 Bhilai is a major industrial city in the district of Durg, Chhattisgarh.
27 They are listed as a Scheduled Tribe for the purpose of India’s Reservation system. “List
of notified Scheduled Tribes” (PDF). Census India. Archived from the original (PDF)
on 7 November 2013. Retrieved 15 December 2018.
76 Feminism and folk epic

28 The Fukuoka Prize is conferred on outstanding individuals or groups that preserve and
create the unique and diverse cultures of Asia.
29 National song of India.
30 Incarnation of a deity.
31 He is one of the central characters of the Epic Ramayana. He is the son of the wind-god
and an intense disciple of Lord Rama.
32 Saraswati is the Hindu goddess embodying knowledge, wisdom, arts, music, melody and
learning.
33 A deity of the Hindus who is considered to be the incarnation of Vishnu; the epic Mahab-
harata contains a detailed description of Krishna.
34 In Hinduism and Buddhism, the theory that what happens to people is result of their
actions.
35 A mode to express mood in Indian classical music.
36 This is second Parva in the Mahabharata and traditionally has 10 sub-books and 18 chap-
ters.
37 Draupadi is the daughter of King Drupada of Panchala, who becomes the wife of the
five Pandavas. Recent scholarship (Pradip Bhattacharya and Indrajit Bandyopadhyay)
establishes that the disrobing incident was an interpolation and that the game of dice and
the disrobing were not part of the original text but were added by one or more highly
competent redactors.
38 Teejan Bai’s Performance at Assighat organised by Spic Macay 23 March, 2018; Perfor-
mance at Hotel Hyatt in Kolkata by the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (ECZZ) 19
January 2019.
39 The core story pertains to the dynastic struggle for the throne of Hastinapur, a kingdom
ruled by the Kuru clan. The two cousins of the family who participate in the struggle
are the Kaurava and the Pandava, represented by Duryodhana and Yudhishthira. The
conflict begins when Dhṛtaraṣṭra, the eldest son of the Kuru dynasty, who is blind, has to
hand over his crown to his younger brother Paṇdu. After ruling for a brief period, Paṇdu
gives up his kingdom. The five sons of Paṇdu, called the Paṇḍavas (Dharmaraja, Bhima,
Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva), are raised up in the court along with their 100 cousins,
the Kauravas, sons of Dhṛtaraṣṭra. Hostility and suspicion develop between the cousins;
the Paṇḍavas are forced to leave the kingdom. During their exile, the five brothers have a
polyandrous marriage with Draupadi. After their exile, they return and experience some
years of peace and prosperity in a small kingdom assigned to them. In a game of dice,
Dharmaraj loses everything (including Draupadi, who is pledged), and they are forced to
go to the forest for 12 years and spend one year of life in camouflage. After 12 years, the
Paṇḍavas return to request their kingdom, but Duryodhana refuses to give them even a
pinhead of land. In the resultant bloody battle at Kurukshetra, Kṛṣṇa partakes as a non-
fighting charioteer of Arjuna and ensures the Paṇḍavas’ victory over the Kauravas. Over
centuries, the texts of the Mahabharata live incalculable lives through their interminable
versions in several languages across the Indian subcontinent and beyond.
40 This refers to the incident in Sabha Parva when the Duryodhana visited Indraprastha (the
new capital of the Pandavas). As Duryodhana was walking around the beautiful palace he
mistook the glossy floor made of crystals for a pond, lifted his dress and would not step
in. Being told of his error, he moved ahead. Then he came across a pond but, assuming
it to be a glossy floor, stepped in it and fell in the pond. At this point, Draupadi, seeing
him, laughed out loud and mocked him as “blind son of a blind father”. (Duryodhana’s
father Dhṛtaraṣṭra, the king, was blind.) Enraged by the insult and jealous of the prosperity
of the Pandavas, Duryodhana decided to arrange a dice game wherein he could avenge
the insult. Although this incident in not present in the original Mahabharata, it is widely
circulated in popular adaptations, especially the television series The Mahabharata by B. R.
Chopra. The 94-episode Hindi series originally ran from 2 October 1988 to 15 July 1990
on DD National.
41 The practice of facial veiling observed by married women was to keep modesty, honor
and shame before men in the in-laws’ house.
 Feminism and folk epic 77

42 Teejan here is referring to the backdrop of an entrenched patriarchal social structure, and
the asymmetrical gender attitudes have shaped the space for a national debate on the issue
of gender violence in India. It led the Indian government in 1995 to recognise violence
against women as one of the critical areas of concern. The issue of gender violence is now
perceived as a major issue that impedes the process of development and empowerment
in India. It is widely observed that violence has an economic, social and political cost to
society and is not a private affair (see Flavia Agnes, 1992).
43 Kali is a fierce Hindu goddess. She is considered to be a destroyer of evil forces. She
is called kalarātri (“night of death”) and also kālī (which, as Coburn, 1984 notes, is the
description “the dark blue one”).
44 Durga is a Hindu warrior goddess. She is the fierce form of the protecting mother god-
dess, riding a lion, with various arms, each holding a weapon.
45 One of the nine Rasas (flavors), the name of Rasa is ecstasy,
46 Ardhanarishvara represents the androgynous form of the Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati. It
represents the synthesis of the masculine and feminine energies of the universe (Purusha
and Prakriti). It is depicted as half male and half female, equally split down the middle.
The right half is usually the male Shiva.

Bibliography
Abrahams, Roger. (1968) “Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory of Folklore”, The
Journal of American Folklore, 81, 143–158.
Agnes, Flavia. (1992) “Protecting Women against Violence? Review of a Decade of Leg-
islation, 1980–89”, Economic and Political Weekly, 27(17), WS19-WS21+WS24-WS33.
Ahmad, S. (1989) “lokpriya hioti teejan bai shailli”, Hindustan, October 18, New Delhi.
Aklujkar, Vidyut. (2007) “Sāvitrī: Old and New”, in Arvind Sharma (ed.) Essays on the
Mahābhārata. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Arendt, H. (1958) The Human Condition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Austin, John Langshaw. (1962) How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Awasthi, Suresh. (1971) “Introduction”, Sangeet Natak, 21, Roundtable on the Contempo-
rary Relevance of Traditional Theatre, 5–7.
Bai, Tejan. (2018) “Personal Communication”, March 27, 1700 hrs.
Bandyopadhyay, Indrajit. (2016) Rape of Draupadi. North Carolina: Lulu Press, Inc.
Bauman, Richard, and Charles Briggs. (1990) “Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspec-
tives on Language and Social Life”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 19, 59–88.
Bauman, Richard, and Charles Briggs. (1992) “Genre, Intertextuality and Social Power”,
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2(2), 131–172.
Baumer, Rachel Van M., and James R. Brandon (eds.). (1981) Sanskrit Drama in Performance.
Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Bhattacharya, Pradip. (1989) Themes and Structure in the Mahdbharata: A Study of Adi Parva.
Calcutta: Dasgupta and Sons.
Bhattacharya, Pradip. (2011) Narrative Art in the Mahabharta: The Adi Parva. New Delhi:
Dev Books.
Bhawalkar, Vanamala. (2002) Eminent Women in the Mahabharata. New Delhi: Sharada Pub-
lishing.Blackburn, Stuart H., and A.K. Ramanujan (eds.). (1986) Another Harmony: New
Essays on the Folklore of India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Blackwell, Fritz. (1978) “In Defence of Draupadi and Kaikeyi”, Indian Literature, 21(3).
Brockington, J.L. (1998) The Sanskrit Epics. Leiden: Brill.
Brodbeck, Simon, and Brian Black (eds.). (2007) Gender and Narrative in the Mahabharata.
London: Routledge.
78 Feminism and folk epic

Brown, W. Norman. (2006) “Foreword”, in Iravati Karve (ed.) Yuganta: The End of an Epoch.
Hyderabad: Orient Longman.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. (1998) The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company.
Buitenen, J.A.B. van. (Trans. and ed.). (1975) The Mahabharata: 2: The Book of the Assembly
Hall. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
“Bulletin of the Tribal Research Institute”, Chhindwara, 1957 & 1963. Tribal Research and
Training Institute, Madhya Pradesh, India.
Burke, Kenneth. (1931) Counter Statement. Los Altos, CA: Hermes.
Butler, Judith. (1988) “Performative Acts and Gender: Constitution: An Essay in Pheno-
mand Feminist Theory”, Theatre Journal, 40(4), December.
Chatterjee, Partha. (1989) “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question”, in
K. Sangari and S. Vaid (eds.) Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. New Delhi:
Kali for Women, 233–253.
Chaudhury, Preeti. (2014) “Frailty! Thy Name Is Not Woman’ with Reference of Drau-
padi”, Bhartiya Bhasha, Siksha, Sahitya evam Shodh, 5(3). www.bhartiyashodh.com
Coburn, Thomas. (1984) Devī-Mahatmya: Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition. New Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass.
Costa, Dia da. (2010) Development Dramas: Reimagining Rural Political Action in Eastern India.
Abingdon, UK: Routeldge.
Dalmia, Vasudha. (2006) Poetics, Plays, and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Das, N.K. (1982) “Tribal Unrest in Bastar”, in B. Chaudhury (ed.) Tribal Development in
India. New Delhi: Inter-India, 99–116.
Das, N.K. (2015) “Adivasi Theatre Pandavani and Persona of Bhima in Folklore of Cch-
hattisgarh-Gondwana Region”, Irish Journal of Anthropology, 18(2), Autumn/Winter,
78–90.
Das, Saptorshi. (2014) “Vyasa’s Draupadi: A Feminist Presentation”, International Journal of
Gender and Women’s Studies, 2(2), June, 223–231.
Das, Veena. (2007) Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press.
Devi, Mahasweta. (1988) Draupadi: Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, ed. and trans.
Gayatri Spivak. London: Routledge.
Dhand, Arti. (2009) Woman as Fire, Woman as Sage: Sexual Ideology in the Mahabharata. New
York: SUNY Press.
Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava. (2005) Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban
Performance in India since 1947. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.
Dhavalikar, M.K. (1992) “Draupadi’s Garment”, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research
Institute, 72/73, Jstor [Online]. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/41694917 (Accessed:
29 March 2019).
Didion, Joan. (2006) We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfction. Everyman’s
Library Contemporary Classics Series, Alfred A. Knopf, USA.
Diesel, Allyen. (2002) “Tales of Women’s Sufering: Draupadi and Other Amman Goddesses
as Role Models for Women”, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 7(1), 5–20.
Dirks, Nicholas B. (2002) Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. New
Delhi: Permanent Black.
Elwin, Verrier. (1942) The Agaria. Calcutta: Humphrey Milford.
Elwin, Verrier. (1944) Folk-Tales of Mahakoshal. New York: Arno Press.
Elwin, Verrier. (1946) Folk-Songs of Chhattisgarh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Elwin, Verrier. (1949) Myths of Middle India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Feminism and folk epic 79

Elwin, Verrier. (1950) Bondo Highlander. Bombay: Oxford University Press.

Falk, Nancy Auer. (1977) “Draupadi and the Dharma”, in R.M. Gross (ed.) Beyond Anthro-
centicism: New Essays on Women and Religion. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 89–114.
Farrer, Claire R. (ed.). (1975) Women and Folklore. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Fitzgerald, James. (1991) “India’s Fifth Veda: The Mahabharata’s Presentation of Itself ”, in
Arvind Sharma (ed.) Essays on the Mahabharata. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 150–170.
Fitzgerald, James. (2004) “Dharma and Its Translation in the Mahābhārata”, Journal of Indian
Philosophy, 32(5), December, 671–685.
Fitzgerald, James. (2006) “Negotiating the Shape of ‘Scripture’: New Perspectives on the
Development and Growth of the Epic between the Empires”, in Patrick Olivelle (ed.)
Between the Empires. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 257–287.
Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter. (1996) Gender and Genre in the Folklore of Middle India. Ithaca,
NY and London: Cornell University Press.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. (1989) Truth and Method, 2nd edition. London: Sheed and Ward.
Gargi, Balwant. (1966) Folk Theatre of India. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Gassner, John, and Edward Quinn (eds.). (1969) The Reader’s Encylcopedia of World Drama.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.
Gofman, Erving. (1956) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of
Edinburgh.
Gregory, Chris A. (2004) “The Oral Epics of the Women of the Dandakaranya Plateau: A
Preliminary Mapping”, Journal of Social Sciences, 8(2), 93–104.
Hansen, Kathryn. (1983) “Indian Folk Traditions and the Modern Theatre”, Asian Folklore
Studies, 42, 77–89.
Hiltebeitel, Alf. (1991) The Cult of Draupadi: Mythologies: From Gingee to Kuruksetra. New
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Hiltebeitel, Alf. (2001) Rethinking the Mahābhārata : A Reader’s Guide to the Education of the
Dharma King. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Hiltebeitel, Alf. (2011) When the Goddess Was a Woman: Mahābhārata Ethnographies: Essays,
Vol. 2, eds. Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee. Texts and Sources in the History of
Religions 132. Leiden: Brill.
Iyengar, Samera. (1998) “Space for Theatre: The Prithvi Theatre Festival”, Seagull Theatre
Quarterly (18), 70–79.
Jain, Nemichandra. (2003) Asides: Themes in Contemporary Indian Theatre. New Delhi:
National School of Drama.
Jain, Nemichandra. (2007) From the Wings, Notes on Indian Theatre. New Delhi: National
School of Drama.
Jha, Tanya. (2017) “Some Vignettes from the Mahabharata”, The Hindu, January 10. Avail-
able at: www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article17014476.ece
Kapchan, Deborah. (1996) Gender on the Market: Moroccan Women and the Revoking of Tradi-
tion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Karve, Irawati Karmarkar. (2008) Yuganta: The End of an Epoch. Hyderabad: Orient
Blackswan.
Kelkar, M.A. (1995) Subordination of Woman: A New Perspective. New Delhi: Discovery Pub-
lishing House.
Khurana, Suanshu. (2014) “Pandavani Exponent Teejan Bai Continues to Sing Her Way to
Empowerment”, The Indian Express, September 2. Available at: https://indianexpress.
com/article/lifestyle/an-epic-journey-2/
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. (1983) “Studying Immigrant and Ethnic Folklore”, in
Richard M. Dorson (ed.) Handbook of American Folklore. Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity Press, 39–47.
80 Feminism and folk epic

Kumar, Girja. (2017) Shakti Power: Love, Compassion, Sufering and Humanity in the Mahab-
harata. Book II. New Delhi: Har-Anand. The Mahabharatans: Eighteen Characters in
Search of Dharma.
Mahawar, Niranjan. (2012) Folk Theatre Pandwani: Based on the Epic Mahabharata. New
Delhi: Abhinav Publication.
Masih, Archana. (1997) “Songs in Ordinary Time”, Redif on the Net, December 5. Available
at: www.redif.com/style/dec/05teejan.htm (Accessed: 4 January 2017).
Mathur, Jagdish Chandra. (1964) Drama in Rural India. New York: Asia Publishing
House.
McGrath, Kevin. (2009) Strī: Women in Epic Mahābhārata. Cambridge, USA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Mitra, Saoli. (2006) Five Lords, Yet None a Protector and Timeless Tales, trans. Rita Dutta,
Ipshita Chanda, and Moushumi Bhowmik. Kolkata: Stree.
Moorthy, K. Krishna. (1990) “Socio-Cultural Milieu of the Mahābhārata”, in R.N. Dan-
dekar (ed.) The Mahābhārata Revisited. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.
Mukhopadhyay, Durgadas. (1994) Folk Arts And Social Communication. Delhi: Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.
Muthukumaraswamy, M.D. (2006) “Fieldwork Report: Discourse of the Blurred Genre:
Case of Draupadi Kuravanchi Koothu”, Indian Folklore Research Journal, 3(6), 38–65.
Nair, Malini. (2017) “The Madness of Teejan Bai”, Spotlight Theatre, April 8.
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. (1980) Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Pandavani, (1987) Lokrang, Adivasi Lok Kala Parishad, January 26–27, Madhya Pradesh Gov-
ernment Cultural Wing, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
Pande, Govind Chandra. (1990) Foundations of Indian Culture. New Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass.
Pelissero, A. (2002) “A Sexual Masquerade: Arjuna as a Eunuch in the Mahabharata”, in
Alessandro Monti in the Volume Hindu Masculinities across the Ages: Updating the Past. Italia:
Torino.
Ramanujan, A.K. (1989) “Where Mirrors Are Windows: Toward an Anthology of Refec-
tions”, History of Religions, 28, 187–216.
Ramanujan, A.K. (1990) “Who Needs Folklore? The Relevance of Oral Traditions to
South Asian Studies”, South Asia Occasional Papers. Ser. 1. Center for South Asian Stud-
ies, Honolulu.
Rao, Shanta Rameshwar. (1968) The Children’s Mahabharata. New Delhi: Orient Longman,
IX.
Sai, Veejay. (2017) “Teejan Bai: The Moody Diva”, Open Magazine, March 17. Available at:
www.openthemagazine.com/article/music/teejan-bai-the-moody-diva (Accessed: 10
June 2018).
Sanyal, A.K. (2006) “The Wonder That Is the Mahabharata”, Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mis-
sion Institute of Culture, 57(4), 195–199.
Sarabhai, Mallika. (2013) “In Search of Goddess”, in Anita Singh and Tarun T. Mukherjee
(eds.) Gender, Space and Resistance: Women and theatre in India. New Delhi: DK Printworld.
Sarkar Munsi, Urmimala. (2016) “Draupadi’s Travels and Travails”, Economic and Political
Weekly, 51(50), December 10.
Sarkar, Sebanti. (2010) “Voice of the Pandavas”, The Telegraph, November 7. Available at:
www.telegraphindia.com/states/west-bengal/voice-of-the-pandavas/cid/1268718
Sarkar, Tanika. (1987) “Nationalist Iconography Image of Women in 19th Century Bengali
Literature”, Economic and Political Weekly, 22(47), November 21.
 Feminism and folk epic 81

Sarkar, Urbee. (2018) “Teejan Bai: The Crown Bearing Diva Of Indian Folk Music”, Vox-
Space: Stories Which Matter, November 12. Available at: www.voxspace.in/2018/11/12/
teejan-bai/
Sax, William Sturman. (2002) Dancing the Self: Personhood and Performance in the Pāṇḍav Līlā
of Garhwal. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Sengar, Shiv Singh. (1970 [1878]) Śivasiṁh Saroj, ed. Kishorilal Gupta. Allahabad: Hindi
Sahitya Sammelan.
Shah, Shalini. (2012) The Making of Womanhood: Gender Relations in the Mahabharata. New
Delhi: Manohar.
Shulman, David D. (1986) “Battle as Metaphor in Tamil Folk and Classical Traditions”, in
A.K. Ramanujan and S. Blackburn (eds.) Another Harmony: New Essays on the Folklore of
India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Singh, K.S. (1993) “The Mahabharata: An Anthropological Perspective”, in The Mahab-
harata in the Tribal and Folk Traditions of India. Shimla, New Delhi: IIAS & AnSI.
Sundar, Nandini. (1999) Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar 1854–
2006. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Sutherland, Sally J. (1989) “Sītā and Draupadī: Aggressive Behavior and Female Role Mod-
els in the Sanskrit Epics”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 109(1), January–March,
63–79.
Tanvir, Habib. (1977) “The Indian Experiment”, in Theatre India. Trivandrum: Kerala San-
geet Nataka Akademi.
Thapar, Romila. (2010) “The Epic of the Bharatas”, Seminar, 608, 14–19.
Tripathi, Shailaja. (2011) “Three Strings and Some Verve”, The Hindu, December 16. Avail-
able at: www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/dance/three-strings-and-some-
verve/article2720614.ece
Vatsyayan, Kapila. (1996) Bharata the Natyasastra. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.
Verma, Benu. (2015) “Plenitude of the Singular: Draupadi in Literature and Life”, Society
and Culture in South Asia, 1(1), 59–78. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Vyasa, Veda. (2012) The Mahabharata, 2 vols., trans. Kaliprasanna Singha. Kolkata: Tulikalam.
Winterinitz, M. (1927) A History of Indian Literature, Vol. 1. Kolkata: University of Calcutta.
Available at: www.new.dli.ernet.in/handle/2015/97551
Woolf, Virginia. (1957) A Room of One’s Own. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
3
COMMUNITY THEATRE
Performance as radical cultural intervention

Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society.
Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.
(Boal, 1982, xxxi)

Community theatre
The efcacy of a live performance can never be overemphasised; it is “one of the
few channels open for political expression, historical consciousness, the assertion
of group identity and the source of alternative information” (Moore, 1983, 13).
Community theatre in India and elsewhere emerged out of a particular historical
moment of questioning in a community and takes up a concern that functions as
the question and resultant activism that serve as the aesthetics of performing the
issues. The theatrical representational system inspires the community to decon-
struct its self-image and to use the platform to display the process of transformation
(Kershaw, 1992). It is potentially a radicalising and energising force for efect-
ing, if not a transformation of society, at least a model for the transformation of
the theatre into a more genuinely popular and democratic art form (Kershaw,
1992, 28). There is evidence from diferent countries around the world that com-
munity theatre contributes to processes of change among populations that have
experienced disempowerment (Erven, 2001; Harding and Salhi, 1998). Richard
Schechner distinguishes two basic elements of theatre: entertainment and efca-
ciousness (Schechner, 1974, 455–481). All forms of theatre have something of both
the elements, but if placed on a bipolar continuum, the conventional theatre tends
much more towards entertainment while community theatre tends towards an
emphasis on efecting the socio-cultural and political change. In the performance,
people truly strengthen the bonds of community. Social structure is redefned so
 Community theatre 83

that people act diferently towards each other; there is a commitment to carry out
the changes in the real historical world. Anthropologist Victor Turner suggests a
need for exploratory moments when we can step out of the real routine life into
a selective re-enactment of the key issues of our communities. We need a cultural
space that lies somewhere between the utopian mythic aspirations of our commu-
nities and our daily struggle to survive (1969, 112–139).

Jana Sanskriti (people’s culture) and Sukhmanch: communities

of theatre and theatres for the community
Beginning with a mapping of the social and political background against which
the Indian People’s Theatre Association (1943) emerged, with a particular focus
on the protest performances that were to follow,1 this chapter charts performances
that ofer a critique of the structures of power and gendered social relations and
create space for the possibility for female subjectivities to emerge. The focus here
is on the politically committed community theatre,2 which by its very designation
informs and energises a community in bringing change or in asserting human
rights in rural and urban contexts. It will focus on two such community theatre
groups to understand the diferent processes of their theatre-based interventions,
including the ideological and philosophical aspects of the strategies they employ.
Additionally, one play from each of the two theatre groups will be used as a model
performance to demonstrate and understand the group’s philosophies of perfor-
mance and performance practice and to see how gender is embodied and the
changes that are made accessible through performance to confront the hegemonic
image of victimhood. The frst group is Jana Sanskriti3 (hereafter JS) Centre for the
Theatre of the Oppressed in West Bengal, India. Sanjoy Ganguly is the founder and
Artistic Director of the group. This chapter will consider an evaluation of JS’s play
Sarama (Ganguly, 2009). The second group is a New Delhi–based street theatre
group Sukhmanch, founded in March 2017 by Shilpi Marwaha as the creative head
and director of the group. Marwaha’s popular street play Dastak (Knock) will be
discussed. I will refer to them as community theatres as they address contemporary
social, political and cultural issues and draw inspiration from the life of the com-
munity itself (Erven, 2001; Boal, 1982; Case, 1988), and along with that, they take
a critical position regarding social issues (Erven, 2001; Jellicoe, 1992; Boehm and
Boehm, 2003) and aim to develop critical awareness and collective empowerment
and alleviate social frustration and conficts (Aston, 1995).
Neither group focuses exclusively on women’s oppression. However, this study
will focus on their women-led interventions in particular to understand their
modes of negotiations and whether such mediations have empowered the rural and
urban audiences in any way. Primary data for such a study constitutes interviews
and live performances, and secondary data is in the form of reports, audiovisual
recordings of theatre shows, articles and publications which are accessed to support
the primary data. My experience of JS was brief but rewarding. I spent one week
at their centre at Girish Bhavan in West Bengal; having read and heard accounts of
84 Community theatre

FIGURE 3.1 Left to right, Anita, Sima, Sanjoy and Ranu at the Amulya Ganguly Memorial
Library

the breadth of their work, I wanted to experience for myself their particular form
of development theatre and evaluate their potential in transforming communities
through the theatre process (Figure 3.1).
Jana Sanskriti (JS) Centre for Theatre of the Oppressed was the frst propo-
nent of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) in India. It is a non-proft community
organisation engaged in theatre for development. Over three decades, JS has
 Community theatre 85

addressed educational, economic and social issues like domestic violence, dowry,
child marriage, girl child trafcking, child abuse, maternal and child health, pri-
mary education and health care, illicit liquor, provision of resources, manipulation
by political parties, exploitation of workers, supporting land-rights negotiation and
dispossession of land, among other issues, through theatre and has been using The-
atre of the Oppressed as a tool for social change with communities to think about
and to “reimagine and reconstruct development and democracy” (Costa, 2009, 20)
across West Bengal and India. JS as a group originated from a small village in the
Sunderbans in 1985. Today, JS is seen as one of the most important points of refer-
ence to the global community of Theatre of the Oppressed.4 Shilpi Marwaha of the
Sukhmanch Theatre group is an artist, social activist and actor trainer; personally,
she has been involved in socio-political theatre over the last decade, performing
stage and street plays with over 1,000 performances and raising her voice particularly
against injustice and atrocities against women and issues related to women’s safety. As
a relatively new group, Sukhmanch came into being through a protest against sexual
harassment, which she allegedly faced, by the director of the street theatre group
Asmita, where she worked for 14 years. The Sukhmanch Theatre group is actively
engaged in multifarious activities like organizing workshops for adults and children,
participating in social awareness movements, raising voices for women’s safety and
for domestic workers and partaking in anti-corruption movements.
Both groups practice diferent forms of social theatre to contest social oppres-
sion and address harms. These groups as community theatres are forms of popular,
grassroots, amateur theatre aimed at the individual, group and communal empow-
erment; although they difer in their performance styles and addresses, nonetheless,
several convergences can be located:

1 They are guided by the principles of spectator participation, development and

empowerment.
2 They use drama, song, dance, mime, ritual or any combination of these activi-
ties, with the aim of communicating some idea, message or knowledge to the
audience.
3 They do not require the traditional type of theatre and professional stage pro-
duction, with artistic scenery created by professional artists, although they use
scripts written by well-known writers.
4 They have characters who bodily re-enact socio-political problems and find
ways to overcome exploitative injustices.
5 They use the dramatic plot, character portrayal and re-enactment by people
in the community. At the same time, they de-mystify the larger-than-life star
aura of the actors to de-professionalise theatre.
6 They are not oriented towards entertainment alone, nor do they focus on
the classical/traditional aesthetics like catharsis, plot, elaborate costuming and
other stage settings.
7 They take drama out of expensive theatre buildings to new spaces where peo-
ple decide or the issues are decided for the people to be presented in a theatre.
86 Community theatre

However, calling these two theatres by the unifying term community theatre does
not express the defnite essence of the great variations in these forms, starting from
the street theatre of Sukhmanch to the forum theatre of JS, and one can locate the
distinct aspects of these two forms of social theatre to the intellectual theory that
drives the organisations and the practical dynamics that members of the communi-
ties are involved in. For both organisations, the theatre performers themselves are
always drawn from the target community; the factors motivating the performers
could be diferent. In Sukhmanch, the performance is moved out into the midst
of the audience and seeks to involve the audience imaginatively or with active par-
ticipation. The dialogue is intermittently directed to the spectators rather than the
fellow performers on the stage. Sukhmanch provides well-rounded solutions to the
problem raised that satiates the audience’s desire to see the question harmoniously
wrapped up. On the other hand, JS argues that raising consciousness comes from
the process of creating a play rather than a fnished dramatic product. Plays have
no completion; they are fexible as the portrayal could be changed and refned by
the participating audience. JS introduces participatory techniques to engage the
spectators in the performance by creating space to act together with the actors or
propose how enactments could be presented diferently. The actors who are drawn
from the community participate dynamically in all stages of the making of the play.
In the JS forum theatre, the stage becomes an open platform where the audience
can participate in the action; the spectator transforms into the actor. By using the
intervention technique, the spectator can explore resolutions and use these new-
found understandings and sensitivities to reorganise social systems and experiment
with new models of behaviour. This interchangeability between positions gives
people a sense of control over the action, so they can explore their realities for
themselves (Boal, 1982).
These organisations also provide varying degrees of mentorship, although their
approaches to the training of the rural and urban actors/activists are also difer-
ent. Specifcally, Jana Sanskriti’s core and central theatre group members train and
facilitate the work of other community groups. Sukhmanch also provides periodi-
cal training and workshops in theatre practice. Geographically, they span diferent
regions: while JS is largely located in West Bengal villages, Sukhmanch’s location
is mostly the metropolises’ (Delhi and nearby places) schools, colleges and open
spaces. JS uses a forum theatre format, and Sukhmanch is in a street theatre style.
There are two approaches that both these two groups seem to deploy. One is by
catering to the popular classes by bringing classical works and popularizing them
for the common masses in a language and idiom of their understanding. In this
approach, frst there is the acknowledgement that the classical texts have value and
hence need to be accessible to all5 and further making them available by confating
these classics with the everyday lives and concerns of the common people. The
second strategy has been about drawing from issues and concerns that the people
contend within their routine life and living, thereby advancing a much higher
degree of personal involvement and participation. Community theatre can be cat-
egorised in three ways:
 Community theatre 87

1 Theatre produced by a theatrical group but oriented towards the people:

involves actors, directors and dramatists creating for the community to moti-
vate a social transformation.
2 Theatre organised by and for the people, with the audience: conducted by
people without professional expertise to present stories containing elements
from their community and people.
3 Theatre involving the audience as part of the performance, also called forum
theatre (Boal, 1982): performs a local issue in front of a targeted audience
and encourages them to intervene and join in the act to resolve the situation,
thereby formulating strategies to resolve their own problems.

Sukhmanch Theatre navigates between the frst and second categories, and JS is in
the second and third categories. In both cases, the forms of community theatre take
account of the particular histories and concerns of the communities in which they
are made and performed. This chapter attempts to address two sets of questions:

1 How does the space of performance offer an opportunity to re-examine the

ways in which the modern nation-state is unsuccessful in recognizing or grant-
ing women equal access to civil, legal and human rights?
2 How does performance create space for the category of “women” as empow-
ered subjects in the face of the structural controls of a political, social and
cultural order?

The women question, public performances and

the aesthetics of resistance
Come writer and artist, come actor and playwright, come all who work by hand
or by brain, dedicate yourself to the task of building a brave new world of freedom
and social justice.
—Hiren Mukherjee, the frst president of IPTA
(IPTA ki Yaadein, 2012, 29)

Community or street theatre in India owes its beginnings to the colonial domina-
tion which, in turn, gave rise to a nationalistic zeal. Bengal’s colonial encounter
under the East India Company in 1757 initiated the beginning of playhouses like
the Calcutta Theatre and the New Playhouse (1775–1808), the Sansouci The-
atre (1839–1843) and Chowringhee Theatre (1813–1839) under the colonial
investment. The theatrical space was soon to become a site of political resistance
and an avenue for staging anti-colonial condemnation of the repression and out-
rages perpetrated upon the colonial subjects.6 This predilection for social plays
gradually slipped into making political statements through theatrical means (Chat-
terjee, 2009, 103–105). The method of political propaganda through cultural
performances became popular and was used by both the nationalists and the social
reformers for communicating messages to large audiences. The Jallianwala Bagh
88 Community theatre

massacre (1919), the Rowlatt Act (1919) and the consequent Non-Cooperation
movement (1920–1922) sparked the politicisation of performance. The colonial
authority became incensed by the incendiary public performances. As a result, on
14 March 1879, the Dramatic Performances Act was introduced. It required all
plays to be registered and approved by the district administration before staging.
The women’s question that emerged during the 19th century national move-
ment as a political question was resolved in diverse and ambivalent ways. Scholars
have examined the women’s place in society, the binaries of public and private and
the inner and the outer domains, which signifcantly shaped anti-colonial resistance
in India. The reforms of women consolidated the dynamics between colonialism
and nationalism (Chatterjee, 1997, 240–261). The inner and outer domains clearly
etched out women’s place in society, essentializing and legitimizing female virtues
such as “chastity, purity, self-sacrifce, sufering” (Katrak, 2006, 87). Sarkar argues
in her book Hindu Wife Hindu Nation: Community Religion and Cultural Nationalism
that the middle-class formation in colonial India contained the possibilities of both
social equality and authoritarian political positions (2001, 23–24). Geraldine Forbes
(1996), Sumit Sarkar (2002) and Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert (2006) have suggested
women’s active participation in the outer political life and have excavated real-life
yet unknown and unarchived stories of women. Gandhi’s protest acts increased the
public visibility of thousands of women who were also engaged in passive protest
such as the Salt March (1930), and his Quit India movement (1942) was inclusive
of female bodies.7
The political and economic situations of 1940 hugely impacted the shaping of
the new trend in aesthetic sensitivity and practices. The primacy of Socialist Real-
ism in Russian art and literature, the Moscow Art Theatre and the Group Theatre
of New York inspired Indian artists, playwrights, directors and producers alike.
IPTA, as a cultural wing of the Communist Party of India, embodied the domestic
confict, the continuing colonial dominance (more severe at the aftermath of the
Quit India Movement, 1942) and the Great Bengal Famine (1943) and interna-
tional events like the Second World War and the rise of the fascist power. However,
after independence, IPTA became more focused on bringing social and economic
transformation for the people of new India. IPTA developed not only in urban
centres of Eastern India but also in the local regions of Bengal, Assam and Mani-
pur. The localised spontaneity led to the establishment of a central organisation,
Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), on 25 May 1943 by the CPI to fght
for democracy by uniting the fragmented left-wing outfts across India through an
organised nationwide cultural movement (Chatterjee, 2004; Bhattacharya, 1983).
An All India Peoples’ Theatre Conference was held in Mumbai in 1943; this con-
ference led to the formation of committees of IPTA across India. IPTA, with its
ideological perspective, adopted, rediscovered and revived indigenous performing
art forms8 to create social consciousness among the rural and urban people. This
served as an efective strategy to build an anti-colonial resistance and advocate the
cause of the peasants caught in pre-industrial agrarian economies and urban indus-
trial workers.
 Community theatre 89

IPTA’s performances created a radical departure from the nationalist colonial

theatre and its preoccupation with a nationalist agenda, domestic conjugality
and the construction of fetishised Hindu women and created the possibility for
new forms of embodiment to materialise. Just as Fox (1996) urged us to notice
individual emancipatory acts for women in the Gandhian revolution in spite of
Gandhi’s gender essentialisms, IPTA, too, within its gendered organisational struc-
ture, created space for female subjectivities to emerge and ofered its women artists
moments of agency. The rigors of bodily discipline in rehearsing, performing,
demonstrating and protesting all enabled them to reimagine the kinesthetic power
of their dancing bodies, which ultimately altered their association with other per-
formers and the colonial and nationalist edifces they equally resisted. Scholars have
revisited the philosophy and ideology of the Indian People’s Theatre Association to
examine how it aforded a space for women to act as active agents of transformation
and revolution or, conversely, even to see how, in the apparently empowered space,
their agency was not without its complexity and glitches. The Indian People’s The-
atre Association (IPTA) has enthused several researches, such as those by Rustom
Bharucha (1983), Ralph Yarrow (2000), Nandi Bhatia (2004) and Vasudha Dalmia
(2006), to understand a new performance idiom. Lata Singh (2011), Sharmistha
Saha (2012), Prarthana Purkayastha (2014) and Urmimala Sarkar Munsi (2010)
have traced the ambiguous status of women in IPTA. They were touted as free
agents but were never admitted to the positions of power.
The newly formed cultural platform of IPTA allowed educated, middle-class
women from respectable sections to inhabit a hitherto prohibited space as respect-
able performers. This transgression of patriarchal boundaries (Singh, 2011, 63–72)
allowed women of Central Squad like Dina Gandhi9 (1922–2002), Shanta Gandhi,
Guniyal Jhaveri from Gujarat, Reba Roy Choudhury, Ruby Dutta, Tripti Mitra
and Priti Sarkar from Bengal, Sheila Bhatia from Delhi and Rekha Jain from Uttar
Pradesh to join IPTA as performers. These women actively participated in a cul-
tural crusade against famine, poverty, traditionalism and education.10 The actresses
who became a part of IPTA’s social and ideological allegiance created “a new
perception of the actress persona, a break with the domesticated personifcation”
(Dutt and Munsi, 2010, 117). The narratives of IPTA’s women performers and
the autobiographical accounts of IPTA’s Reba Roy Chowdhury, Gul Bardhan and
Sima Das, along with other signifcant essays, such as Dina Pathak’s “But I Am Still
Here, Acting and Acting and Acting . . .” (1995), which details her experience as
an IPTA activist-performer, suggest that the progressive, modern Indian theatre
organisations such as IPTA failed to appreciate women’s artistic autonomy while
the men spearheaded both the artistic and the administrative control. In a highly
hierarchised establishment (Singh, 2011), women become subservient to men. For
instance, Shanti Bardhan was given the credit for choreographing all of Central
Squad’s major dance productions, even though women dancers were choreograph-
ing short pieces themselves (Roychowdhury, 1999). In IPTA the gender equality
was always overshadowed by the political autonomy of the nation. The same sub-
suming of the women’s question in the agenda of national independence was seen
90 Community theatre

in the women’s organisations, such as the Women’s India Association (WIA, estab-
lished 1917), the National Council for Women in India (NCWI, established 1925)
and the All India Women’s Conference (AIWC, established 1927).11 The distrust
was expressed by Leela Kasturi, who writes that the burgeoning women’s organ-
isations “depended on two factors – the interests of the government and support
from the nationalist elites, who could not always be relied upon” (Purkayastha,
2014, 331). In the post-independence period, IPTA became defunct due to several
internal conficts with the Communist movements. By the 1950s, it had formally
dissolved as a national organisation with only independent state units existing,
including the Delhi unit. The growth of the IPTA (Indian Peoples Theatre Move-
ment) had given a great fllip to the theatrical aspect of women-focused issues,
although women’s issues were only one of its various social, political and aesthetic
concerns. The actress, already an accepted fgure since IPTA’s formation, was now
widely seen performing on the stage and in the streets.
In 1973 the Jan Natya Manch (People’s Theatre Front), an agitprop theatre group
(a radical theatre of political action), through its rousing, visionary street plays,
sought to address issues of class, gender and religious sectarianism. JANAM (the
group’s acronym, which is Sanskrit for “New Birth”) was originally a Delhi-based
theatre group, born “out of the founder members’ involvement with the Students
Federation of India, the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist),
as well as from an attempt to revive the Indian People’s Theatre Association in
Delhi” (Bhatia, 2004). Since its inception, the group has tackled current political
issues; taken cognisance of the histories of contestation around class, caste, gender,
language and region and has produced plays on industrialisation, the condition of
labourers, communism, price hikes, unemployment, government policies, educa-
tion, women’s rights, trade union rights, globalisation etc. Three plays of JANAM
on gender discrimination became popular and were widely performed: Aurat
(Women, March 1979), Voh Bol Uthi (She Rose to Speak, October 2000) and Yeh
Bhi Hinsa Hai (The Faces of Violence, June 2005).
The play Aurat12 dealt with concerns like violence against women, eve teasing
and dowry and spoke in favour of women’s education, fnancial independence and
role in decision making. It was stirring because it portrayed diverse representations
and explanations of women, and it created a new audience for theatre. It has an
episodic structure, and it begins with Safdar Hashmi’s Hindustani translation of
the Iranian schoolteacher Marzia Ahmed Oskoui’s poem, “I Am a Woman”. The
play deals with the most visible facets of gender discrimination, issues like bride
burning, dowry and domestic violence. Through the vignettes of a number of
women, it challenged the bourgeois notions of womanhood and articulated a poli-
tics that clearly connected gender, class and sexuality with home, factory and felds
on the one hand and with revolutionary change on the other.
Voh Bol Uthi is a triptych of stories. In the frst story, Rajani, a ten-year-old girl
and the daughter of a domestic servant, is gifted red ribbons but is prevented from
playing with them. In the second, narrated by a woman, Sarla, and her children, a
son and a daughter, a middle-aged woman from a conservative middle-class family
 Community theatre 91

protests against her daughter’s proposed marriage to a wealthy boy because he is

accused of corruption. Sarla takes a frm decision against the patriarchal set-up of
her family and fnally succeeds in preventing the marriage from taking place. In the
third, Resham, a woman worker, disrupts the unity of the union in her factory by
demanding a separate toilet for women. This remains one of JANAM’s best street
plays. The play ends with a poem of defance and assertion.
Yeh Bhi Hinsa Hai challenges all forms of physical, emotional and verbal vio-
lence committed against women. It enumerates violence against women in epics,
in mythology and in the personal and public space. The play ends with a symbolic
but powerful depiction of rape.
All three plays employ three registers of speech: frstly, a complete silence, with
actors holding up placards with text and images that convey the horror of what is
happening. The audience is invited to bear silent witness. Secondly, there are rig-
orous dance and body movement and, lastly, lively song and dialogue. The troupe
visualises everyday life incidents and deals with various shades of male dominance,
from stalking and voyeurism to patriarchy and eloquently, expressing the sexual and
mental abuse a woman has to face from infancy.
The mid-70s threw up new spaces for reconceptualising and negotiating ques-
tions of women’s agency and identity. New generations of theatre practitioners
were sculpting plays that were unsettling and creating critical awareness of societal
issues, a new dramaturgy that brought forward an audience that was not content
with amusement but sought to engage with dialectics. Around this time, the activ-
ism of the Indian women’s movement reached a signifcant point. It was from this
time that the women’s question that was already initiated by the IPTA troupes
became central in public discourse, and the movement entered a new chapter with
a resurgence of activity. Several cases of rape, dowry deaths and sati13 came to public
attention. It became clear that rape and violence were the most powerful weapons
to keep women in a state of subjugation. All this subsequently expressed itself in
the large-scale organisation of women around the country under the banner of
women’s rights and a number of demonstrations. NGOs were mobilised that fnally
crystallised and focused the energies of women’s groups14 all over the country,
which targeted the police, the state, the ofending families and the communi-
ties that tacitly provided support to the perpetrators of violence against women
(Butalia, 2005, 129–139). From the 1970s, Indian feminism engaged with range of
issues: “issues of violence, sexual exploitation, identifcation of complex structures
of domination and their reassertion in new forms in the ideology of revivalist,
fundamentalist, communal and ethnic movements” (Agnihotri and Mazumdar,
2006, 48–67). The 1980s and 1990s were a particularly prolifc time for street plays
made and performed within the context of an efervescent women’s movement. A
number of taboo issues found expression, such as dowry, sexual harassment, rape,
communalism and the violence of the family and state. Closely associated with
autonomous women’s groups, they were broadly socialist feminist in their perspec-
tive. “Towards Equality: Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in
India” (1974), by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, revealed the total
92 Community theatre

invisibility and neglect of women’s economic roles. It raised the alarm as to the
status of women in India, leading to large-scale research and the institutionalisation
of women’s studies. Particularly in the 1980s, the women’s movement reacted to
almost every instance of violence against women by demanding legislative action
(Menon, 2004, 5). All this stimulated a new spate of theatrical activities and inno-
vations and encouraged the visibility of women in public spaces.

Women, violence and the contemporary stage

Street plays performing grassroots activism constructed their own aesthetics of
appeal, and their sway on policy and action on women’s issues have been popular
since the 1970s. These plays often employed domestic idiom; evocative dialogue;
powerful and cutting humour; minimalism of form and monologues articulating
women’s dreams, conficts and struggles, all of which were wrapped within the
chorus representing social morality and, at other times, solidarity in resistance.
They encapsulated the piquancy of ordinary women’s struggles for education,
voice, identity, dignity, freedom, the right to work and safety in private and pub-
lic spaces. This was also the frst time that the private sphere of the family was
invaded and held to be a major site for the oppression of women (Kumar, 1989,
22). Plays uncovered the politics of the private space and brought to light the
untold violence. Plays like Aurat aur Dharm (Women and Religion) were devel-
oped as a result of a workshop of the activists’ experience with survivors of the
anti-Sikh riots in 1984. It revealed how every religion subordinates and oppresses
women, imposing taboos, restrictions and limitations (Mehrotra, 2016). Ahsaas
(Realisation), a play against sexual harassment, likewise developed out of a work-
shop started by Ruth Vanita in late 1979; the script was written by Tripurari
Sharma.
A women’s collective named Stree Sangharsh (Women’s Struggle) was formed
in 1981 by Anuradha Kapoor, Maya Rao and Rati Bartholomev. It was later
renamed the Theatre Union (1979–1984) and presented two widely performed
street plays. Om Swaha” (a tribute to the gods and goddess for their benediction,
1979) concerned the issues of dowry and bride burning. The play premiered
in one of Delhi’s women’s college in November 1981, following which it was
performed in slums and villages. It started with the auction of young men,
each of whom had a price tag. Punjabi folk form was used as the frame for the
40-minute play, resulting in extended dialogues with women in the audience,
who often asked where they should go for assistance in case of such violence.
And the second play, Dafa no.180 (Indian Penal Code no.180, 1981), was devel-
oped on the Indian law of conviction for rape. Its purpose was to educate the
masses regarding the laws. Courtroom scenes revealed how women’s testimony
was consistently derided and disbelieved, their pasts excavated and used against
them to dub them prostitutes, whereas the policemen’s testimony was taken
as truth. The play was formed as vignettes of courtroom scenes and the rape
of working women in felds and factories by their supervisors. The rape scene
 Community theatre 93

was represented abstractly by showing several policemen throwing rings of bells

over the head of a women who was lying on the foor, swaying and wailing
to indicate that she was being raped. Mulgi Zali Ho! (A Girl Is Born, 1983), a
musical Marathi play with an all-female cast, written by Jyoti Mhapsekar and
performed by the cultural troupe Stree Mukti Sanghatana (Women’s Liberation
Organisation), discusses the responses within a family and society when a girl
is born. The theatre team Vanangana15 is a Chitrakoot-based rural non-gov-
ernment women’s rights collective. The script of Mujhe Jawab Do (Answer Me,
1998) is based on a real event in which a woman in a village in Banda (Uttar
Pradesh) was killed while being attacked by her husband. This real incident was
woven into a play by Vanangana and was performed for the frst time in the vil-
lage where the woman was murdered. A diferent form of community theatre is
organised by Sreeja Arangottukara, who is a playwright, director, theatre activ-
ist and organic farmer in Arangottukara, in Thrissur district in Kerala. She has
been creating theatre for the last two decades, away from the mainstream. She
cultivates rice, vegetables, cash crops and other items on nearly 25 acres of land
along with members of the Padhasala Trust, which has two divisions, Krishi
Padhasala and Kala Padhasala. While Krishi Padhasala is into agriculture, the
Kala Padhasala holds cultural activities and comes out with plays based on agri-
culture and nature. Sreeja’s vision of theatre, the way she engages with the form
and her approach to the thematic choices of her plays are informed by local
fables and political issues, as well as her deeper passion for nature and farming.
Documentation and acknowledgement by scholars engaged in writing the his-
tory of the contemporary theatre in India are oblivious to the eforts of theatre
people like Sreeja, who remains largely invisible to the wider world (Athira,
2013). Kerala’s social and political movements have always had a strong afliation
with theatre. This inevitably helped the feminist movement in communicating
with society through the medium. Sajitha Madathil, along with Sreelatha and
Sudhi, both alumni of the School of Drama, initiated the frst women’s theatre
group, Abhinethri (Actress), to explore the potential and possibilities of wom-
en’s expressions. In 1985, Sara Joseph founded Manushi (a pioneering feminist
group primarily formed with the active participation of teachers and students
in Pattambi College, its ideas resonated outside the campus too) a movement
that has had a signifcant impact in mobilizing women from various strata of
the society. Manushi’s engagement with the street plays started following three
dowry-related murders that happened in the Palakkad district. This prompted
them to think of a play written, directed and acted by women. Theatre was per-
ceived as a tool to communicate and a medium of vast possibilities.
In their own singular ways, these performances and performance groups open
up windows to the issues women face, like literacy, violence, unorganised workers,
political rights, dowry, rape etc. Performers address themselves to specifc audi-
ences in particular times, and the issues are topical. They derive their signifcance
from cultural, social, historical and political moments; overall, their performances
service and stimulate thinking and discussion among the masses.
94 Community theatre

From theatres of advocacy to theatres of empowerment:

community theatre as site for performing gender
The earlier sections have mapped out the rise of IPTA and JANAM, which were
groups of progressive artists who took up social and political issues to create
awareness and achieve economic parity and democratic culture. In doing so, they
brought resolutions to the masses through their performances by adopting a top-
down approach. They spoke out against oppression to the oppressed; they were
speaking on the behalf of or in support of the aggrieved common people, thereby
creating a theatre of advocacy. Theatre of the Oppressed, on the other hand, is
grounded in democracy and approaches the process of development as a bottom-
up dialectical process, mobilising common people to think, understand, debate
and make informed decisions and actions, in contrast to a top-down approach, in
which the community remains inactive and oppressed.
Sanjoy Ganguly reacts against the top-down approach of IPTA to create a truly
participatory kind of politics in which people play an important role. His perfor-
mances are designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in
individuals and in communities in order to enable them to represent their interests
in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority and fnding
their own liberating and creative voices (Mills, 2009, 550–559). Similar to what
Freire16 wrote in Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed
by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation mod-
els from among the oppressors, the oppressed must be their own example in
the struggle for their redemption.
(Freire, 1970, 54)

As a graduate in political science, Ganguly was actively involved in Com-

munist politics but was soon disillusioned by its authoritarian propensities and
partisan political positions; he left the party to search for a political ethos of dis-
cussion and democracy. He began his journey from being an activist to a theatre
artist: “Jana Sanskriti grew out of the initiative of a non-actor like me, who had
begun with the intention of becoming a full-time political worker” (Ganguly,
2010, 12). He became acquainted with Augusto Boal and the Theatre of the
Oppressed,17 and, with a Ph.D. in drama from the University of East Anglia in
England, created JS, an independent organisation dedicated to the practice of
theatre to provoke and authorise the “communities it serves”(Ganguly, 2004,
x). He moved to the South 24 Parganas district to reach out to the marginalised
agricultural workers. JS started from low-income spaces near the Sunderbans
mangroves in southern West Bengal. Ganguly closely modelled JS on the lines
of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, a form of popular theatre of, by and
for people, designed to help people learn ways of resisting oppression in their
daily lives (Boal, 1982).
 Community theatre 95

Each of JS play has a script either written by Sanjoy Ganguly or sourced from
well-known works.18 In the frst stage, the participants enact original scenes and
stories of oppression. The scenarios played out could deal with a social dilemma
or any pertinent social issues, such as the safety of women in public spaces, dowry
evils, female infanticide and low wages for workers, among others that may be par-
ticularly relevant to the audience at hand. The next stage is the post-performance
discussion regarding the understanding of the play in capturing the real human and
social problems. The theatre team uses a technique called “opening up the play”,
with the presence of an arbitrator Joker (who is the facilitator, or the “Difcultator”
in forum theatre parlance), who guides the intervention, asking direct questions
to the audience at crucial scenes of the enactment and then including their reac-
tions to the play. The performance is then debated and rethought with possibilities
transforming the spectators into spec/actors. The plays are continuously subjected
to feedback; they have an unfnished nature and have consistent quality and open-
endedness in terms of performance style. As a set-piece associated with an issue is
played out, with both the oppressed and the oppressor in each situation carefully
delineated, any member of the audience can stop the proceedings and, by virtue
of replacing an actor on stage, steer the narrative into a new direction that could
possibly ofer up a diferent resolution to the dilemma being played out. Thus,
efectively, a forum is created, and the discourse can be moved forward. The sug-
gestions are incorporated into the script. This leads to no fnal script or resolution,
but the community is encouraged to continue the exploration and to move towards
a solution in real action to solve a problem. The “play” mode serves as an egali-
tarian tool, as anybody present at the performance is permitted to articulate her
opinion. Participation and self-expression become the key practices.
The organisation makes use of the Theatre of the Oppressed for two purposes:

1 To unshackle the villagers from multiple forms of oppression, thus breaking

their silence and empowering them with voice and agency.
2 To satisfy and give space to the cerebral needs of the rural people (farm labour-
ers, workers etc.) by respecting and nurturing their thought processes and
rationality through their active intervention in the performances.

Unlike the conventional theatre, forum theatre does not aim at a cathartic satisfac-
tion or fctional resolution of the problem. A dramatic re-enactment of the key
issues by the people of the community serves as an added remarkable representa-
tion because it portrays social roles of power and dependence and is emotionally
and visually more concrete. Ganguly uses theatre beyond a problem-solving session
to develop a critical understanding of matters distressing the lives of the people as
a more instructive tactic to make theatre as activism. JS insists that alternatives are
always available. JS refuses normative closures and insists on rethinking and chal-
lenging the cultural rules. Ganguly’s theatre philosophy is founded on the fact that
every individual is essentially intelligent, and theatre can galvanise that capability.
He guides participants and targeted audiences into analysing their own real-life
96 Community theatre

situations and scripting intellectual power on stage, which breaks the passivity and
transforms spectators into “spect-activists”. The audiences are transformed into
actors and creators of the drama, and in this way, the performances’ eforts are
geared towards making the audience overcome the sense of subordination imposed
upon them by the nexus of social and cultural beliefs and become articulate, con-
fdent and capable of confronting challenges.
The philosophy behind JS’s work is developing the capacities of rational collec-
tive thinking among the villagers who are otherwise passive suferers of oppression
and exploitation. The process of performance is designed to encourage indepen-
dent analysis of the problems being addressed, self-refection and autonomous
decision making, with the expectation that it will ultimately lead the spectators to
collective action to take charge of their own lives and development, thus democ-
ratizing politics. The aesthetic component of forum theatre is also important as it
nurtures the intellectual needs of the villagers. Folk art has traditionally been the
village’s own form of communication, refecting the dominant mores, themes and
language of the everyday life contexts in which it is created. While spending time
in the villages in the deltaic region of West Bengal, Ganguly engaged with local art
forms. He realised that this was a medium people could participate in, not only to
express their reality and share their experiences, but also as an interactive process
establishing a common experience between the performer and the spectator, creat-
ing a connection between them and providing a space where they could “speak, act
and express their social and political will” (Ganguly, 2004, 1–9).
JS has reached more than 250,000 spectators in West Bengal. Since 1987, the
company has been growing and developing with the aim of helping local com-
munities learn how to use the theatre as a language for critical self-refection,
exploration and analysis, in order to articulate a new direction that can lead to
both individual and communal transformation. It now has over 300 members
and over 30 teams. In West Bengal, the organisation has been working in the two
districts of North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas; across the fve Blocks of
Sandeshkhali II and Hasnabad in North 24 Parganas; and Kulpi, Patharpratima
and Kakdwip in South 24 Parganas, covering about 15 Gram Panchayats. It has
a total of seventeen satellite groups, of which nine are women-only groups. In
JS forums, women are not tied down to their habitual social roles but display
agency and aptitude to debate and take decisions. The group has also exponen-
tially increased women’s participation in the team. According to Ganguly, their
frst team “did not have any women participation, but now almost 60 per cent of
the actors are women. In fact, there are villages where women play men’s roles”
(Ganguly, 2017). JS’s frst all-women team was established in 2002, 17 years after
its inception. JS also runs a Human Rights Protection Committee (Manabadhikar
Suraksha Samiti), consisting of active villagers who have come forward to demand
their rights. The committee members regularly organise meetings in the vil-
lages.19 JS forum plays are performed in cooperation with schools, social services
and the police and involve active teamwork from local communities. In 2006, JS
established the Indian Federation of the Theatre of the Oppressed with its teams
 Community theatre 97

outside Bengal, which meet twice yearly for meetings. These teams are connected
with and provided training by JS and are spread out across the states of Orissa,
Tripura, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharash-
tra, Gujarat, Delhi and Mumbai. In November 2015, Jana Sanskriti started the
International Research and Resource Institute (JSIRRI), the purpose of which
was to unify artist-activists from across the world. In over three decades, they
have attempted to create a strong community of active and responsible citizens,
and their reach has only been increasing over the years. JS has taken up multiple
strategies, which include community mobilisation and engagement with the local
system. It has also worked in partnership with Indian non-governmental organ-
isations like Child Rights and You (CRY). SANLAAP West Bengal conducted a
series of forum theatres and follow-up activities on the issue of child trafcking
and protecting the human rights of women and girls. It has in this span afected
the lives of thousands of people, primarily from economically backward urban
and rural backgrounds. Research scholars, students, theatre performers, artists and
others from India and abroad have benefted from its resources.
JS now comprises of a core group of widely endowed performers, singers and
dancers: namely, Sanjoy Ganguly, his wife Sima, son Sujoy, daughter-in-law Pra-
tyusha Ghosh, Ashim da and Satya Ranjan Paul, among others. The company has
little logistical structure or fnancial support, operating more like a sprawling family
than a business. Actors, who may be fshermen, farmers and carpenters, serve as the
accountants and cooks running JS in Badu, around two hours from Kolkata. “Our
actors are all from the village they are engaged in diferent jobs, there is no payment
for performance and on an average, they perform twice a month”, says Ganguly
(Ganguly, 2017). It has a training-cum-administrative centre, Girish Bhavan, located
in Badu, North 24 Parganas, named after Girish Chandra Ghosh, the noted 19th
century Bengali playwright, director and actor.20 Most of the participants are volun-
teers. The funding for sustaining the organisation’s activities is mainly acquired from
collections from the audience after performances and theatre workshops abroad,
facilitated by the organisation’s founder, Sanjoy Ganguly. They work together like a
large family headed by the founder of the organisation (Figure 3.2).
These members have an activist orientation, and the social development in the
villages they work in is a single motto they follow collectively.
For Sanjoy Ganguly, performance means four things:

1 It is a democratic space. Common people actively and equally participate as

stakeholders to shape their own development through dynamic thought and
action. This ideology stands opposed to the prevalent political culture and
development practices in which agendas are top-down: that is, determined
by the planners and policy-makers rather than the communities that are the
“recipients” of this development. As Costa writes, JS “has contributed to
revealing the formation of CPM’s hegemonic political society and its ongo-
ing normalisation of the market episteme that underlies prevailing notions of
development in West Bengal” (2010, 5).
98 Community theatre

FIGURE 3.2 JS’s three-decades-old community kitchen

Most of the produce used here is organic.
(Started in 2017, it provides a rich source of research materials for artists and academics visiting JS.)

FIGURE 3.3 Binodini Moncho: The Performance Space

 Community theatre 99

The performance space does not sermonise and direct but lets the people
decide their own course of action. Here, the relationship between art and audi-
ence is democratic. It is in a form of collective learning and equips people to
fight against the oppression they face in their daily lives. It strives to remove
the culture of monologue at all places in the private and the public space to
establish a habit of dialogue. It is a theatrical space which dismantles the hier-
archy of the relationship between actors and spectators, demolishes the schema
of monologue between actor and spectator and allows dialogue to be created
between actor and spectator. This is the first step towards democracy, which
empowers us (Figure 3.3).
2 It is a space where we can discover ourselves, resolve our conflicts and be
spectators of our own actions, and, in the process, it humanises us. By being
the spectators of our own acting, being the spectators of our own selves, we
discover ourselves; in order to discover oneself, one needs to be connected
to a collective because one can look at oneself only when one is connected
to a collective. And every collective action leads to an introspective action.
3 It receives information from the stage and information that we have in
our heads, and this conflicting information creates transformation. Actual
awareness is self-realisation, which arises out of the internal conflict expe-
rienced by the audience in our theatre between the information that they
have and the information they receive from the stage. Ganguly gives an
example that when an agricultural worker who is exploited by his con-
tractor goes back to his house, he beats up his wife. He is drunk, he
neglects his children, and the same oppressed guy in the field is an oppres-
sor in his house. When he watches an actor performing the same on stage,
he realises the cruelty he inflicts upon his wife too; he realises the abuse
of power that makes him ill-treat and control his wife. At this point, he
is a “spectator” to his own actions. This helps Ganguly explain that each
individual is a spectator to his reality, and this knowledge leads the person
to reckon with the oppressor within himself. This introspection is the
main aspect of the process. He tells another story to illustrate this. One
day a tigress was killed by a hunter while she pounced on a herd of sheep.
However, before her death, she gave birth to a cub. The cub then grew up
with the herd of sheep, and he behaved like the sheep. One day another
tiger saw the cub, picked up the cub, took him to a pond and showed
the cub his reflection in the water and asked him, “Aren’t you like me, a
tiger?” The baby tiger realised that he was a tiger and not a sheep. Simi-
larly, theatre is a space where we realise our immense potential. The most
important step to empowerment is a vital change within and to identify
the oppressor within them.
4 It is acting. In a performance, we are acting on stage. Ideas that are engendered
during “play” can find their way into real life, and this is the impulse of political
action that JS seeks to activate and translate as activism in real life.
(Ganguly, 2017)
100 Community theatre

The JS employs a rich blend of theatricality, incorporating an imaginative and

evocative mix of indigenous forms (e.g., song, dance and music) and a rigorous
focus on actual practical issues afecting the daily lives of performers and specta-
tors. His company’s ethos is strongly egalitarian, and organisation and practice are
shared attempts which value the imagination of all members and enable them to
acknowledge and advance their own creative and cerebral capacities.

Sarama
Sanjoy Ganguly wrote the eponymous play Sarama in 1992. It was staged in January
2003 as an inaugural performance in a village in Bengal’s Birbhum district under
a peepul tree in Mollorpuras as a forum play in eight short, episodic scenes, fol-
lowed by a well-documented post-performance intervention by a tribal woman,
Phulmoni. The play that was enacted was about a woman who was raped in broad
daylight, and as the play proceeds, this incident throws up complex issues: the
response of the society, the political party, the keepers of law, the women’s organ-
isations and the raped woman herself to the violence enacted with impunity. Her
rape becomes the occasion for a political battle between the ruling and oppositional
parties. It shows how political parties use the poor and abandon them, and women
are worse hit in this political game. Sarama’s story underscores the multiple inter-
secting questions of gender, politics and class. The play displays women’s struggle at
the grassroots level and illustrates Sarama’s resistance and reclamation of her right to
her body, her disregard of the rules of female chastity and her refusal to be a victim.
Sarama, as a JS forum performance, uses very few props; the bodies of the actors
serve as props most often during the play. The freeze frame or tableau provides
insight into character relationships, with a clear focus on the use of space, body
language and facial expression. Still images are used in a variety of ways, a very use-
ful strategy for examining alternative ideas. The evocative use of music, songs and
chorus helps the narrative go ahead efortlessly. It has semiotic richness in the range
of modes – cerebral, afective and aesthetic – in which it operates.

Scene one
The frst scene takes place in a slum. Seven homes are shown onstage with three
bamboos rods tied in a pyramid to symbolise an encampment of huts. In every
hut, there are people who are seen working. A sutradhar (controller) appears in
the front of the stage. He briefs the audience about the play and adds that it is not
uncommon for a woman to be raped in these parts, but as artists, it is their respon-
sibility to tell the story of Sarama, which took place on 17 April in a Mukulpur
slum (Figure 3.4a of storyboard).
As a fashback, we are shown in the next episode three criminals on stage plan-
ning Sarama’s rape. They appear confdent about their impending act as they are
sure that the villagers will be afraid of any resistance. The idea of the villagers’
apathy emboldens them (Figure 3.4b of storyboard). In the next episode, Sarama
is dragged out of her house (Figure 3.4c of storyboard) into the open. Some
 Community theatre 101

neighbors show signs of protest; however, the protesters are beaten up, and Sarama
is raped in broad daylight (Figure 3.4d of storyboard). The neighbors come out
of their huts and, in a refrain, condemn the act by the political goons and express
concern about their own survival and security (Figure 3.4e of storyboard). They
exit the stage reciting in a chorus (Figure 3.4f):

Motherland, you know it all and yet you are mute

Motherland, you know it all and yet you are blind

FIGURE 3.4 Sarama storyboard

102 Community theatre

FIGURE 3.4 Continued

 Community theatre 103

FIGURE 3.5 Dastak performed at Parliament Street, 5 May 2018

(Source: Courtesy Shilpi Marwah)

FIGURE 3.6 Dastak performed at Parliament Street, 5 May 2018

(Source: Courtesy Shilpi Marwah)
104 Community theatre

Scene two
Three rapists are standing in a triangle with their backs to the audience under
a signboard which reads “District Ofce, Worker’s Party” (Figure 3.4g of sto-
ryboard). They are now speculating their deed and are afraid they realise that
they have overdone or behaved too boldly, and this may afect the impending
elections.
The heinousness of the crime is dismissed and trivialised before the dis-
trict Police Superintendent (Figure 3.4h of storyboard), and it is referred to
as “they did a bit of rape”, and “they raped a bit”. The policemen and the
politician form a league as they realise that these three rogues, being neighbor-
hood musclemen, would be handy during elections. Hence, the entire ghastly
episode of the rape of a woman in broad daylight is conveniently pushed
under wraps. Here, we see the nexus between the party, the police and the
miscreants: the local party leader protects the rapists because he might need
mercenaries to use force on behalf of the party. The audacious behavior of the
three miscreants shows how the political party is complicit, and party thugs
condone the rape.

FIGURE 3.7 Dastak performed at Parliament Street. May 5, 2018

(Source: Courtesy Shilpi Marwah)
 Community theatre 105

FIGURE 3.8 Dastak performed at Parliament Street. May 5, 2018

(Source: Courtesy Shilpi Marwah)

Scene three
Seven actors representing people of the village (Figure 3.4i of storyboard) express
their fear and uneasiness. They question in rhetorical terms the inability of human
beings to remain human in a disorderly age when political parties are corrupt and
use criminal tactics and blatant crimes are committed in broad daylight (Figure 3.4j
of storyboard). They sing together about the raped woman as an ordinary woman
with ordinary dreams of “a little bit of land, a small house, a small family”. The cho-
rus intones: “Sarama had dreamt of a place where everything was possible, where
everybody’s happiness was possible”. The scene closes with the random movements,
song and dance and fnally a freeze frame or tableau of the actors breaking out in a
chorus echoing the same reproach from the earlier scene to the motherland:

Motherland, you know it all and yet you are mute

Motherland, you know it all and yet you are blind.

Scene four
The sutradhar once again urges the audience and informs them of how the monstrous
crime is further trivialised by the party workers who are more concerned about prepar-
ing a delicacy fsh for the chief minister’s visit. The Women’s Commission sets up an
inquiry. The women, Anusaya, Bela and Deepa, who have come to represent the com-
mission, talk indiferently of AC markets, the Durga puja festival, Baluchari saris and
children studying in internationally renowned boarding schools, and they continue their
frivolous conversation. The women’s wing of the political party in power is instructed
to express concern, but in such a way that the image of the party is untarnished.
Everyone freezes into an image for a few seconds. The sound of the drum can
be heard, and the actors gradually leave the stage.
106 Community theatre

Scene fve
Three progressive women, Nupur, Malobika and Renuka, who represent an
alternate organisation not controlled by any political party called “Freedom for
Women” (Figure 3.4i1 of storyboard) appear on stage. Amidst all political expedi-
ency and being declared a tainted woman, Sarama fnds choices to live with respect
and dignity with the support of this Freedom for Women organisation. This scene
similarly ends with a chorus hailing the motherland:

Motherland, you know it all and yet you are mute

Motherland, you know it all and yet you are blind.

Scene six
The Women’s Commission sets up an inquiry. Three investigators enter the stage as
representatives. Sarama is instructed about the power that the political parties wield.
She is disheartened with the Women’s Commission and considers it a puppet of
the party. The inefectuality of the political system and state-owned machinery
is revealed. The play critiques the state’s failure to take proactive steps to ensure
that women’s human rights are respected by law and to eliminate discrimination,
inequalities and practices that negatively afect women’s rights. On the contrary,
the state appears to be blatantly violating its position as a protector.

Scene seven
This scene opens with a courthouse scene. Sarama is in a wooden box, and the
three accused – Ratan Das, Paanchu Gopal Sakar and Bangshi Gopal Sahu – are
also present. Sarama’s lawyer reveals the callousness of the police in the treatment of
the rape case. Even though the case was reported much earlier, the police delayed
the FIR (frst information report), and the doctor’s examination was done 40 hours
after the event. Further, the police made Sarama take a bath before examination,
thereby washing away the evidence. The prosecution abandoned the investigation
due to lack of evidence. The assembled public comments on the unscrupulousness
of the police, the political party and the state, and they exit from the stage.

Scene eight
Sarama confronts Adheer, her lover, who has been avoiding her since her rape
(Figure 3.4i2 of storyboard). She questions Adheer’s indiference towards her. We
are also apprised of the fact that Adheer had impregnated her three times before.
Amidst this utterly demoralizing and depressing scenario, we see Sarama come to
terms with her tragedy (Figure 3.4j of storyboard). With the help of a sympathetic
women’s group (Figures 3.4k, 3.4l and 3.4m of storyboard), she gets the moral and
fnancial support to give birth to the child conceived as a consequence of the rape.
 Community theatre 107

The group helps Sarama restore her dignity and autonomy. The play is a stringent
condemnation of the nexus of the state, police and politicians in perpetuating
gender violence and discrimination. It points to the state’s failure in executing its
responsibility of protecting and promoting women’s human rights and dignity.

The spect-actor post-production intervention

The play stops at this critical point, and it is now that the audience plays its part.
The stage becomes an open platform where the audience can intervene and explore
alternatives to Sarama’s predicament. This process of refection and discussion can
last for hours. After the show, from amongst a group, a Santhali woman called
Phulmoni interrupted:

Hey sir, listen. The women in your play are so strong. So very strong! Now
you tell me, the contractor will give us low wages. At his will, we have to
visit him alone in his home. Otherwise we lose our jobs. What do you say;
shall we leave our jobs? What shall we eat without work? How will we run
things? You tell me, mister!

Phulmoni kept going on unabashedly:

You know I am the only earning member in my family. I work at the pathar
khadan [stone quarry]. When the contractor calls me to meet him privately, I
have to go. If I say, “No”, I will lose my job. Each day I return home, do my
household chores, take care of my children and my husband and again go to
work the next day. Do you think, am I powerful? How can I be empowered
as Sarama?

Phulmoni’s reality of being subjected to rape on a daily basis militated against

the depiction of Sarama’s empowerment. Ganguly replied, “I realised I could not
provide a solution to these people. Propaganda theatre was not the way to teach
them. I did not raise the right questions. How could I then solve their problems?”
All they could promise was to take her case, her situation, to audiences to col-
lectively address the problem. As a consequence of this stage intervention, Ithbhata
(The Brick Factory, 1997) was written. The play depicts Phulmoni’s workplace
and the relations of power that tie her to her work in the brick factory. The play
presents Phulmoni granting sexual favours to the contractor to keep her job. The
play addresses the multiple manifestations of patriarchy that cut Phulmoni’s choices
down to size. Phulmoni’s questions inspired Sanjoy to travel in a diferent direction;
those women took him beyond the limits of the word empowerment.
The “simultaneous dramaturgy” allows the spectators/audience to be converted
into “spect-actors” who can bring their problems into the discussion. Through
actor-audience interaction, when in the middle of a theatrical work, the actors on
stage stop the play and ask the audience for solutions to their situation, here Phul-
moni from the audience is able to voice her own predicament.
108 Community theatre

Sukhmanch Theatre: women centre stage

Activism and art

Shilpi Marwaha is a leading theatre artist and activist from Delhi. Her stage space
is the marketplace, park, college grounds and street corners of the metropolis and
sometimes even villages spaces. This activist thespian has well over 9,000 street
theatre productions to her credit (Mishra, 2019). Dressed for her performance in
minimalist attire of black kurta and black or blue jeans, she is often referred to as
kale kurtewali (black shirt) performer. She particularly came into prominence for
being one of the leading voices and faces of the anti-corruption movement and
Nirbhaya movement, which led to her to be labelled Kaale Kurte mein Mashaal
(torch in black shirt). Speaking on the signifcance of street theatre, she says,

Street theatre reaches where no one goes. It can be performed in a temple,

college auditorium, a terrace, a lobby, an office or home. While stage per-
formances may still be expensive for a common man, all you need for street
theatre is some time at hand.
(Kirpal, 2019)

As a strong form of mass media, she acknowledges, “Street theatre in India has
evolved considerably over the last few years with audiences becoming receptive and
accepting the medium with more and more understanding” (Kirpal, 2019). Also,
she believes that the feedback one receives in street theatre is instant and direct,
which enables the actors to immediately incorporate suggestions and make the
necessary revisions for the next performance. Although street performances hardly
ever receive state patronage or funding, street plays are rewarding as they give the
performers the instant audience appreciation and response.
Marwaha’s street plays performed in Delhi, NCR and other states are based on
social issues such as women empowerment, slut shaming, corruption, the environ-
ment, road rage, road safety, anti-ragging, LGBTQ rights, communal harmony,
female foeticide, child education, mental health, gender equality, domestic vio-
lence, child abuse, child labour, poverty, drugs, inter-faith etc. She has several
awards to her credit in recognition of her active participation in women’s empow-
erment initiatives. She won the best actress award in 2010 in the International
Short and Sweet festival, and she has been awarded the frst Sarla Birla Award, the
DCW Achievement Award 2016 and the AAS Excellence Award 2016. Over the
last ten years, Delhi-based NGO AAS has been instrumental in fostering wom-
en’s empowerment, leadership and love, in the process becoming an active change
agent in varied spheres of society. This award was conferred on Marwah to cel-
ebrate womanhood and to promote social causes.
“For me, theatre is a powerful tool to engage the society and express my emo-
tions including anger, fear and a lot more”, says Marwaha (Alreja, 2013). Tracing
the genesis of her activism, she recounts an experience: “I was eight years old when
 Community theatre 109

I watched a woman die unattended in the corridor of AIIMS. I still remember her
child crying; I remember myself crying”. Something snapped in her at the sight
of an ailing mother and child lying unattended in a corridor at the hospital, and it
made her decide to use theatre as a tool to raise awareness of social issues (Alreja,
2013). Shilpi lost her mother at the tender age of eight and faced her share of dif-
fculties. She was born and brought up in Delhi and studied for her Masters in
Commerce at Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi. Her debut on stage was
in 2008 with Bertolt Brecht’s play The Good Woman of Szechwan, adapted in Hindi
as Ramkali. At that time, she was a committed member of her college’s dramatics
society and was active in campus theatre in Delhi University – “In my college days,
I did a lot of stage and street plays and won a lot of awards” – and added that her
big dream was to make it in Bollywood one day (Sawhney, 2011). She made her
cinematic appearance in the mainstream Bollywood movie Raanjhana (directed by
Anand L. Rai in 2013) and Bhoomiyude Avakashikal (The Inheritors of the Earth,
directed by T. V. Chandran). She was also a part of the national award-winning
documentary flm Daughters of Mother India (2014)21 and has worked with Oscar
Award–winning director Ross Kaufman in a documentary on women. Her latest
flm, Widow of Silence (2018), about a Muslim half widow in the confict-ridden
state of Kashmir has been selected for the International Film Festival, Rotterdam
2019.
While still studying commerce at Kamala Nehru College, she had a chance
encounter with Asmita Theatre Group,22 which was organising a workshop at her
college. Everything changed after she came across the theatre group; her passion
for journalism took a back seat as she found the medium to participate in the social
change that she strongly wanted (Nath, 2011). Marwaha then started her career as
a theatre actor in Delhi with Asmita Theatre Group, under the direction of theatre
activist Arvind Gaur. She admits that

I always say to myself that if Arvind Sir [Arvind Gaur] had conducted an
audition for the theatre workshop, I would never have made it. I was soft
spoken. Today, after five years of relentless performances on the streets, my
voice has become heavy and hoarse. No regrets.
(Nath, 2011)

Marwaha also active in the social awareness movement. She keenly participated
in the women’s safety movement to raise her voice for domestic workers etc. She
was a vibrant presence in Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign in 2011. She
was then a part of the Asmita Theatre Group, which was supporting the campaign
by taking to the streets and performing plays based on the theme of establish-
ing strong legislation and enforcement against endemic political corruption. Their
play Bhrashtachaar (Corruption), based on the youth’s perspective on the corrupt
administration of the country (Bhambri, 2011) as a part of the Anna Hazare move-
ment, was performed at various venues across the city, including Mandi House and
India Gate. She aggressively protested in India Gate in December 2012 against the
110 Community theatre

brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old girl that shook the entire nation. (The case is
also known as the “Nirbhaya”23 or “Damini” case.) Marwaha has worked with the
Asmita Theatre Group for 12 years and was a core member, coordinating theatre
workshops and directing workshop plays. She participated in theatre workshops
in various colleges both in and outside Delhi, including Delhi University, IIT and
IIM and has judged numerous events on stage and street plays in diferent colleges
and universities across the nation.

The formation of the Sukhmanch Theatre Group

However, in May 2017, she faced sexual harassment in the workplace from the
Arvind Gaur, the director of the Asmita Theatre group. She alleged that he made
sexual advances towards her in an interview and claimed that after she refused his
advances, he justifed his action by saying, “Yeh toh normal cheez hai, is mein galat
kya hai?” (This is a normal thing; what wrong with it?) (Sharma, 2017) and denied
all charges against him. After this, she broke their association and walked out of
the group with the support of other senior actors who resigned from the group in
solidarity.

I faced a lot of shaming after speaking out about the incident. I had worked
hard at Asmita and had all the authority at the time I left. Quitting was a
big step. I had to start from the scratch for no fault of mine. However, it is
important for women to speak out about such things instead of feeling that
they are being judged.
(Kirpal, 2019)

She refused to accept his behaviour as normal or natural:

Mere liye yeh accept karna bahut difficult tha. Activism ka koi matlab nahi banta,
jab aap ye sab karrahe ho Main uss aadmi ko 11 saal se rakhi bandhti hoon, unka
dimag kab aisa ho gaya, mujhe samajh nahi naaya. [It was difficult for me to
accept all this. Activism makes no sense if you are indulging in all this. I have
tied rakhi to this man for the last 11 years. When did he have a change of
mind I couldn’t understand.] When he kept pursuing even after my refusal,
I decided to leave. It took me a year to leave Asmita because I had my
own work commitments. I have started my own theatre group. When I left
Asmita I told everyone publicly that this was the reason why I left.
(Sharma, 2017)

She used the opportunity to start her own theatre group. She named it
Sukhmanch in March 2017 in the memory of her late mother, whose name,
Sukhvarsha, inspired the name of the group, and it became her endeavour to pro-
mote theatrical arts. She defnes her theatre as a happy place by the name sukh
(happy) manch (platform) and as a corrective space, a self-exploratory space which
 Community theatre 111

encourages people to become better human beings (Marwah, 2019). She is cur-
rently working as creative head and director of the group. As the creative head
of Sukhmanch, Marwaha continues to work on socio-political themes as before.
The group organises a summer festival and a winter festival of four months’ dura-
tion each with her entourage, the 100-odd actors. Some of the notable plays she
has directed and written under the Sukhmanch banner include Lakdi Ki Kathi,
Kasturba Vs Gandhi, Purity and Ramleela. Team Sukhmanch aims to take the art of
theatre to the maximum number of people through stage, street performances and
theatre workshops designed by Marwaha for both professionals and freshers.
Most of the plays she has written, adapted, directed and performed have been
based on provocative and perspective themes. She took up the issue of marital
rape in her solo performance of Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s A Women Alone,
and she played the role of Durga, a fghter who challenges every social norm, in
Raaste (based on G. P. Deshpande’s Marathi play). The play was performed dur-
ing the Natsamrat National Theatre Festival. Five of her short stories have been
adapted for the stage: Kaash, the love story of two people from diferent castes;
Purity, on slut shaming and sham notions of morality; Rangmanch, detailing the
struggle of an aspiring artist, Asifa, was based on child abuse and Apratyaksh, about
a eunuch’s love. She has also performed Mahesh Dattani’s Seven Steps Down the
Fire, a play highlighting the lives of transgender individuals. She takes up LGBTQ
issues in Pehchan. Ehsaas, a solo act written and performed by Shilpi, is about
acceptance and dignity as a basic human right for people with alternate sexuality,
especially lesbian relationships in a homophobic society with its stereotypical ideas
of homosexuality. Speaking of Ehsaas, she says that it attempts to break the disgrace
associated with exercising one’s own sexual preference, and the play helps bridge
the gap between queer people and their family and friends:

I was always aware and easily understood the lack of inclusivity in the socio-
political scenes of our country. Since I could only act and make theatre, I
decided to portray the topic of sexuality and romance of women in my play.
I sincerely feel the need for parents of LGBTQI children to accept them,
love them and help them prosper. The psychological impacts of typecasting
people can be very drastic and last for a longer period of time. I have received
so much love and affection after this play from my queer friends that it has
helped me cultivate passion for more such stories.
(Kokane, 2018)

The play efectively showcases the anxiety, mental health and depression issues of
the queer people who are often misrepresented in society. In an interview, Mar-
waha says,

I think it is important for women to take the centre stage and talk about their
feelings, emotions and passion. If narratives of queer women are etched by
gay men or others, it is unfair and redundant a process because it doesn’t give
112 Community theatre

you a holistic picture. Queer, trans, gay, bi and asexual women need to come
front and demand emotional, mental and physical freedom for themselves.

She further asserts that “Only when they demand will the world hear and consider
their needs. . . . The play sparks debates and discussions and I am sure that it will
lead to the desired change in our society” (Kokane, 2018). Sukhmanch takes up
the cow issue in its satirical take of Gaaye (Cow), in which human rights are being
violated in the name of cow protection. All socio-political dramas are aimed at
making social change. The end result is worth a watch since the evolution of Gaaye
is currently in the making in our own society (Srivastava, 2018).
On 10 December 2017, as part of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-
Based Violence Campaign by the Australian High Commission in New Delhi, 30
adolescents drawn from the economically deprived colonies in south Delhi partici-
pated in a day-long workshop organised by Sukhmanch Theatre. The play grew
out of her interactions with the youths and their experiences of gender discrimina-
tion: “The play wasn’t prepared. It’s a performance that came out of the workshop,
and the life experiences of these youngsters”, says Marwaha. She adds that “When I
interacted with the youngsters, they told me about everything wrong that happens
with them in their homes, and yet they don’t question it. That’s when we decided
to weave in their true stories together as one play” (Rakheja, 2017). As a theatre
person, Marwah feels she has a responsibility towards society and uses this strong
medium to educate people and make them aware of critical and sensitive issues.

Dastak: Ab Aur Manzoor Nahi (now no more

violence against women is acceptable)
As with any other street play, Dastak24 begins with a dholak (drum) to attract people,
and once a large enough crowd has gathered, the play begins, usually in a circular
area with the audience all around. It is a free-for-all street event. With drums, the
performers hail the audience with a choral song:

Aao aao natak dekho natak dekho natak wale, natak wale agei, agei bhai agei natak
wale agei, suno suno ji katha hai hamari hamari katha hai, katha hai purani jo sabko
pata hai, suno re bhaiya suno re bhena. [Come! Come! See the play, the per-
formers are here. Listen! Listen! It’s our story it’s an old story, but a familiar
one.]

The catchy phrases and songs, the loudness, the rhythmic claps and movements
and the opening song as an invitation enable the audience to settle down and assist
in creating an ambience of liveliness and having a powerful efect on the viewers.
Dastak, written collaboratively by 10 to 13 actors (Marwah, 2019), has been
performed innumerable times. Here, I refer to a particular performance25 of the
play and its uploaded video on the YouTube video-sharing website. The short
play with more than 60 participants focuses on the violence and atrocities against
 Community theatre 113

women and, in its vignettes, examines the cultural factors that contribute to the
misogyny and to the ubiquity of gender-related violence. Women are routinely
subjected to catcalls, obscene gestures, lewd comments, remarks and groping, and
all this is referred to as harmless ‘eve teasing’. Eve teasing is a euphemism used
in India for public sexual harassment of women by men. Passing vulgar remarks,
making indecent proposals, whistling, staring and stalking girls have become so
common. It is regarded as an entitlement of men to gape and harass women; it is
not considered a crime or an ofence, and it no more bothers human conscience.
These actions are underestimated and regarded as common experiences.
The play begins with the actors enacting the comments that women get to hear
every day. Atrocities against women have become so commonplace that we fail to
get shocked when we see these as news in the newsprint every morning about rape,
domestic violence, abduction, acid attacks, eve teasing etc. We know them but we
ignore them we have ceased to react when we see sexual harassment on streets, at
this point the play breaks into a Bollywood song

Ladki dekhi munh se seeti baje haath se tali, Saala aila ufma aigo pori aali aali, main
khiladi tu anari. [We blow a whistle and clap when we see a girl, oh my, a girl
is coming, I’m a player and you’re naïve.]

(Main Khiladi tu Anari, 1994,

directed by Sameer Malkan, starring Akshay Kumar and Shilpa Shetty)

The song numbers that keep punctuating the performance show the symbiotic
relationship between cinema and society and point to the fact that Bollywood does
not explicitly condone sexual violence; it creates a culture that allows it.

Tan tanta tan tantantara chalti hai kya nau se barah? [Will you go to see a 9 to
12 movie?] Ye dil na hota bechara kadam na hote awara, joh khoobsurat koi apna
humsafar hota. [This heart wouldn’t have been poorer, steps wouldn’t be wan-
derer, had a beautiful soul been my co-traveller.]

(song by Kishore Kumar in Jewel Thief, 1967)

In these numbers that punctuate the play, the hero’s advances are shown as mild
teasing and as a part of the firtatious beginnings of a courtship, along with the
usual accompaniment of dance steps, which invariably results in the heroine sub-
mitting to the hero towards the end of the song. Movies often encourage the idea
that a woman will eventually fall in love with a man if he pursues her hard enough.
Yash Chopra’s Darr: A Violent Love Story (1993) shows Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan)
obsessed with Kiran (Juhi Chawla). He carves her name on his chest with a knife
and decks his room with her photos. In Raanjhanaa (2013), the Hindi-language
romantic flm directed by Aanand L. Rai, a male character.
114 Community theatre

Kundan similarly stalks a female Zoya; he cuts his wrists when she spurns his
advances. Both heroes are stalkers with masochistic tendencies who persistently
stalk their love interests. They have an excessive sense of entitlement and believe
that a woman is to serve their mental, emotional and physical needs. These mov-
ies and their depictions of love are disturbing to say the least; to some extent, the
arrogant Bollywood hero is, as the play demonstrates, merely an image of Indian
men at large.
The play uses a life cycle approach (Karlekar, 1998) and argues that at every
stage, there is discrimination and violence, particularly against the girl child, and as
she grows older, the issues are compounded. She faces discrimination at workplace,
in the streets and within the household. Indian women are still stuck in the binary
trope of being a devi (goddess) or dayan (witch), deifed or vilifed, traditional or
saintly, pushy and slutty. Strong and ambitious women are seen as aggressive, nasty
women and are negatively defned. Women are routinely objectifed and referred
to as “item”, “billo rani” (queen), garam masala (hot spices), “mirchi” (chili), “sakar-
kand” (sweet potato): mere body parts or sexual objects existing for his pleasure
with lines like, “Dekh hi toh rahe hain, ain, is me kya crime hai? (We are only looking;
what is the crime in this?); “Madam to tekhi mirchi hai” (Madam is a hot chili) and
“Apne ma behen ko kaun chedhta hai? (Who harasses their own mothers and sisters?)
Women’s vital statistics are discussed; their bodies are ogled; they become objects
to be gazed at and possessed. Kissling and Kramarae, professors of speech com-
munication, point to the fact that the harassers draw upon the male privilege to
subordinate women in a variety of ways. They describe street harassment as “mark-
ers of passage” for women in public places. These “markers of passage” consist
of both verbal and nonverbal behaviours, including “wolf-whistles, leers, winks,
grabs, pinches, catcalls, and rude comments”. They describe that “the rules of
conduct guiding women’s and men’s public passage through urban areas are asym-
metrical” (Kissling and Kramarae, 1991). Provocative clothes are often extended as
a justifcation for street stalking. The pervasiveness of street abuse subjects women
to sexual humiliation and coercion, and, in a large way, street harassment contrib-
utes to sexual violence in our society.
The play further takes up the issue of dowry (bride price), the custom of pay-
ing cash or goods to the groom’s family. It is a skewed tradition that is prohibited
by Indian law under the Dowry Prohibition Act 1961; however, the law remains
largely inefective and often leads to violence against women. The practice of the
dowry system makes daughters an economic burden. The women’s purity and
chastity myth contribute to the preference of sons over daughters and becomes
the major cause of sex-selective abortion, childhood neglect of girls and infan-
ticide and foeticide, resulting in a skewed sex ratio in India. The report “Female
Infanticide Worldwide: The Case for Action by the UN Human Rights Council”
(DTE, 2018) makes a continent-wide analysis of infanticide patterns. It states that
the United Nations Population Fund claims that 117 million girls demographi-
cally go “missing” due to sex-selective abortions. To remedy this in India, we now
have the Pre-conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex
 Community theatre 115

Selection) Act, 1994 (amended in 2003), which prohibits sex-selection or disclo-

sure of the sex of the foetus. These issues are raised before the audience and neatly
thought of solutions presented before them. Marwah, as the sutradhar, in her loud,
booming voice asserts that preventive laws only will not bring about changes; a
modernization of attitudes and beliefs is a prerequisite to efecting changes. The
play poignantly enacts the pleas of an unborn girl child, her dreams and aspirations,
and the child cries out to her parents to let her live to see the light of the day and
not be killed even before she is born.
Next, the issue of rape is raised in the performance. The actor raises several
questions. Women from the ages of 2 to 90 are raped; who is responsible for this –
the police state or ourselves? The actor reels of the statistics, according to which
a woman is raped every 18 hours or molested every 14 hours in the capital. And,
more shockingly, the majority of the attackers are under the age of 25. In that
particular year (2018) alone, some 600 cases were recorded in New Delhi. The
popular belief is that a woman’s clothing signifes her implied consent and welcome
of sexual harassment. “She asked for it”. “The way she was dressed with that short
dress you could see everything”. These statements refect the stereotypical belief
that women invite their own rapes, sexual assaults, and sexual harassment by the
manner in which they dress and that clothing refects attitude and intent. The actor
passionately tells the audience that the way you dress doesn’t matter when even a
fve-year-old is not safe. Marwaha, in an interview, said,

The idea is to bring home the point that you have no right to justify rape. It
doesn’t matter that she is dressed in a certain way or the girl is little. Rape is
an opportunistic crime. Whether the person is watching porn or is getting
titillated by a woman walking on the street he still has no right.
(Kumar, 2015)

Dispelling myths and raising awareness and understanding of sexual violence, the
last image that the play presents is the allurement of a small girl and her consequent
rape. The rape scene is graphically represented with actors encircling in a close
loop with the shrieks of a child, drums beating louder and screams growing to
crescendo, and then all is quiet, and the stunned audience is addressed directly: why
did this monstrous incident happen? Was the child dressed inappropriately? For
how long can we be silent? For how long can we tolerate all this violence?
For legal redress, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 introduced changes
to the Indian Penal Code, making sexual harassment an expressed ofence under
Section 354 A, which is punishable by up to three years of imprisonment and/
or a fne. The Amendment also introduced new sections making acts like disrob-
ing a woman without consent, stalking and sexual acts by a person in authority
ofences. It also made acid attacks a specifc ofence with a punishment of impris-
onment for not less than ten years and which could extend to life imprisonment,
plus a fne. Now we have “Ladies Special” compartments in most local trains in
big cities. The Delhi Metro also has exclusive women-only cars. The actor further
116 Community theatre

questions whether these are enough. Are we as individuals not also responsible for
acting towards change? “Iss ka zimmedar kaun? Police, prasashan, sarkaryaah hum or
aap?” (Who is responsible for this? Police, the government, or is it you and me?)
The Sukhmanch Theatre’s street play Dastak knocks at our faces for our attention,
whacks our conscience that it is time to change the ideology, the belief system that
assigns weakness to women and strength to men, that restricts women’s movement
and inhibits her free expression and right to live with dignity. The play ends with
a strong message for rising up against all forms of violence against women, be they
physical, mental or social. It advocates for zero tolerance; no more crime against
women. It exhorts the audience to speak up and questions them as to how many
more crimes against women will be committed before people raise their voices
against it. The play shows that people cannot blame the system solely when they act
as mute spectators of such incidents and ends with Martin Niemöller’s (1892–1984)
postwar words:

First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was
not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because
I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was
not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
(Bentley, 1984)

In Marwaha’s piece, a young woman is seen being lured by a man on the pretext of
presenting her with a new phone. Slowly, a large group of male actors engulfs her
from all directions. The audience watches this helpless woman as she is consumed by
this all-male group until they lose sight of her. Marwaha then breaks up this devour-
ing mass and bids her company members to chant ‘Yeh ab manzoor nahi’ (This will
not be tolerated anymore) until the audience joins in to commit to this motto (“Fire-
brand street theatre artist Shilpi Marwaha protests Delhi gang rape”, 2018).
As a street play, Dastak’s purpose is to create awareness, empowering women
and utilizing our right to freedom of speech and expression positively. It targets the
society at large to stir up emotions and lead the way towards refection. In the guer-
rilla theatre style which Dastak makes use of, the production elements are minimal,
the sketches and dialogues are short and the shows capture the audience with a
quick burst of expression to raise consciousness about a burning issue before spec-
tators disperse and return to their daily activities (Chatterjee and Orenstein, 2016,
10–34). This colloquial form of drama connected with the audiences instantly. The
lack of properness and formal atmosphere add to its appeal and give it a real lifelike
look. Davinder Kaur, an actor from the Asmita Theatre Group, says,

After the Nirbhaya incident, when we came to the same location to perform
the play, a group did not let us perform. But today, when we ended the play,
 Community theatre 117

people told us that we are talking about the right issues. This is the change
that the Nirbhaya movement has brought. Our street play not just talks about
or gives references to the incident. We also talk about acid attack victims,
molestation and harassment that women face in everyday life. We did this
play in remembrance of Nirbhaya. We have kept her alive for the last five
years and that is the why, whenever we perform this play – with or without
her reference – people end up talking about the [Nirbhaya] incident.
(Sharma and Lal, 2017)

Puja, a graduate student from among the spectators of Dastak, cried after watching
the play. She said with gloom in her eyes that

what was shown in the play was so true, so very true! I liked the solution
they proposed, what I particularly liked in the play was that the actor herself
embodied empowerment, loud voice, confident body movements, that is
exactly how girls should be, powerful and brave.
(Pathak, 2018)

Puja’s response was not an exception; most of the audience members expressed
similar sentiments. Performers in the group are drawn from diverse backgrounds:
Suchitra studies at Miranda House, Divyanshi at the London School of Econom-
ics, Gaurav teaches theatre in a local school, Uttam studies at an open school, and
they are all not just performers but improvise and add to the content and meaning
of the play.
The objectives of the play Dastak were frstly, to bring a shift in attitude that an
act of violence against a woman is not only an attack on women nor is such vio-
lence merely a private or personal matter but rather a societal problem that impacts
society at large, and secondly, to urge the audience that they personally have a role
to play in preventing violence against women and to engage more young people
in programmes to eliminate violence against women. Marwah does not stop with
Dastak. Her subsequent performances Aajeevika (Livelihood),26 a play designed to
build responsiveness about the property rights of women, and Wajood (Existence),
accentuating the trials and troubles of working women, are sequels to Dastak.

Conclusion
This chapter was a reading of two diferent forms of community theatre. One,
largely a rural-based theatre group infuenced by Boal using a grassroots approach,
draws its materials from the audience, which functions as co-participants/co-actors.
Issues they take up are close to the concerns of the audience. Plays do not have
a conclusive closure; the best answer is yet to arrive. It believes that deep-rooted
social and cultural issues cannot be remedied by any quick-fx method but by con-
stant engagement and understanding of the issues. The second is mostly situated
in urban spaces. The form is reminiscent of the IPTA, and in the best traditions of
118 Community theatre

Safdar Hashmi’s JANAM model, a group of actors enacts a performance, creates

sensitisation around the issues and provides solutions to the audience for what ails
the society, employing diferent modes of expression – polemic, political protest,
communal gathering and theatrical enactment. Being this kind of theatre, it is there
is not much scope for fne acting. The movements have to be much exaggerated.
The audience is very large, and one person alone has to speak, but a mic is seldom
used. No make-up is used unless mime is the medium. Then the face is painted
white and the eyes an exaggerated black to highlight expressions. There are no
separate costumes for the actors. They might all wear a black robe, but that depends
on the theme. Scripts are crisp and colloquial. Both the team leaders of JS and the
Sukhmanch Theatre Group are veterans and popular performers and have made a
space for themselves in their respective practices. Neither theatre groups have any
predefned structures or spaces of performance; the close proximity between audi-
ence and performers aids the immediacy of interaction of the audience with the
performers and helps remove the fourth wall or aesthetic distance, thereby creating
a new dramaturgical dynamic that has a close correspondence with the feminist
sense of the personal being political. The nearness of the audience and spectator
facilitates easy eye contact – the point of seeing and being seen – and this returned
gaze creates a sense of oneness as Garlough comments:

[T]he sense of gaze also worked productively to connect the actors together,
creating a sense of “we-ness” that transcended their personal histories. Inter-
estingly, the performance also facilitated a critique of the ‘male gaze’ which
women often are asked to manage in their everyday lives. The performers
on stage directly addressed the audience . . . challenging the “pornographic
gaze” and “panoptic discipline” of the female body. Also, ‘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.
(2008, 176–191)

Further, these performances can be seen as “travelling texts”. They exist within
the matrices of multiple opportunities for participation in diferent contexts and
time (Bhatia, 2004). The storytelling method employed in both JS and Sukhmanch
emphasise collective endeavour for realizing social transformation. Both draw from
long traditions of performance of the Theatre of the Oppressed, IPTA and JANAM
with their diferent philosophies of understanding the spectator and the role per-
formance has in changing societies. Professional players have entered the vastly
dynamic domain of community theatre. Women’s images and issues that previously
orbited – domestic violence, abuse, eve teasing, equal rights, equal wages, rape –
contemporary street plays have brought intersectionality issues and complexity to
the gender debate. If Sarama tells us about the oppressive structures of class, gender
and politics, Dastak speaks loudly about the systemic structures and proposes to
bring about a radical shift to invent new frameworks, new images and new modes
 Community theatre 119

of thought to move beyond the dualistic conceptual constraints and the perversely
monological mental habits of phallocentrism and evoke a vision of female feminist
subjectivity in a nomadic mode (Braidotti, 1994, 1–3) to learn to think diferently
about what it means to be a women.

Notes
1 The Praja Natya Mandali, a branch of IPTA, started in 1943 in Andhra Pradesh; the
Little Theatre Group began in 1969 in Calcutta; Jan Natya Manch in 1970 in New
Delhi; Kalai Kuzhu formed in 1984 in Tamil Nadu; radical theatre movement Samudaya
in Karnataka was formed in the 1970s.
2 Popular, street and people’s theatre are the debatable nomenclatures by which these the-
atre groups and performances are often addressed. The two theatre groups I have selected
cannot be termed street theatre as they also perform on proscenium stages, in colleges
and school spaces and on village grounds, so technically, the term street theatre becomes
restrictive. The term popular theatre is understood as mass entertainment, and the purpose
of these theatre groups is not solely or hardly entertainment. I found the term community
theatre more comprehensible as these performances were by the community and for the
community.
3 www.janasanskriti.org/
4 JS has also organises a bi-annual forum theatre festival called Muktadhara since 2004;
this festival has become an international meeting ground for the forum theatre teams
across the world, as well as those trained by JS all over India. In 2006, in the presence
of Augusto Boal, the activist movements trained by JS in India got together and formed
the Federation of Theatre of the Oppressed. Ever since, JS has been scripting plays with
the oppressed communities across India and working closely with member organizations
located in 12 states. Theatre teams from Delhi Shramik Sangathan (DSS, New Delhi)
and Sarvahara Jan Andolan, Maharashtra, formed in 1990 by Ms Ulka Mahajan regularly
participate in Muktadhara festivals. Coordinating and working on similar methodologies
is Radha Ramaswamy’s Centre for Community Dialogue and Change in Bengaluru,
which also conducts workshops in this form.
5 Along with his own scripted plays, Ganguly takes classical plays like A Doll’s House; Shilpi
Marwaha’s Sukhmanch takes themes for the performances from classics like Dario Fo and
Franca Rame’s A Woman Alone, Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Woman of Szechwan adapted as
Ramkali, Mahesh Dattani’s Final Solutions and 30 Days in September and Girish Karnad’s
Rakt Kalyan.
6 The first modern Indian play of social criticism written in English was The Persecuted
by Krishna Mohan Banerjee in 1831. This upsurge soon spread across the length and
breadth of India in performances during 1860s and 1870s. Ram Narayan Tarakratna’s
Kullin Kulasarvaswa and Naba Natak (1857) condemned the polygamous practice of
Kulin Brahmins. The playwrights from Assam, Gunabhi Ram Barua and Hemchan-
dra Barua, critiqued child marriage in their plays Ram Navmi (1857) and Kania Kirtan
(1861), respectively. Dinbandhu Mitra’s play Nildarpan (The Mirror of Indigo, 1859) was
blatantly polemical and anti-British and showed the abusive plight of Indigo planters. In
Gujarat, Ranchchodbhai Dave’s (1837–1923) Lalita Dukhdarshak (Lalita’s Manifold Suf-
fering, 1878), Kajoda Dukhdarshak Natak (A Play Revealing the Sorrow of Incompatible
Marriage, 1872) by Keshavlal Motilal Parikh and Kanya Vikray Khandan Natak (A Play
Denouncing the Practice of Selling a Girl Child, 1888) by Harilal Vitthaldas all revolved
around the deplorable plight of women. The Hindi plays of Bhartendu Harishchandra,
Shanker Prasad and Radheshyam Kathavachak from northern India also contributed
to the nationalistic and reformistic fervor. A five-act play by Dr Pundarikakshudu of
Guntur, Panchala Parabhavamu (The Glory of Panchali) directly engaged with the events
that followed the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and showed people’s dissatisfaction with the
120 Community theatre

Hunter Committee Report. Abounding in veiled allegory, Punjab was personified as a

woman whose hands and feet were tied by General Dyer (Baskaran, 2009, 132–157).
7 However, scholars point out the ambivalences in Gandhi’s involvement of female bodies.
One the one hand, Katrak (2006) sees it as the denial of “the female body”, its urges,
its desires, and its power, makes it very difficult for a truly feminist politics to reside
comfortably within a Gandhian world. However, Madhu Kishwar rightly alerted us to
the impossibility of ignoring Gandhi’s contribution to women’s appearance in the public
sphere (1985), and even Richard G. Fox suggests that Gandhian nationalism may have
kept women in their place, but his “essentialist understanding of gender, however, proved
liberatory rather than restrictive” (1996, 37).
8 Aparna Dharwadker suggests: “By speaking to both kinds of oppressed ‘folk’ – and – folk
forms could also attempt to bridge the problematic urban-rural divide and sustain a mass
theatre movement of the kind envisioned by the IPTA”(2005, 10–11), its purpose was
not just, as Malini Bhattacharya says, “to resuscitate folk culture” but to embody “the
strategy of promoting a vigorous exchange between different existing forms of entertain-
ment, and of being the cultural forum where urban and rural sections of the struggling
people might communicate” (1983, 7).
9 Dina Gandhi was an activist and the founding member of the IPTA (Indian Progressive
Theatre Movement). She used theatre as a medium for creating awareness of the colonial
atrocities. At a young age, she joined the Indian National Theatre as an actress and also
directed plays in Gujarati theatre. She was also the president of the National Federation
of Indian Women (NIFW). She received acting training from Rasiklal Parikh and her
dance lessons from Shanti Bardhan. Her production Mena Gurjari in Bhavai folk theatre
style became very popular.
10 Dina Pathak (1923–2002), Shanta Gandhi (1917–2002) and Gul Bardhan (1928–) were
part of the students’ movement at Bombay. Shanta Gandhi founded the central ballet
troupe of IPTA and performed extensively through the 1950s. As a theatre director,
dancer and playwright, she re-energised the classical and traditional theatre. Amongst her
most noted plays was Jasma Odan (Tale of Jasma of Odh Community of Gujarat, 1967),
which was based on a Gujarati legend in Bhavai style (a folk theatre form from Gujarat)
on the custom of sati (practice of widow immolation). She served as the chairperson of
the National School of Drama (1982–1984) and was conferred the Padmashree (India’s
fourth-highest civilian award) in 1984 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (the high-
est national recognition for practicing artists) in 2001.
Dina Gandhi said in a three-day National Convention for Women organised by the
National Federation of Indian Women (NIFW) and the Punjab Istri Sabha on February
2, 2000: “The basic aim of this movement is to tell women work for a better life. For
thousands of years, women have been bound by rigid societal norms and still very few
women are given opportunities to grow as an individual. Wife-beating, female foeticide
and infanticide are still the stark realities, even in the most educated and richest of Indian
families” (Mohindra, 2000). Dina Pathak was known for her student activism in the pre-
independence era when folk theatre was used extensively as an anti-colonial tool. Her
play Mena Gurjari (Tale of a Woman, Mena from Gurjar Community, 1953) in Bhavai
folk style was a popular theatre production.
Tripti Mitra (1925–1989), an IPTA member, later went on to form the Bohurupee
Theatre Group with her husband, Shombhu Mitra. Sova Sen (1923–), wife of Utpal
Dutt, was the lead performer in the play Nabanna (1944), an important IPTA produc-
tion about the Bengal famine. Reba Roy Chowdhury (1925–2007) and Preeti Banerjee
(1922–), members of the Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti (formed in the wake of the Bengal
Famine), and Rekha Jain (1924–2010), wife of Nemi Chandra Jain (who was a theatre
activist of the Friends of Soviet Union), Gul Bardhan (1928–2010) and Sima Das (1938–)
were other important actresses of IPTA.
Reba Roy Choudhury, an activist in the students’ and women’s organizations, partici-
pated in the historic Tebhaga movement. The government of West Bengal honoured her
with the “Fighter of Tebhaga” (1997). She was also awarded the “Dinabandhu Puros-
 Community theatre 121

kaaf ” (2003), and the Chetana People’s Cultural Organization awarded her “Binodini
Debi Smriti Samman”. One of the founding members of the Indian People’s Theatre
Association (IPTA) in 1928, she was a member of the Central Ballet Troupe; her per-
formance developed under Pandit Ravi Shankar. In 1949, she married the playwright,
actor and director Sajal Roychowdhury. Reba’s autobiography, Jibaner Taane Shilper Taane
(At the Call of Life, at the Call of Art) illustrates a restless life devoted to the cause of the
people’s performing art.
11 Three important national women’s organizations were set up in the 1920s: the Women’s
Indian Association (WIA, 1917), the National Council of Indian Women (NCWI, 1925)
and the All-India Women’s Conference (AIWC, 1927). These played an active role in
women’s education and in initiating and campaigning for social legislation and helped in
getting the following laws and acts passed: the Sarda Act (1929), Hindu Women’s Rights
to Property Act (1937), the Muslim Personal Law (Shari at) Application Act (1937),
the Dissolution of Muslims Marriage Act (1939), the Special Marriage Act (1954),
the Hindu Marriage and Divorce Act (1955), the Hindu Minority and Guardianship
Act (1956), the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (1956) and the Suppression of
Immoral Traffic in Women Act (1956).
12 The play has been translated into almost all Indian languages.
13 Rape cases (Rameeaza Bee 1978; Mathura Rape 1980); dowry deaths (24-year-old
Tarvinder Kaur, Shashi Bala 1979; Kanchan Chopra 24) and in 1987, Roop Kanwar’s
immolation after the death of her husband, a rather different (and spectacular) case of the
violent death of a young woman.
14 Names of some women’s group: Mahila Atma Raksha Samiti (MARS, 1942); Mahila
Dakshata Samiti (1978); Jagori (1984); Mahila Utpidan Virodhi Manch (1985); Nari
Mukti Sangarsh Sammelanin (1986); Mahila Samiti, (1979); Nari Mukti Sangh (1990);
Nirantar (1993).
15 Vanangana is a non-government organisation established in 1994 by social activist Mad-
havi Kuckreja that works in the Chitrakoot and Banda Districts of Uttar Pradesh. It
brings together a team of local women and men who focus on tackling violence against
women and enabling Dalit women to assert their rights. The organisation has been
successfully organising campaigns to address domestic and patriarchal violence through
street plays and theatre all over UP, where abuses against women are rooted in the region’s
age-old feudal social structure. After she founded Vanangana, Kuckreja set up Sanatkada
in 2008, a cultural hub that supports women’s empowerment and growth in Lucknow.
The organization’s schemes of empowering women and building collective strength to
confront violence through creative action include:
1 Training women in alternate skills.
2 Training rural women hand pump mechanics.
3 Organizing the 3,000-strong Dalit women Sangathan Dalit Mahila Samiti.
4 An initiative against violence against women with community-based campaign and
legal support to survivors of violence.
They see how the violence and oppression, whether it is public, domestic, social
or economic, becomes all the more acute and intense for women, particularly those
from the lower castes and tribals, who are situated on the bottom rung of all the three
hierarchies of class, caste and gender. In September 2015, Kahkashan, the mother of
a three-year-old, died after having suffered through two years of constant abuse and
violence. Vanangana staged an extensive campaign to break the silence on domestic
violence and performed the play Mujhe Jawab Do in various public areas in the city. The
play Mujhe Jawab Do is based on the agonising experiences of women like Kahkashan
and hopes to evoke strong feelings against gender violence among the audience. Mus-
tafa Ali, social activist, Narendrapal and Kushal Varma are men who are also members
of the theatre team who vociferously oppose domestic violence, dowry and sexual
harassment. They have taken to the streets of Lucknow along with the Vanangana
group (Mehru, 2015).
122 Community theatre

16 In 1968 the Brazilian educational theorist and cultural, social and theatre activist and prac-
titioner Paulo Freire outlined his theory in his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed to critically
question the conventional academic system and reverse the top-down approach of education
into a participatory process, a new form of social education and development for and by
the marginalised. He believed that people possess knowledge through life experience but
are persuaded by their oppressors to believe that their knowledge is irrelevant. Stimulating
people to become conscious and to generate knowledge in their own interests is called the
pedagogy of the oppressed (Freire, 1970). Augusto Boal was essentially influenced by the
work of Paulo Freire and he developed the form of Theatre for the Oppressed.
17 The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) was founded by Brazilian writer and politician Augusto
Boal as a reaction to the military regime instated in his country by a widely unpopular
coup d’état in 1964. His treatise on the subject was published in 1973, after he had been
forced into exile by the hostile environment at home. A fundamental principle associated
with TO is the idea of an audience actively participating in the decision-making that may
be taking place on stage. They are spect-actors, not spectators. This agency afforded to
those who have hitherto only been bystanders when it came to traditional theatre (which
Boal always deemed “oppressive” in its own right) resulted in liberating and empowering
exchanges that laid the foundation of true collaboration and even social reinvention.
18 For instance, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was also very effectively performed in forum style
among village audiences.
19 This committee has a total of 40,000 registered members across its various branches.
20 Girish Bhavan, located in the lap of nature, is the administrative centre of JS in Kolkata.
Girish Bhavan is situated in a small village called Badu, 5 kilometres from Madhyam gram
crossroad. This centre derives its name from the doyen of Bengali theatre Shri, Girish
Chandra Ghosh. Girish Bhavan houses four different spaces – Boal Auditorium, Amu-
lya Ganguly Memorial Library and hostel facilities. Binodini Moncho, named after the
renowned Bengali theatre actress Binodini Dasi, is an open circular stage nestled under a
mango tree. Binodini Dasi (1862–1941) is better known as Nati Binodini. This stage was
built in Girish Bhavan in 2004 and ever since has witnessed the evolution of JS’s theatre
practice with marginalised communities. Located under a mango tree, this stage is suited
for theatre, music, dance, literary discussions, meetings, workshops and every other activ-
ity suited for open spaces. Boal Auditorium 2015, part of the JS International Research
and Resource Institute, is a performance space named after Augusto Boal. Girish Bhavan
provides clean, simple, spacious hostel facilities. This space is best suited to host artists
and academics looking for a creative, serene environment to pursue their ideas.
21 Documentary film by Vibha Bakshi on the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi gang rape, it
received the National Film Award for Best Film on Social Issues in 2014.
22 Started by Arvind Gaur in 1993.
23 The incident took place on a private chartered bus on the busiest road, Ring Road, in
Delhi, the capital city of India. The budding physiotherapist was manhandled in a mov-
ing bus and later thrown off after being stripped naked on Sunday, 16 December 2012.
24 The play continues to be performed by Asmita Theatre Group and the newly formed
Sukhmanch Theatre Group.
25 Sukhmanch Theatre performing #Streetplay #DASTAK with Shilpi Marwaha at Mango
Festival 31 December 2017. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh6pJx3B5Sg). There have
been several other performances of the play in the recent past: #Sukhmanch performed
Dastak, the street play, at Nirmal Bhartia School on 8 June 2018 and at NDIM (New
Delhi Institute of Management) (PGDM) 31 May 2018; Sukhmanch Theatre pre-
sented #nukkad natak #Dastak at Kulachi Hansraj Model School, Ashok Vihar on 28
May 2018, directed by Shilpi Marwaha; #SukhmanchTheatre performed #street play
#Dastak on atrocities against woman at RK Puram Market, 21 May 2018; Sukhmanch
Theatre performed #street play #Dastak directed by Shilpi Marwaha at Sri Sathya Sai
Vidya Vihar School, Kalkaji, Delhi. #sukhmanch #shilpimarwaha 22.08.2019.
26 The play was directed by Shilpi Marwaha and was performed as part of the One Billion
Rising: South Asia campaign by the Azad Foundation.
 Community theatre 123

Bibliography
Agnihotri, Indu, and Vina Mazumdar. (2006) “Changing Terms of Political Discourse:
Women’s Movement in India, 1970’s-1990”, in Mala Khullar (ed.) Writing the Women’s
Movement: A Reader. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
Alreja, Ekta. (2013) “Theatre Is a Powerful Tool to Engage Society”, India Today, March 7. Avail-
able at: www.indiatoday.in/magazine/supplement/story/20130318-shes-every-woman-
762673-2013-03-07
Aston, Elaine. (1995) An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre. London: Routledge.
Athira, M. (2013) “Breaking New Ground”, The Hindu, May 22. Available at: www.the-
hindu.com/features/metroplus/breaking-new-ground/article4739516.ece
Baskaran, S. Theodore. (2009) “Popular: Theatre and the Rise of Nationalism in South
India”, in Nandi Bhatia (ed.) Modern Indian Theatre: A Reader. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
Bentley, James. (1984) Martin Niemöller: 1892–1984. New York: Macmillan Free Press.
Bhambri, Vaishali. (2011) “Street Plays against Corruption”, Hindustan Times, August 20.
Available at: www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/street-plays-against-corruption/
story-Y1G4CVNYBpKb1OFOXHfYzH.html
Bharucha, Rustom. (1983) Rehearsals of Revolution: The Political Theatre of Bengal. Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press.
Bhatia, Nandi. (2004) Acts of Authority Acts of Resistance: Theatre and Politics in Colonial and
Postcolonial India. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Bhattacharya, Malini. (1983) “The IPTA in Bengal”, Journal of Arts and Ideas, 2, January–
March, 5–22.
Boal, Augusto. (1982) The Theatre of the Oppressed, 2nd edition. New York, USA: Routledge.
Boehm, A., and E. Boehm. (2003) “Community Theatre as a Means of Empowerment in Social
Work: A Case Study of Women’s Community Theatre”, Journal of Social Work, 3(3), 283–300.
Braidotti, Rosi. (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Diference in Contemporary
Feminist Theory. Cambridge: Columbia University Press.
Butalia, Urvashi. (2005) “Confrontation and Negotiation: The Women’s Movement’s
Responses to Violence against Women”, in Malla Khullar (ed.) Writing the Women’s
Movement: A Reader. New Delhi: Zubaan, an Imprint for Kali.
Case, Sue-Ellen. (1988) Feminism and Theatre. New York: Methuen.
Chatterjee, Deepsikha, and Claudia Orenstein. (2016) “Immortal Nirbhaya: From Victim
to Victor Around the Globe”, Samyuktha: A Journal of Gender & Culture, Special issue on
Women and Indian Theatre, 16(2), 10–34.
Chatterjee, Minoti. (2004) Theatre beyond the Threshold: Colonialism, Nationalism and the Ben-
gali Stage 1905–1947. New Delhi: Indialog Publications.
Chatterjee, Partha. (1997) “The Nation and Its Women”, in David Arnold and David Hardi-
man (eds.) Subaltern Studies Reader, 1986–1995. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Chatterjee, Sudipto. (2009) “The Nation Staged”, in Nandi Bhatia (ed.) The Modern Indian
Theatre: A Reader. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Costa, Dia Da. (2009) “Introduction”, in Sanjoy Ganguly (ed.) Where we Stand: Five Plays
from the Repertoire of Jana Sanskriti. Kolkata: Camp.
Dalmia, Vasudha. (2006) Poetics, Plays and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Dharwadker, Aparna. (2005) “Alternative Stages: Anti-Realism, Gender, and Contempo-
rary Indian ‘Folk’ Theatre”, Sangeet Natak, 39(3), 9–34.
DTE Staf. (2018) “India Witnesses One of the Highest Female Infanticide Incidents in the
World”, Down to Earth, September 19, Wednesday. Available at: www.downtoearth.org.
124 Community theatre

in/news/health/india-witnesses-one-of-the-highest-female-infanticide-incidents-in-
the-world-54803 (Accessed: 2 February 2020).
Dutt, Bishnupriya, and Urmimala Sarkar Munsi (eds.). (2010) Engendering Performance: Indian
Women Performers in Search of an Identity. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Erven, Eugene Van. (2001) Community Theatre: Global Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
“Fire-Brand Street Theatre Artist Shilpi Marwaha Protests Delhi Gang Rape”. (2018)
August 9. Available at: https://alchetron.com/Shilpi-Marwaha#Fire-brand-street-theater-
artiste-shilpi-marwaha-protests-delhi-gang-rape (Accessed: 5 February 2020).
Forbes, Geraldine. (1996) Women in Modern India: The New Cambridge History of India, Vol.
IV. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fox, Richard G. (1996) “Gandhi and Feminized Nationalism in India”, in Brackette F. Wil-
liams (ed.) Women out of Place: The Gender of Agency and the Race of Nationality. New York
and London: Routledge, 37–49.
Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, USA: Continuum.
Ganguly, Sanjoy. (2004) “Theatre: A Space for Empowerment: Celebrating Jana Sanskriti’s
Experience in India”, in Richard Boon and Jane Plastow (eds.) Theatre and Empowerment:
Community Drama on the World Stage. Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ganguly, Sanjoy. (2009) Where We Stand: Five Plays from the Repertoire of Jana Sanskriti. Kol-
kata: Camp.
Ganguly, Sanjoy. (2010) Jan Sanskriti, Forum Theatre and Democracy in India. London and New
York: Routledge.
Ganguly, Sanjoy. (2017) “Interviewed by Anita Singh”, June 4.
Garlough, Christine Lynn. (2008) “On the Political Uses of Folklore: Performance and
Grassroots Feminist Activism in India”, The Journal of American Folklore, 121(480),
Spring, 167–191.
Harding, F., and K. Salhi. (1998) “Neither ‘Fixed Masterpiece’ nor ‘Popular Distraction’:
Voice, Transformation and Encounter in Theatre for Development”, in African Theatre
for Development: Art for Self-Determination. Eastbourne, UK: Intellect Books.
Jellicoe, A. (1992) Community Plays and How to Make Them. London: Methuen.
Karlekar, Malavika. (1998) “Domestic Violence”, Economic and Political Weekly, 33(27), July 4.
Katrak, Ketu. (2006) The Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers. New Brunswick,
NJ and London: Rutgers University Press.
Kershaw, Baz. (1992) The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention. London:
Routledge.
Kirpal, Neha. (2019) “A Brave New Narrative”, The Tribune, January 20. Available at: www.
tribuneindia.com/news/spectrum/a-brave-new-narrative/715239.html
Kishwar, Madhu. (1985) “Gandhi on Women”, Economic and Political Weekly, 10(40), October 5
and 12, 1691–1702 and 1751–1758.
Kissling, Elizabeth A., and Cheris Kramarae. (1991) “Stranger Compliments: The Interpre-
tation of Street Remarks”, Women’s Studies in Communication, 14(1).
Kokane, Roshan. (2018) “Theatre: Ehsaas, an Eye Opening, First-of-Its-Kind Play about
Lesbian Romance!”, The Gay Desi, February 7. Available at: http://gaysifamily.
com/2018/02/07/theatre-ehsaas-eye-opening-frst-kind-play-lesbian-romance/
Kumar, Anuj. (2015) “Finding Hope Amidst Hysteria”, The Hindu, December 17. Available at:
www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/fnding-hope-amidst-hysteria/article8000831.
ece
Kumar, Radha. (1989) “Contemporary Indian Feminism”, Feminist Review (33), Autumn,
20–29.
Marwah, Shilpi. (2019) “Interviewed by Anita Singh”, October 31, 17 hrs.
 Community theatre 125

Mehrotra, Deepti Priya. (2016) “Feminist Street Theatre: Plays as Contemporary History”,
Indian Cultural Forum, July 9. Available at: https://indianculturalforum.in/2016/07/09/
feminist-street-theatre-plays-as-contemporary-history/
Mehru, Jafer. (2015) “How Street Plays & Theatre Are Raising the Curtain on Violence
against Women in UP”, The Better India, November 2. Available at: www.thebetterindia.
com/37191/theatre-address-domestic-violence-uttarpradesh/
Menon, Nivedita. (2004) Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics beyond the Law. Urbana and
Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Mills, Sandra. (2009) “Theatre for Transformation and Empowerment: A Case Study of Jana
Sanskriti Theatre of the Oppressed”, Development in Practice, 19(4/5), June, 550–559.
Mishra, Sheokesh. (2019) “The Street’s Her Stage”, India Today, January 14. Available at: www.india
today.in/magazine/good-news/story/20190114-the-street-s-her-stage-1422350-2019-01-05
Mohindra, Ruchika. (2000) “Need to Make Women Aware: Dina Pathak”, The Tri-
bune, February 3, Thursday, Chandigarh, India. Available at: www.tribuneindia.
com/2000/20000203/punjab.htm#9
Moore, Sylvia. (1983) “Music for Life’s Sake: Mediatory Role of the Arts for Socialization
in Non-Industrial Regions”, Seminar on Traditional Media and Community Media, June
22, The Institute of Social Studies. The Hague: Center for the Study of Education in
Developing Countries.
Munsi, Urmimala Sarkar. (2010) “Emergence of the Contemporary Woman Dancer: Con-
tribution of Tagore, Shankar and IPTA”, in Bishnupriya Dutt and Urmimala Sarkar
Munsi (eds.) Engendering Performance: Indian Women Performers in Search of an Identity. New
Delhi: Sage Publications, 209–232.
Nath, Dipanita. (2011) “Woman in Black”, Indian Express, November 6, Sunday. Available
at: http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/woman-in-black/871484
Pathak, Dina. (1995) “But I Am still Here, Acting and Acting and Acting . . .”, Seagull Theatre
Quarterly, 5, May, 3–25.
Pathak, Puja. (2018) “Personal Communication”, June 4, 1500 hrs.
Purkayastha, Prarthana. (2014) Indian Modern Dance, Feminism and Transnationalism. Basingstoke,
UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rakheja, Henna. (2017) “Human Rights Day: Delhi’s Youngsters Take Part in Activism
against Gender-Based Violence”, The Hindustan Times, December 10.
Roychowdhury, Reba. (1999) Jibaner Taney ShilperTaney. In the Pull of Life, in the Pull of
Art. Calcutta: Thema.
Saha, Sharmistha. (2012) “Witnessing Movement: The Women Artists of the Indian People’s
Theatre Association’s Central Squad”, in Anita Singh and Tarun Tapas Mukherjee (eds.)
Gender, Space and Resistance: Women and Theatre in India. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld.
Sarkar, Sumit. (2002) Beyond Nationalist Frames: Postmodernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, His-
tory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Sarkar, Tanika. (2001) Hindu Wife Hindu Nation: Community Religion and Cultural National-
ism. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
Sawhney, Aakriti. (2011) “Playing Up the Action”, Hindustan Times, March 1, New Delhi.
Available at: https://archive.is/20130624221841/www.hindustantimes.com/Entertain-
ment/Art/Playing-up-the-action/Article1-668162.aspx#selection-2547.0-2561.25
Schechner, Richard. (1974) “From Ritual to Theatre and Back: The Structure/Process of
the Efcacy-Entertainment Dyad”, Educational Theatre Journal, 26(4), December, 455–481.
Sharma, Riya. (2017) “Actor Shilpi Marwaha Alleges She Quit Asmita Theatre Group after
Founder Arvind Gaur’s ‘Advances’, Gaur Denies Charge”, The Times of India, May 2.
Sharma, Riya, and Niharika Lal. (2017) “Won’t Let Delhi Forget Nirbhaya, Assert City’s
Theatre Group”, The Times of India, December 18. Available at: http://timesofndia.india
126 Community theatre

times.com/articleshow/62106179.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=
text&utm_campaign=cppst
Singh, Lata. (2011) “Transgression of Boundaries: Women of IPTA”, Social Scientist,
39(11/12), November–December, 63–72.
Srivastava, Vaibhav. (2018) “Sukhmanch Theatre Performs Rajesh Kumar’s Gaaye”. Available
at: www.artculturefestival.in/sukhmanch-theatre-performs-rajesh-kumars-gaaye/
Thapar-Bjorkert, Suruchi. (2006) Women in the Indian National Movement Unseen Faces and
Unheard Voices, 1930–42. India: Sage Publications.
Turner, Victor. (1969) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine.
Yarrow, Ralph. (2000) Indian Theatre: Theatre of Origin, Theatre of Freedom. Surrey: Curzon
Books.
Zaidi, Asad, and Rajendra Sharma. (2012) IPTA Ki Yaadein. New Delhi: Sahmat.
4
URBAN PROSCENIUM STAGE
Volatile bodies, celebratory protests in
Maya Krishna Rao’s Walk and Usha Ganguly’s
Hum Mukhtara

Theatre is a form that must move its audiences intellectually and emotionally.
The challenge, therefore, lies in how to explore the form to respond to difer-
ent issues and the themes associated with them.
(Rao, 2019)

There is no other art that is as close to life as theatre. Yet it has the power to
transport you. The medium is the human body in its WHOLENESS – body,
mind, heart, spirit – all present on stage in full element, full force. . . . No
other art has that.
(Rao, 2014)

Taking a cue from Maya Rao’s statements, this chapter will locate the continuing
aesthetic, artistic and social investment and the diverse performance vocabularies
in the works of Usha Ganguly and Maya Krishna Rao. The two performers are
mostly urban based; Usha Ganguly’s theatre is in Hindi, and Maya Krishna Rao’s
performances are mainly in English and Hindi. They are located in the metropolises
and perform in proscenium arch and other open stages from garages to rooftops,
from town halls to open-air auditoriums; they have transformed all conceivable
spaces. Rao says that raising critical issues in contemporary India through theatre
will require a more malleable form that will reach new areas in college cafeterias,
railway platforms, boardroom meetings and bus travel (Mhatre, 2014). She has also
performed her shows in Delhi malls; she presented her Walk in Thrissur amid her
PowerPoint presentation on “Gender in the 21st century”. Rao occasionally takes
the stage at Stein Auditorium in Delhi or the Rangashankara in Bengaluru. Still,
one is most likely to catch her at a street protest, at a city roundabout, at India Gate,
outside the JNU gates or at a makeshift colony podium with her spare outft kit
(Nair, 2017). Ganguly similarly expresses her aversion for boxed sets and says that
128 Urban Proscenium Stage

she loves to design her plays, and for this, all she uses is vacant space and some mini-
mal props and positions this space as a great space that combines performance and
language. She makes use of every corner of the open space without using elaborate
sets. While directing, Rao likes to keep things simple, and what appeals to her and
recurs in her performances are songs, dances, colours, photographic images, simple
sets, less use of props and the use of the sounds of everyday life. In Anataryatra
(2002), the symbolistic and visual stage adds dimensions to our understanding of the
play. Here, Ganguly uses rings and geographic shapes. The three primal shapes – a
triangle (symbolizing the creative energy), a circle (embodying cosmic dimension)
and a square (denoting the earthly concerns) – with steps under them form the
simple yet efective set design for the play. The lone actor/narrator moves between
these shapes as she narrates how the characters she portrayed and her meetings with
people accumulatively have shaped her. The props are minimal, dupattas (shawls) of
various colours used variously. The lighting is employed to emphasise each mood of
the performer. Physical space in the play is mainly defned by the narrator’s move-
ments between two worlds, the performance world of the narrator and the textual
world inhabited by the character roles she has performed. Using voice modula-
tions, stage movements, body language and minimal props, she negotiates with the
complex realities that each of her stage roles demands. In Ganguly’s Rudali (1992) a
chakki (grinder) is used as a prop to address class and gender concerns.
The political and aesthetic approaches of Ganguly and Rao to their craft are
well known and infuential. Both use the theatrical space as a unique vehicle for
agency and authorship and engage with the challenging task of creating a discourse
of women’s rights. They are veterans in this feld and perform classical as well as
self-written plays which are performance based (rather than text based). Both are
educated, middle class, and have an array of performances for which they have
received nationally and internationally a certain degree of recognition and many
awards and are artistically as respected as their successful male counterparts. Both
playwrights challenge the theatrical strategies, taking theatre to a diferent sphere
altogether. They frequently employ props or setting or vocal support, the pulsating
interplay of song and words, dance, mime and choreographed body movements
to support the central subject or the interaction of characters. Various embodi-
ments and embodied practices are perceived, negotiated and challenged in their
performances. In Rao’s performance, audience, actor, prop, stage and setting are
all a seamless whole in her unique theatre of one. She does not believe in being an
arid activist theatre or practice a theatre that does not entertain. Rao has a great
sense of satire, humour and the grotesque at all times. Ganguly uses challenging
theatrical strategies to speak against all forms of oppression in the theatre; whether
it is the repression of class, caste or sex, women remain predominant in Ganguly’s
pursuits. In both Rao’s and Ganguly’s performances, the female performers take
centre stage, empowering their voices and sharing meaningful stories.
When speaking and writing about their professional practice, these two practi-
tioners working in modern Indian theatre approach the terminology and teleology
of what they see as neoliberal feminism diferently. Ganguly propagates the theory
 Urban Proscenium Stage 129

of “not-feminism” (Lieder, 2015, 595–615) and aspires to employ a universalised,

humanist, androgynous attitude in her directing and acting. Speaking in the context of
her play Rudali, she admits “if a man had directed Rudali, I know it would have been
diferent” (Katyal, 1997, 28). Using a diferent vocabulary for describing her work, she
says “I feel that I difer from the way people tends to use the term feminism. This term
has nowadays become a fashionable one, and I don’t believe in a particular brand of
feminism” (Katyal, 1997, 2). She rebufs feminism as Western and in the very process
of this rejection, fashions her aesthetic articulation. She does not espouse the idea of
women’s theatre festivals. She believes such festivals are patronizing and treat women
as inferior. More so since she feels that these hardly allow space for women directors
to discuss and collaborate. Being a woman director anyway, she asserts, is not easy.
Rao rejects any separation between her politics and her artistic work. The script
for her solo performance is largely sourced from the everyday events that happen
around, like the Babri Masjid demolition,1 the Not in My Name movement,2 the
Andhra farmer suicide,3 Manorama’s4 killing in Manipur and the 2012 Delhi gang
rape. In 1979 she became a part of Stree Sangharsh, a feminist collective, to fght
against the dowry deaths with her play Om Swaha, which is now considered one
of the earliest feminist plays in India. While artists refrain from making political
statements, Ganguly has no reservations in conceding that she is a very political
person (Ganguly, 2018). Humanism is her creed, and her political consciousness has
nothing to do with any political party or isms. She prefers to be aligned with the
humanists such as Prem Chand, Manto and Tagore in her fght against repression;
she asserts that her ideas are swayed by humanitarianism. She started as a feminist
writer, and her woman-centric plays won her much acclaim. Speaking about her
experience leading the Indian feminist theatre movement, she says, “It came about
because we believed in that kind of theatre. We believed that things needed to
change for women in our society and culture” (Chandani, 2018). According to
Ganguly, when women started working outside the home, they acquired a new
sensibility that gave them the ability to look at texts, designs and presentations in a
new light. She emphasises the simplicity in the works of women directors like Anu-
radha Kapoor and Tripurari Sharma, who were considered pioneers of their time.
“I did not have to hunt for stories. They were already there. They just needed to
be designed and presented with simplicity to the audience”, Usha says (Chandani,
2018). Ganguly denies any interpretation diferentiated by gender present in her
work. A similar emphasis on androgyny resonates in the works of Neelam Mansingh
Chowdhry, Amal Allana and Anuradha Kapur, who all play with the accepted stan-
dards of masculinity and femininity in many ways, including experimenting with
new forms of female impersonation by male actors (Kapur, 2004, 26).
Overarching a reading of the two performers, Usha Ganguly and Maya Krishna
Rao, and their performances Hum Mukhtara and Walk, this chapter will address the
following questions:

1 How do their plays build up a subversive potential for undermining the pre-
vailing sex-gender? How do they counter the ideology and cultural pressures
130 Urban Proscenium Stage

for women to organise their lives by rejecting the dominant cultural scripts
such as apolitical passivity, domesticity, heterosexuality, marriage and mother-
hood?
2 How does the theatrical space provide an agency to women’s concerns and
aspirations today, and what is the responsibility of directors, producers and
performers to take the lead in emphasising the confluence of gender sensitisa-
tion and societal awareness for women’s empowerment?
3 How rewarding is the stage space for such interrogation whose innovative
strategies explore the problem of negotiating and holding together women’s
sense of self?
4 How do women’s lived experiences, which mostly constitute the core of the
plays selected for study, begin to find a voice and build a starting point for the
self-assertion of one’s own identity, questioning those identities assigned by
conventional typecasting?
5 How do female performers in theatres deploy their bodies to enact possibili-
ties? Each body has its history; it is rooted in its cultural specificity, and it has
its way of being in the world. It will examine how the embodied presence of
the performer is not ahistorical but contextual and dynamic and locate the
understanding of the context specificity of feminist politics.

The chapter will explore two women’s ideas of theatre to understand theatre’s
capacity to be a political, social, moral and personal force. It will study the episte-
mologies of two narratives, Walk and Hum Mukhtara, performed by Maya Krishna
Rao and Usha Ganguly’s theatre group Rangakarmee. Both performances are in
the performers’ own unique style; they engage the complex trope of Indian wom-
anhood and situate the subversion of this trope by placing agency on the female
body as sexual. I discuss the two plays through an understanding of the body as a
site of resistance. There has been a sudden resurgence of political and protest the-
atre in India over the past few years. A lot of these performances are done by female
theatre personalities, catalysed by the growing sexual violence against women. Both
plays were conceptualised as a reaction and a response to the gory Nirbhaya inci-
dent. Nirbhaya’s brutal rape also elicited many performative responses from creative
individuals who felt the urge to speak up. Ganguly and Rao both recognise theatre
as a ftting medium for launching a protest against societal perceptions towards
women and as a means of condemning the brutality executed against women in
the form of rape. Through their performances, both scathingly attack those ide-
ologies that believe in controlling and possessing a woman through her body. This
study investigates the politics of violated bodies in India and the assertion of female
subjectivity in Usha Ganguly’s Hum Mukhtara and Maya Krishna Rao’s Walk, two
compelling contemporary feminist productions. Ganguly responds to the play by
universalizing the problem of discrimination, asserting sisterhood and collective
action; Maya responds to it by reclaiming the public space and redoing the body,
fnding a voice and fnding a body. Maya’s performance is a solo performance,
whereas Usha uses an ensemble style. After the Nirbhaya gang rape of 2012, the
 Urban Proscenium Stage 131

conversation surrounding gender and sexual abuse has become louder than ever.
This chapter will start by tracing the auteur directors coming into their own and
adapting, assembling montage texts from myriad sources. Two of the plays selected
here are reactions to the Nirbhaya rape. Nirbhaya is seminal to both plays. Walk is
conceived as a form of sarcasm and commentary on societal approaches to gender
violence and conveys the playwright’s concern for women’s safety. Ganguly, on
the other hand, chooses Mukhtar Mai as the subject of her play. Also alluding to
Nirbhaya and countless other faceless and nameless victims of sexual abuse, she says,
“Yeh Pakistan ki Mukhtara Nahin, Saari Duniya ki is Waqt ki Mukhtara hai” (This is
not the Mukhtara of Pakistan, but of this time of the whole world). Likewise, Rao
places stress on people’s bonding, inviting her audience to join in her protest walk
for visibility on the road towards the empowerment of women. The Mukhtar Mai
incident provides Ganguly with a factual base for her play; it is after the Nirbhaya
case and the ripple created by the protests and candlelight marches, as well as the
public performances, that the play Hum Mukhtara was conceived as a disturbed
artist’s reaction to the events around her. Both performances are powerful and
hard hitting in nature, intent on creating a mass movement against the widespread
culture of female suppression and violence. These plays are part of an ongoing
pursuit on the part of both dedicated artists to educate, reform and re-create a new
social order, a discourse for the equality of the sexes and the reclamation of female
subjectivity. Each of the dramatists discusses specifc manifestations of violence in
their plays: violence in public spaces and within the familial area. These dramatists
explore dramatic techniques beyond the boundaries of realism to discover new lev-
els of identity and the human experience. Through their style, they have reshaped
the theatre to communicate their experience and thereby aford an exceptional
example of the importance of fashioning one’s own space.
Usha Ganguly, a performer, playwright, director and activist, is one of the lead-
ing Hindi theatre practitioners in Kolkata, which is largely a Bengali-speaking
area, along with others female performers adding to the theatrical scene, such as
Saoli Mitra, Pratibha Agarwal, Chetana Jalan, Swatilekha Sengupta, Sohini Hal-
dar, Rita Ganguly, Arpita Ghosh, Malini Bhattacharys and Sima Ganguly, among
others. She was born in Jodhpur Rajasthan, in a family from the village Nerva in
Uttar Pradesh and later moved to Kolkata with her family in the 1950s. She did
her master’s degree in Hindi literature at Shri Shikshayatan College in Kolkata. In
1970 she became a teacher at Bhowanipur Education Society College, Calcutta, an
undergraduate college afliated with University of Calcutta. She continued teach-
ing as a Hindi lecturer at Bhowanipur Education Society College till her retirement
in 2008. She was formally trained as a dancer in Bharatnatyam and continued to
integrate songs and dances into her performances. She recounts how norms were
particularly restrictive for women entering the public male-dominated domain of
theatrical spaces:

I was a Bharatnatyam dancer then, but yes, I did get letters from “Anamika”5
that they needed a theatre actress. Most of the parents then and perhaps even
132 Urban Proscenium Stage

today are apprehensive about their children doing theatre. It is a general

presumption that by doing theatre “sab bana banaya bighad jayega” (everything
will be spoilt).
(Tiwari, 2006)

As a trained Bharatnatyam dancer, her frst foray into theatre began in 1970 with
the role of Vasantsena the dancer in Mitti Ki Gadi (The Clay Cart) by Shudraka
with an institution called Sangeet Kala Mandir (a non-proft cultural institution in
India, dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in all branches of art and culture in
Kolkata). The Kolkata literary scene, The Cofee House adda (group), intellectual
discussions and the poetry readings there: all of it infuenced her greatly, and from
then on, she gravitated towards theatre.
In 1976 she founded and headed the Rangakarmee Theatre Group. The ensem-
bles of Rangakarmee are among of the largest in our country. To begin with, she
got people like Rudra Prasad Sengupta, Vibhash Chakravorty and M. K. Anvase
to direct her group’s performances. Tripti Mitra directed Gudia Ghar (based on
Ibsen’s A Doll’s House). After having been instructed under well-known directors
like Tripti Mitra and Mrinal Sen, she took to direction herself. By the 1980s, in her
directorial role, some her prominent productions were Mahabhoj (1984), Lok Katha
(1987), Holi (1989), Court Martial (1991), Rudali (1992), Himmat Mai (1998), Mukti
(1999), Shobhayatra (2000), Kashinama (2003), Antaryatra (2002), Maiyyat (1997),
Manto aur Manto (2007), Khelagari (2007), Bhor (2010), Chandalika (2011), Hum
Mukhtara (2013), Rozana (2014) and Dard-e-Naak (2015). It is Ganguly who scripts
and directs and even performs most of the productions of Rangakarmee. Apart
from her own productions, she has also acted in plays directed by Rustam Bha-
rucha, Anuradha Kapoor, Tripti Mitra, Shyamanad Jalan and Bibhas Chakraborty.
Her hugely popular play Kashinama (2003) was based on a short story, “Kaane
Kaun Kumati Lagi” by Kashinath Singh from his story anthology Kashi Ka Assi.
Khoj is an original play written by her. She has written the script of the Hindi flm
Raincoat (2004), based on O Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi”. The group also pro-
duced a few Bengali plays, but it is chiefy known for popularizing Hindi theatre in
the city. Her plays are largely written in Hindi, but several have also been translated
into English. She has also translated and adapted texts of writers like Wesker, Ibsen,
Brecht and Mahasweta Devi and also evolved scripts for theatrical presentation.
Now her group travels extensively, conveying signifcant messages to the audi-
ences of the city as well as to several parts of the country. The group has even
performed extensively abroad with performances in Germany, the USA, Pakistan
and Bangladesh. Usha’s work has mostly dealt with economic, social and sexual
oppression. Her plays are experimental with a subtle touch of realism and even
sometimes verge on naturalism.
Rangakarmee over the years has extended its activities. It now has its own musi-
cal troupe called Ranga Suravi; often, the troupe performs before a play is presented.
They have also formed a separate section for children’s theatre called Rangoli.
Here, Rangakarmee provides theatre training to children from economically
 Urban Proscenium Stage 133

disadvantaged groups who have a fair and passion for acting. It organises train-
ing for its repertory and even for casual interested members and arranges other
acting programs and workshops where young theatre workers from other groups
participate as well. Rangakarmee has successfully launched a studio theatre named
Binodini Keya Mancha; this project indulges in experimental works and serves as a
platform to display the creative talent of young and new theatre groups. The group
began its educational division in the 1990s; its repertoire goes on tours across India
and initiates extension activities in theatre with disadvantaged people. The educa-
tional wing of Rangakarmee was initiated in the 1990s; it is involved in extension
activities with underprivileged people, and today it has its repertoire with perfor-
mances across India (Rangakarmee Theatre Group website). She is proud of her
group and in an interview describes it as follows:

My strength is my group. We have around three hundred members and

nobody will believe me, but we have sixty female artistes in our group. We
are like a family. We are constantly travelling with our productions. We
sometimes do around eighteen shows in a month.
(Tiwari, 2006)

Besides her other creative endeavors, Ganguly is also in charge of Samanvay, which
works exclusively on women-related matters; Sambhavana, which uses theatre to
educate children and Sahityikee, a conglomerate of playwrights who together con-
ceive socially meaningful scripts. As an art administrator, she is connected with
the Sangeet Natak Akademi and the National School of Drama along with some
important institutions in Bengal.
The Rangakarmee repertory theatre, with a large ensemble of associates, uses
the stage to raise its voice against social issues, repressions and evil. Keeping Manto
as a model, she speaks in an interview: “His truthfulness inspires the artiste in me.
We all need Manto’s sensitivity to bare the reality of our times”, said Ganguly
(Tandon, 2004).
Her achievements and initiatives in taking challenging subjects have been rec-
ognised in the form of numerous awards, including the celebrated Sangeet Natak
Akademi, India’s National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama, in 1998 for direc-
tion. The West Bengal government commended her as the best actress for the play
Gudia Ghar. Her theatre group received the 22nd Annual Bharat Nirman Award
in 2015 at Kala Mandir, Kolkata. In 2015 Akansha Theatre Arts conferred the
Kalaratna Award to Usha Ganguly. Presently she holds key positions as a member
of the executive committee of the Central Sangeet Natak Akademi, the West Ben-
gal State Natya Akademi, the Society of the National School of Drama, and the
Rabindra Bharati Court. She has directed and conducted workshops at the South
Asian Theatre Festival for New Jersey Art Centre in 2007 and has been member of
several committees: senate member of Calcutta University for fve years; member
of the executive committee of Sangeet Natak Akademi; society member of the
National School of Drama; executive committee member of Paschin Banga Natya
134 Urban Proscenium Stage

Academy; member of the Satyajit Ray Film Institute, Kolkata and member of the
academic councils of Rabindra Bharati University. She has served as Adjunct Pro-
fessor at Tagore Memorial Institute under the auspices of Visva Bharati University.
She has travelled extensively throughout the country and many parts in the world
including Germany, Pakistan, the USA, and Bangladesh. Rangakarmee was the only
Indian theatre group to participate and perform at the Theatre der Welt Festival in
Stuttgart, Germany, in 2005. The play Rudali was performed at Punj Pani Festival
at Lahore in 2006. The group’s frst bilingual production was Bhor, which dealt
with the patients of a drug rehab centre, in August 2010.
Ganguly has been active in staging women’s issues through the medium of the-
atre. She continues to make appearances at theatre festivals and frequently creates
her own music. Women remain predominant to Ganguly’s pursuits. As a direc-
tor and performer, her artistic evolution has been embedded in counteracting the
forces that impede humankind till today; she remains essentially an activist who
loves to take on challenging subjects and seeks to grow in the process. She brings
choreographic and corporeal skills to her theatrical presentations as director and
actor, deepened by her learned and literary sensibilities and visions.
Maya Krishna Rao an Indian theatre artist, writer, director, stand-up comedian
and social activist, was born in New York City and moved to India at a young age.
Rao’s interest in theatre goes back to the 50s and 60s. Her mother, Bhanumathi
Rao, a keen Bharatanatyam dancer and actor who was associated with the Malay-
alam Theatre and popular for her vidhivesham (clown role) in the 1960s was her
inspiration. Bhanumati Rao’s plays, sketches and comic enactments became her
earliest stimulus. She says,

I used to be deeply embarrassed by this. And I used to resent being dragged

from school (Modern) to these events at Triveni, AIFACS hall, etcetera,
where huge crowds would come to watch. But, drop by drop, all this was
seeping into my system.
(Nair, 2017)

The Kerala Club in Connaught Place used to be the center of Rao’s theatre activi-
ties in the 1960s, particularly during the Onam, Vishu events. In the early 1960s,
Madhava Panicker, a Kathakaliasan (master), was invited to Delhi to teach Kathakali
to the children. The classes were held in Karol Bagh, and Rao remembers her tran-
sition from school uniform to dance clothes and practice:

A quick snack and change of clothes from skirt to salwar kameez – crouched
on the floor of the car – and I would be at the class which only had girls. For
some reason, I was always made to do male roles.
(Nair, 2017)

For eight years, she received lessons in Kathakali. It was in Miranda House where
she received her bachelor’s degree that she was introduced to Brecht and became
 Urban Proscenium Stage 135

smitten with him. Kathakali moved into the bottom-most rung of her life, and
being a modern artist became necessary. “We were mostly on-stage during col-
lege, we went little to class”, she admits. By the end of college, Rao was ready for
theatre. And Kathakali made a comeback in her life.

I was an idiot to leave it. But 10 years later the International Centre for
Kathakali came up in Delhi and I would go to Sadanam Balakrishnan (a
Kathakali maestro) for the sheer joy of practicing cholliyattam [mudras to
express the meaning of the songs].
(Nair, 2017)

Later, she went on to complete her master’s degree in political science from the
Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. She performed Kathakali, held workshops
and recorded padams in England, where she attained a degree in theatre arts from
the University of Leeds. In the United Kingdom, she worked briefy design-
ing programs of community interest with the Perspectives Theatre Company in
Nottingham and creating theatre programs for schools with the Leeds Playhouse
Theatre-in-Education Company.
She worked as Associate Professor in the department of acting at the National
School of Drama, New Delhi, between 1985 and 1990 and continued as visiting
faculty at the school thereafter. In 2013 she was appointed professor at the Shiv
Nadar University, Delhi, where she designed and taught a theatre curriculum for
educators and youngsters, TEST (Theatre for Education and Social Transforma-
tion), a frst of its kind in any institute of higher education in India. She has
also been much involved with children’s theatre, conceiving, scripting and direct-
ing a number of plays for the NSD’s TIE Company. She served as a member of
NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework Committee, for which she prepared a
drama syllabus for Classes I to XII.
Maya Krishna Rao received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (2010) for her
contribution to Indian theatre as an actor, which she returned fve years later fol-
lowing the 2015 Dadri mob lynching incident, citing the growth of intolerance in
India. She expressed her disappointment over the government’s failure to “speak
up for the rights of citizens”. In a letter addressed to Helen Acharya, the secretary
of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Rao expressed her disappointment. “The present
government has in spite of reminders from society, done little to stand up for the
right of people to express their thoughts and ideas and love the way they would
choose to in a free country”, she said (PTI, 2015). Claiming that universal issues
ranging from personal to individual rights are “under threat” daily, she said, “As
a woman artist of the country, I think it’s high time we all stand up to this”(PTI,
2015).
She was the founder-member of the street theatre group Theatre Union. Rao
scripted, directed and performed in street plays such as Om Swaha, a critique of
dowry, and Dafa No.180, a take on the Indian rape law between 1979 and 1982.
She has produced and performed to great acclaim in a string of fascinating solo
136 Urban Proscenium Stage

plays such as Ravanama, Are You Home, Lady Macbeth?, A Deep-Fried Jam, Heads Are
Meant for Walking Into and Quality Street, sourced from a short story by the Nigerian
writer Chimamanda Adichie. Her exciting play A Deep-Fried Jam wove together
contrasting elements from politics to Delhi’s jamun trees. Ravanama, one of her
popular plays, draws immensely from Kathakali:

I drew on how beautifully Kathakali imagines Ravana, his udbhavam [evolu-

tion]. It sees him as an accomplished character, and I went in search of as
many stories about him as possible. In the end, they all linked up to create
some great solutions.
(Nair, 2017)

A Doordarshan flm titled Portrait of Maya was made on her work and her con-
tributions to Indian theatre in 1997. She was included a book published by the
National Book Trust titled Women Who Dared, featuring 20 notable Indian women
of the last 50 years.
Rao was confused when she was asked to weave satire into a play on the 2012
Delhi gang rape within days of Jyoti Singh’s death. It was to be staged at a protest at
the Munirka bus stop where the horrifc events of the night of 16 December 2012
began and was then supposed to move to the annual Safdar Hashmi tribute on 1
January at Mandi House.

We were all walking around with a stone in our belly every day. Where was
I going to find comedy? Then in search of some music, I logged on to You-
Tube; the second piece I found started with the word walk.
(Nair, 2017)

Rao’s unique theatre of one is outspokenly feminist. Yet she sees the tragedy of
being a man in a patently patriarchal society. She says,

There are young men pouring into our cities every day. They interact and
work with women with minds of their own and then they go back to their
cloistered world. They suffer too. It still gives me goosebumps to think that
the boy who was beaten senseless that night on December 26th lives in the
same world as us.
(Nair, 2017)

Rao’s plays are characterised by sociopolitical themes, and she likes to keep her
works in progress, reworking themes for diferent contexts. From the Babri Masjid
episode and the Andhra farmer suicide to Manorama’s killing in Manipur and the
2012 Delhi gang rape, the script for her solo theatre mostly emerges from the day’s
newspaper, and most of the material is in her head anyway. She produced a body of
work that has provoked her audiences to delve into social and political issues. She
believes there is today a great thirst for theatre among the young and the old. Her
 Urban Proscenium Stage 137

own packed schedule is a pointer. Her dream now is to revive and restage her early
body of works for new audiences.

Feminism takes centre stage

. . . cross the river
To see the new world
To assume a new form
to create a new Rajya.
(Ambai, 2005, 439)

This “new world” of performance with women’s perspectives largely emerged in

the 1970s, in response to the prevailing male-centric narratives which towered over
the theatre space back then. The aim of the feminist movement was not merely to
discuss and debate about women’s issues; it was also to inspire women to become
thinkers, creators, writers and artists. The conceptions of female authority, art-
istry, autonomy and agency were debated in the early colonial period, despite the
marginalisation and undervaluation of women’s real contribution to theatre. As
women became more culturally and politically proactive, and in the face of the
debates on the immorality of women performers and discourses on respectability,
women entered the colonial Shakespearean stage, the Parsi theatre and even the
folk performances. In the 1920s these practices become popular in the commercial
theatres. This tradition of performance emerged in tandem with women’s fght
for equal rights. Indeed, the movements are inextricably linked. The surfacing
of women-centric stories not only gave a diferent perspective and expression of
women’s issues, but also led to new insights and a more realistic representation of
women, their lives, their relationships, their sexuality and their desires and carved
out a diferent space for women.
The appearance of women on stage was a great innovation of Calcutta The-
atre. Actresses acquired a presence on the modern Bengali stage through Lebedef’s
production in 1795; Mrs Bristow founded a private theatre (1789–1790) in her
Chowringhee house where she entertained her wide circle of friends. Mrs. Leach
opened a theatre named Sans Souci Theatre (1839–49) at Waterloo Street. The
entrance of the native actresses on stage became popular only from the latter half
of the 18th century, with the staging of Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Sharmishtha
in 1873 by the Bengal Theatre. Mostly, the women like Elokeshi, Ganga Baiji,
Golapshundari, Khetramoni, Lakkhimoni, Rajkumari and Binodini who appeared
on the stage were drawn from the disreputable strata of society. Parsi theatre (popu-
lar around 1850–1950) was most intriguing for its use of gender and cross-dressing.6
Around the 1930s women were seen enacting the roles of the heroines in the
drama. Actresses were frst introduced in Kanpur Nautankis where they received
better remuneration than men. Gulab Bai, from the backward Bedia caste, was the
frst women to perform in Nautanki. She became Laila in Laila-Majnun, Shirin in
Shirin Farshad, Taramati in Harishchandra and Farida in Bahadur Ladki. Gulab Bai
138 Urban Proscenium Stage

joined the theatre at the early age of 12 years old and gained her fame and recogni-
tion by the late 1930s. Though women’s appearance onstage was taking baby steps
and was encountering many impediments, at least they could tear away from the
claustrophobic pull of morality. In the late 20th century, this set-up underwent
an alteration with the rise of feminist awareness. Women started venturing into
unexplored tracks as playwrights, directors, actors, choreographers, painters and
light managers.
The formation of organisations like Women’s Indian Association (WIA), the
National Council of Indian Women (NCIW) and the All India Women’s Confer-
ence (AIWC), in 1917, 1926 and 1927 respectively, acted as an impetus for the
feminist movement. The women’s movement gradually became popular through
political stirrings like the freedom movement, the Sampoorna Kranti (Total Revo-
lution Movement) and the JP Movement in Bihar around the 70s. The Chipko
movement in the Garhwal Himalaya gained its energy from the womenfolk who
protested against the indiscriminate felling of trees; the campaign in the tribal belt
of Madhya Pradesh also included the slogan for equal wages for women’s labour.
The glaring invisibility of women was found in “Towards Equality: Report of the
Committee on the Status of Women in India” (1974) by the Ministry of Education
and Social Welfare. This created concern as to the status of women in India, lead-
ing to large-scale research and the institutionalisation of women’s studies. In 1977,
Manushi, a progressive women’s magazine, was started by a Delhi-based women’s
group in both English and Hindi. The 1970s created new debates around the
question of women’s autonomy and agency. And the feminist movement found
a voice through theatre over the last few decades. All this stimulated a new spate
of theatrical activities and innovations and encouraged the visibility of women in
public spaces. In 1979, Safdar Hashmi’s Jan Natya Manch (People’s Theatre Front)
staged street play titled Aurat, which engaged with themes like bride burning and
dowry harassment. Dramatic works followed suit articulating gender inequality,
social exclusion, issues of illiteracy, class, caste struggle, the vestiges of feudalism
persisting in rural India and the difculties of being a woman. The actress, already
an accepted fgure since IPTA’s formation in 1943, was now widely seen perform-
ing on the stage and the streets.
The prominent modern dramatists Tendulkar (1928–2008), Badal Sircar (1925–
2011), Mohan Rakesh (1925–1972) and Girish Karnad (1938–2019), credited
with creating modern Indian drama in the 1960s, expressed serious concern about
gendered violence through their plays. They created powerful woman characters
like Savitri in Mohan Rakesh’s play Aadhe Adhure (Halfway House), Benare in
Vijay Tendulkar’s play Khamosh! Adalat Jari Hai (Silence! The Court Is in Session)
and Padmini in Girish Karnad’s play Hayavadana (The Horse Faced). These plays
indict a male-dominated society, refecting a feminist viewpoint with women at the
centre in their tussle against the man or in their quest to complete themselves by
looking for an ideal partner. The violence inherent in these plays was far broader
and did not signify merely physical violence or torture; it also meant the interper-
sonal relationship between dominance and violence, not only male authority over
 Urban Proscenium Stage 139

females but also vice versa. The underlying implication was that human relation-
ships were power relationships, and power relationships were based on built-in
violence. Objectifcation of women and marriage as an institution were interro-
gated in Tendulkar’s Kamala. In its climatic scene, the play confates the extreme
sexual violence of the sale of a tribal girl, Kamala, in the Luharpura village market
in Madhya Pradesh for a mere 250 rupees and the modern educated women’s
condition as not being very diferent. Ghasiram Kotwal makes a sacrifce out of
Gauri. It is only after bartering Gauri and gaining the kotwali (police headquarters)
of Poona that he is able to assert himself both socially and politically. Badal Sircar’s
Pagla Ghora looks at women characters and sees how they are crucially silenced or
blacked out. Mostly, these plays revolve around what men do to women. Thus,
this modern century gave rise to a genre of theatre expressing a “new voice” and
throwing new insights into the condition of women to create a distinct room for
them.
The emergence of women-centric narratives extended a fresh perspective on
women’s questions and also created a more convincing representation of women,
their lives, their relationships, their sexuality and their desires. Female directors,
once an oddity, were now at the frontage, and names like Ipsita Chandra, Chama
Ahuja, Usha Ganguly, Sheila Bhatia, B. Jayashree, Arundhuti Raje, Nadira Babbar,
Anuradha Kapur, Amal Allana, Neelam Mansingh Chowdhary, Tripurari Sharma,
Usha Ganguly, Saoli Mitra, Swatilekha Sengupta, Sohini Sengupta, B. Gauri, V.
Padma and many others became recognisable. In the 1960s and 70s, Vijaya Mehta,
Shanta Gandhi and Dina Gandhi, Sheila Bhatia and Joy Michael, with her group
Yatrik, produced experimental theatres and brought a new sensibility to the theatre,
ultimately altering the way women were perceived through meaningful, creative
work. The emphasis on women’s experiences infuenced and reshaped the artistic
process of realising play scripts on the stage.
The sisters Shanta Gandhi (1917–2002) and Dina Gandhi (1922–2002) were
connected with IPTA in various capacities as dancers, performers and directors.
They experimented with the traditional in consonance with the prevailing return-
to-roots movement. The creative use of Bhavai in Jasma Odan and Meena Gurjari
served as a paradigm for almost the whole of India. Dina Gandhi created Rangli,
a counterpart of Rangla, as a choral centre for herself. Shanta Gandhi’s 1967 play
Jasma Odan was based on a Gujarati legend on the practice of sati. It was a tale of a
woman and her fght against power politics; she chooses her husband and gives up
her life instead of marrying the king who had become enamoured of her.
Vijaya Mehta, a Marathi theatre director, came to prominence around the
1950s with her work as an actor/director. She was a founding member of the
Mumbai-based experimental theatre group Rangayan, along with playwright Vijay
Tendulkar and actors Arvind Deshpande and Shreeram Lagoo. Rangayan was an
unusual combination of talented playwrights, experimental plays and young com-
mitted actors with a high degree of professionalism. She received the Sangeet Natak
Akademi Award (1975) for excellence in direction. In directing Dalvi’s play Savitri,
she unwittingly ended the play with the death of the protagonist to keep up with
140 Urban Proscenium Stage

the demands of the audience. In the play text, the female protagonist was left alone
when the married man with whom she was staying returned to his wife. Mehta
was devoted to the female cause but never adopted “gender as a political stance.
[But] she doesn’t forget and doesn’t let you forget that she is a woman director”
(Subramanyam, 2002, 28). The women directors who emerged during 70s and 80s
not only set a distinctly diferent convention to theatre in its theme, structure, aes-
thetics and characterisation, but in the process, they also evolved a new language of
theatre to bring in the voices of women. They were oriented towards questioning
the essentializing of gender stereotyping; the process of showing, using Butlerian
terms, how bodies are “materialised as sexed”; and how men and women are made
(Butler, 1993, xi).
Neelam Mansingh Chaudhury’s directorial work, such as Jean Giraudoux’s The
Madwoman of Chaillot; Surjit Patar’s Kitchen Katha, Girish Karnad’s Nagamandala
and Punjabi adaptations of Racine’s Phaedra and Lorca’s Yerma, has been marked by
imaginative employment of theatrical arts and narrative material from her native
Punjab, welded to contemporary themes. She received the Sangeet Natak Akademi
Award (2003) and Padma Shri Award (2011) for her contribution to Indian theatre
as a director. Her innovative theatre group of both urban and rural performers, set
up in 1984, was simply called The Company. Lorca’s Yerma, in her direction, does
not encase women to any ready-made stereotyped interpretation but rather allows
for generosity and development of her own character. She, like other women
directors, breaks the traditional confnes through costumes, gesture, speech and
temperament. In the twig and fre scene in Neelam’s theatre, Yerma’s longing for
a child, for her husband’s love, is prominently brought to the stage where Yerma
sings and laments, tossing on the ground as the female impersonators stand passive
and stolid. The woman has remained a focal point in her productions.
B. Jayshree the Kannada actor, singer and director, focused on experimenting
with the regional forms of theatre. In her direction of the play Agnipath, she used
the dying art of Gondaligas. She used this form, fusing aspects of rhythm and
movement from Yakshagana, the traditional art form of Karnataka. She selected
fve women from Indian epics and concentrated on their sense of identity, defying
the conventional norms. She herself played the role of Draupadi in Uriya Uyyala, a
play that foregrounds the inner consciousness of Draupadi.
Amal Allana has directed more than 40 plays, including Mahabhoj, Himmat Mai,
Nagamandala, King Lear, Hayavadana, Adhe Adhure, Ashad ka Ek Din and Aurat
Bhali Ramkali. Allana received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1998) for her
contribution to Indian theatre as a director. Allana introduced a style of theatre that
makes it all right for a woman to tell the story from the woman’s point of view.
She says, “It took me a while to realise that as a director, my interventions were
coming from my own experience as a woman” (Ghosh, 2010). In her production
of Nati Binodini, she makes Binodini speak as a sutradhar for it is Binodini who
puts her benefactor, Girish Ghosh, under scrutiny. She was acutely aware that a
woman’s life is made up of many tracts, and hence, her most truthful representa-
tion could only be in fragments. For this she introduced fve women on stage to
 Urban Proscenium Stage 141

play the one role of Binodini. She introduced Manohar Singh in the lead role as
Himmat Mai or Mother Courage, a woman, and later made him also act the role
of a man who wants to be a woman in Begum Barwe. This casting was a conscious
decision to comment on the practice of female impersonations and to deconstruct
the prevalent gender norms, and androgyny became part of her entire vocabulary
for expressing multiple identities.
Anuradha Kapur extended this theme of cross-dressing in her The Job and Sun-
dari. The Job is based on a story in which a woman is forced to adopt the attire
and behaviour of a man to assign herself surreptitiously to her husband’s job. The
biography of the legendary actor Jayashankar of Gujarat forms the basis of Sundari.
The scripts of both these plays evolved during the rehearsal process with emphasis
on non-linearity. Kapur defnes her theatre as “attempts to present the corporeal
. . . the embodied nature of subjectivity” (2001, 10). She is best known for her
play Umrao Jaan, based on a story stereotyping the life of a courtesan and project-
ing women as sexual objects. It shows a middle-aged woman who once lived the
glamorous life of a courtesan. Ageing is central to the play and is seen as positive,
and not something that closes possibilities, and “Umrao’s closing speech is about
living, but not living according to prescription” (Subramanyam, 2002, 236). The
moralistic epilogue present in Mohammed Hadi Ruswa’s novel Umrao Jan Ada,
of discretion to make women learn from their mistakes, was abandoned, and an
innovative ending was placed instead, in which she does not view her life as that of
a fallen woman. Rather, she defnes herself as “an intelligent woman”, “placed in
a mixed situation” from which she derived the maximum. This theme is appropri-
ately staged (with the assistance of Nilima Sheikh, a renowned painter) by painting
eight scenes with a golden background on a wheel with no specifcity of time and
no particular locale, which at the end collage to form a confguration. This formed
the background to the ultimate scene where Umrao is lying with her feet towards
the audience and slowly turns around. Her last line in the play – “I now turn
over”. (Turnover – into a new life? Another leaf? Start over?) (Kapur, 2001, 9). In
the director’s expression, Umrao is “not growing old, [rather] moving beyond it”
(Kapur, 2001, 5–12).
Tripurari Sharma has focused on the subjects of women, children, workers,
tribal peoples and the evils of the caste system in her productions. Her early works
were showcased through the group Alarippu, which she established in 1983 with
the express purpose of generating social awareness among people. This group
presented successful plays such as Reshmi Rumaal (1986), on the lives of women
in cloistered homes; Daire (1989), dealing with the relationship of a mother and
daughter; The Gift and Gadariya Raja, all written and directed by her. While direct-
ing Mohan Rakesh’s Aadhe Adhure, she almost altered the traditional interpretation
of Savitri by viewing her character through the lens of open-mindedness and com-
passion. Her play A Tale from the Year 1857: Azizun Nisa reclaims the voice of the
“loose” woman, a courtesan, Azizun Nisa, who voluntarily retired from her pro-
fession to enlist as a soldier during the Indian independence struggle. By analysing
the agency and voice of unruly subjects, courtesans ofered an unrecognised archive
142 Urban Proscenium Stage

of politics engaged in disrupting binaries of sexuality versus nationalism, caste set

against gender, class opposed to caste and gender contrasted with regional pride.
Anamika Haskar’s Antar Yatra (Interior Journey, 1993) was an experimental non-
proscenium performance based on a Tamil epic. As a poetic journey about women,
it explored the journey of a woman: the wife, the courtesan and the ascetic. Antar
Yatra questioned stereotypes around the identity of women and blended traditional
art and performance with contemporary thoughts. The performance was staged
by a specially constructed circular text opened at the rear into a seventy-foot-deep
feld, purposely to project a depth that seemed infnite. This wide feld became an
imaginary space, mental prospect and dreamscape.
Thus, every efort of women directors was targeted at the exploration of the
woman’s inner life and asserting their rightful position in society. One can safely
enumerate some striking commonalities among the women directors. Their themes
are women-centric, with non-linear plots; the narrative structures, resolution and
climax are indeterminate; they shatter stereotyped characters, explore the inner
unacknowledged world of women, re-examine and revise histories and mytholo-
gies, question prevailing impervious ideologies, unmask social instances associated
with gender discrimination, shift time sequences and use interior monologue and
striking imagery, all to make up a feminist text. This counteractive force prompted
critical responses from the established tradition. Charges were made of their inco-
herence, overfowing imagery, out-of-control narrative structure and unresolved
and loose resolution and climax. However, these criticisms do not hold much
ground; in refusing any kind of resolutions, the performances facilitated the chal-
lenging of the socio-political normativity. Their emphasis on history, myth and
legends did not and does not preclude engagement with contemporary practice.
On the contrary, it was felt that history was very much part of the contemporary
and that the two could, and should, be confated. Feminist retrieval projects of
the 1980s were done by Indian historians, social scientists and feminist critics like
Ritu Menon, Gail Omveldt, Kumkum Sangari, Romila Thapar and Iravati Karve,
who made bold attempts to re-interpret certain episodes in the Mahabharata, the
Ramayana and some Puranas; this also impacted theatre. The theme of represent-
ing women fgures in order to alter the complete notion of what it feels to be a
woman is efciently handled by modern feminist playwrights. They select women
fgures from mythologies and either recast them with voice, agency and individu-
ality or free them of their patriarchal interpretations and project with potency to
bring change in societies’ perception of women. Feminist plays written around
the 1970s were deconstructing the emasculating structures of ancient legends and
criticising the feminine myths still operating in Indian society. In the process, they
exposed the biased rules, discriminatory practices and meaningless rituals that
justify and protect the caste-based and gender-based oppression of the margin-
alised of society. Bhisham Sahni’s Madhavi (1984), Varsha Adalja’s Mandodari, C. N.
Sreekantan Nair’s Kanchana Sita – A Play, Snehalata Reddy’s Sita, Mallika Sarabhai’s
Sita’s Daughters, Poile Sengupta’s Thus Spake Shoorpanakha, So Said Shakuni, Saoli
Mitra’s Five Lords, Yet None a Protector, Mallika Sarabhai’s In Search of the Goddess,
 Urban Proscenium Stage 143

Rabindranath Tagore’s Chitra and Mangai’s Frozen Fire. Sabitri Heisnam, in per-
forming the role of Draupadi in Kanhailal Heisnam’s Draupadi (2000), challenges
the rape script of sufering and shamed victim by standing stark naked in front of
her rapists, terrorising them with her naked state. Sabitri’s performance transmutes
the proscenium space into a space of revolt against the violation of human rights.
In its pursuit of feminist themes, it questions male-dominated discourses and chal-
lenges institutions forcing conformity.
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry is of the opinion that some sort of glass ceiling
was fnally shattered, and most women who espoused feminism were directed by
the motivation to control their own stories and histories and retell them in their
own way because women were being seen as equal to men, in positions of power, as
decision-makers. “I think a silent revolution was happening; then, some works didn’t
have a beginning, middle, and an end, like a regular narrative. They changed the way
stories were presented”(Chandani, 2018). However, she does subscribe to the idea
of a women’s theatre: “[T]here is some kind of ghettoisation at play. But all we want
is to try and evolve a performative language in our own way and be recognised as
artists” (Chandani, 2018). “Women directors are concerned more with this process
of gendering than they are inventing a ‘woman’s language’” (Kapur, 2001, 5) for the
proper treatment of female issues. This language does not converge to project a holis-
tic picture; rather, it consists of breaks, distortions, so that the plays appear episodic.
A brief glance at some recent plays produced, directed and performed by women
would reveal new trends and themes. Several working Indian female playwrights
we could readily name include Purva Naresh. She is an accomplished playwright,
director, dancer, pakhawaj player and actor. Her play Ok Tata Bye Bye had a reading
in London. She did a commissioned adaptation of Amana Fontanella-Khan’s book
Pink Sari Revolution into a play for Leicester’s Curve Theatre and has performed
plays at the Writers’ Bloc, Aadyam and her own group, Aarambh, started in 2010.
Ninaz Khodajee, a prospective Parsi dramatist, has written three plays which have
been produced and has directed eight professional ventures and also acted in 18
productions. Insomnia (frst produced in Oval House Theatre, London, in 2004)
has as its backdrop the communal riots of Mumbai in 1993, when the city was rav-
aged by religious riots and bombings. Irawati Karnik, a playwright, theatre director
and actor, is a fne arts graduate of the J J School of Arts. She was the recipient
of the 2008 Sangeet Natak Akademi Youth Award. Her frst English play, Satellite
City, is about a de-addiction group for television junkies. Some other names are
Kalki Koechlin, Anupama Chandrashekhar, Deepika Arwind and Ayeesha Menon,
among so many others.
Gokhale concedes that there has been a change in the way women are perceived
and represented but questions the expression of empowerment in theatre.

The old kind of suffering where the audience wept in sympathy – those
kinds of play don’t get made anymore. But the question now stands is that
when you show a woman being manipulated or exploited, how do you
depict it? Do you show her as a helpless victim, or do you show that she has
144 Urban Proscenium Stage

some agency so that despite the exploitation, she is aware that she is being
exploited and is able to find weapons to fight back?
(Iyengar, 2019)

Today, women are not only changing narratives and writing plays but also run-
ning their own theatre groups. They are producing, directing and performing
signifcant plays across the world. The last two decades have seen women’s voices
asserting and being integrated into mainstream Indian theatre. Theatre groups now
organise festivals and workshops to encourage and celebrate women in the feld.
According to Mallika Taneja,

I think any woman who does something out of the ordinary is looked at and
thought about differently. In my experience, doing something out of the box
is empowering. There may be people who hate you, but personally, I have
found a lot of love and encouragement in the theatre.
(Chandani, 2018)

With an ever-expanding cultural landscape, there is a phenomenal change in the

way young artists are innovatively using theatrical space, interconnecting the whole
spectrum of gender concerns from the personal to the political, revisiting episodes
from older plays to ft the new context. With the regrowth of right-wing politics,
they are also relooking at communalism along with issues like sexual violence,
marital rape and masculinity.
All these diverse sites and styles provided women with opportunities to engage
in solo performance and to develop unique performance practices. The genre of
self-written solo performances by women fourished and became popular prosce-
nium and/or street presentations in the cities in the 1980s. For example, Mallika
Sarabhai’s solo performances of her scripts (In Search of Goddess, 2000; Sita’s Daugh-
ters, 1990; Shakti – The Power of Women, 1989) subvert the mythical women and
rewrite the icons as powers of Shakti for modern women through the use of dance
and Brechtian dialogue with the audience and narration. Saoli Mitra’s solo perfor-
mance on Draupadi was titled Nathvati Anathvat (Five Lords, Yet None a Protector,
1983). In the play, she is the sutradhara (storyteller), the kathak (dancer) and the per-
former and efectively conveys Draupadi’s version of the tale. Mita Vashista’s solo
performance Lal Ded (2004) is based on her research on the life of the medieval
Kashmiri mystic poetess Lal Ded. Mita enacts the play as a theatrical collage of the
poems, songs, thoughts and philosophies of Lal Ded. Some other contemporary
solo performances which are widely performed are Maya Rao’s Walk, Jyoti Dogra’s
Notes on Chai, Ira Dubey’s 9 Parts of Desire, Kalki Koechlin’s Just Another Rant,
Seema Pahwa’s Saag Meat and Poornima Shettygar’s Truck. Delhi-based theatre art-
ist Mallika Taneja’s 12-minute solo satirical piece takes an active stance of protest
against sexual abuse and victim shaming. Thoda Dhyaan Se (Be Careful) takes on
the regressive brouhaha around how women should dress; it is a call-out of those
who fnd a woman’s choice of clothing to be the reason for her abuse. The play is
 Urban Proscenium Stage 145

a reaction to the Shakti Mills gang rape case of a photojournalist. It was developed
in an assignment in 2013 at the Tadpole Repertory in New Delhi. The perfor-
mance was provoked by her own anger; it uses her own body in protest against
gender inequality, sexual harassment and assault and critiques the injunctions given
to women as cares and confnes by a patriarchal society. She stands on stage in her
lingerie and, breaking the traditional fourth wall, addresses the audience directly
and challenges the society in no uncertain terms. In her performance, she satirises
the sanctions prescribed to women on how to avert the male gaze and prevent rape
and sexual violence by adjusting and changing the way they dress. In a gender-
unequal world where women are still blamed for the actions of men, artists like
Usha Ganguly, Maya Rao and Mallika Taneja, among others, use their creativity to
push forward and enact changes in a persistent structure of inequality.

Performance as protest: theatrical responses to

the Delhi gang rape
The dead leave the living with a burden. When going to their deaths – they
would shout to us: Those who survive – tell the world!
(Farber, 2008, 188–189)

Jyoti Pandey, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student, was gang raped on the evening of
16 December 2012 in southwest Delhi’s Munirka by six men on a moving bus. She
was later airlifted to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore for more extensive medi-
cal care. Thirteen days later, on 29 December, she died of liver failure. Protests broke
out across India from streets to social media and exploded into global view. Numer-
ous pseudonyms were used for Pandey – “Nirbhaya” (fearless) “Damini” (lightning),
“Jagrti” (awareness) and “Amanat” (treasure) – due to sex-assault-victim privacy laws
in India. However, her mother, Asha Devi, said she wanted her daughter’s name
made public because she was not reluctant to name her and that victims and families
of violent crimes must not be made to feel embarrassed. The crime against Nirbhaya
made national and international headlines, and the horrifc deed led to mass demon-
strations and protests throughout India. The crime was so extreme that it stunned the
world and sparked a series of discussions about sexual-assault laws and rudely shook
the Indian legal system into reassessing its safeguards for women. The conversation
surrounding gender and sexual abuse became louder than ever and inspired the the-
atre community within and outside the country to respond to this event. Nirbhaya’s
brutal death acted as a catalyst for new, widespread social and personal confrontation
with the misogyny and sexual violence rampant in Indian society.
Post–16 December, sexual violence as a theme acquired a new context on stage.
Mumbai-based director Rasika Agashe created the play Museum of Species in Dan-
ger (2013), with 12 sketches based on satirical monologues of women characters
from mythology (Sita, Surpanakha) and literary works, as well women from his-
tory and the contemporary world; cases enacted true-to-life episodes from the
lives of women. Most of the monologues are written and improvised by the actors
146 Urban Proscenium Stage

themselves. Soliloquies from Sita’s life transition to those of contemporary charac-

ters as victims of rape and acid attack survivors. Sita says that she was found in the
felds by King Janak, who picked her up not unlike the abandoned female children
found every so often. Later, when Ravana abducts, her she realises that Ravana is
not a bad man; he did not ever touch her without consent. The enactors, in turn
sarcastic and poignant, mince no words or expressions. (One of them twisted her
face to resemble an acid attack survivor throughout a monologue.) All the mono-
logues and poems are compiled and bound together by Sumedh in a script format,
strung together by satirical monologues and accompanied by folk singers and musi-
cians just after the Nirbhaya gang rape itself became a form of protest.
Nirbhaya, the Play (2015), is an agitprop documentary drama. The actress Poorna
Jagannathan, with her own baggage of experience of sexual abuse as a child and as a
young adult, chanced upon a Facebook post by South African theatre director Yael
Farber about Nirbhaya’s death and decided to collaborate with her on a play. “I knew
there was a huge urge to break the silence around sexual violence here in India,
including my own. December 16 woke us up from what we considered normal”
(Bhatt, 2014). They did a workshop with seven actors. The testimonial-driven play
made its debut in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Writer-director Yael Farber’s pro-
duction Nirbhaya was created in collaboration with a team of six women and one man;
in it, not only is Nirbhaya’s story told but each of the actresses also, in turn, recounts
and enacts her tale of being the victim of abuse. The play is made up of several ele-
ments of ritual structure, confessional storytelling and poetic stage imagery. By sharing
these stories, Farber refects something of the real-life reaction to Nirbhaya’s murder,
which triggered protests across India as women stood up and took to the streets, refus-
ing to stay silent about the abuse they had been subjected to. The play is not only
about Nirbhaya’s story; fve women recall and describe their experiences of violence,
of child abuse, of gang rape in unstinting detail. Farber interweaves these women’s sto-
ries into patterns of recurring, refective images: of dirt and water, contamination and
chasteness, dark and light, the dead and the reborn. Above all, the play underlines the
image of a rupture which is double edged. The women’s narratives lay bare the holes
and pain created in their lives by the violence they have experienced. The production
looks like a sacred ritual. Incense smoke clouds hover over the stage, reminiscent of
a cremation ground; the performers move in synchronised, orchestrated movement.
In a far-reaching tribute in 2013, to commemorate the frst anniversary of Nirb-
haya’s plight, the People’s Theatre Association of Jawaharlal Nehru University in
New Delhi and theatre groups Swaang and Majma organised Jurrat: a week-long
event of Indian plays, skits, musical performances and speeches to mark the inci-
dent and ponder the safety of women in India one year on from the events (Malik,
2013). The play Ek Thi Nirbhaya (There Was One Nirbhaya) has been performed
by the members of Shree Umapati Theatre for the last fve years at diferent loca-
tions in Delhi. Pari Singh plays the role of Nirbhaya.

This was an incident that brought out extreme outrage in Delhiites, and
through our play, we want people to never forget December 16. . . .
 Urban Proscenium Stage 147

[T]hrough this play, we are trying to ensure that people understand how
crucial it is to talk about women’s safety. But things have not changed. Every
other day, we get to read about incidents like Nirbhaya, so in that sense, our
play has not succeeded yet. Which is why there’s no plan to stop the play.
(Sharma and Lal, 2017)

Asmita Theatre Group performer Davinder Kaur, an actor performing the play
Dastak, says “Our street plays are hard hitting We talk about acid attack victims,
molestation and harassment” (Sharma and Lal, 2017).
These dramatic renderings employing varying theatrical styles that are some-
times poetic, ritualistic and metaphorical, episodic narration from real victims, help
break down barriers of silence and resignation. Nirbhaya’s ordeal retold explicitly
or implicitly, with its strong serving of cathartic storytelling, leaves most audience
members reeling with questions, thoughts and responses and an immense urge to
expunge any of their own profoundly buried encounters of sexual violence from
long past.

Hum Mukhtara (We Are Mukhtaras): an agenda for

collective resistance
Usha Ganguly’s play Hum Mukhtara (We Are Mukhtaras)7 has been staged at dif-
ferent locations in India and internationally since its frst performance in Rabindra
Sadan, Kolkata, on 23 January, 2013, in celebration of the 37th anniversary of
Rangakarmee.8 Hum Mukhtara, as a docudrama, has a historic-political backdrop.
It is a theatrical interpretation of Mukhtara Mai’s9 memoir titled In the Name of
Honor: A Memoir.10 The play is sourced from a real-life incident that happened in
the life of an illiterate, unmarried Muslim woman Mukhtaran of Meerwala vil-
lage (Muzafargarh district) in southern Punjab, Pakistan. The clan’s jirga (village
council) demands revenge or atonement, restoration of honour, and, in a practice
that restates men’s antiquated rules of war and battle, Mukhtar’s body becomes its
tool. In Mukhtar’s case, an empathetic judge made her recognise that justice was
achievable. She received media support as well as an enterprising international
publisher ensured that the story was told and transcribed, published and popu-
larised. She was gang raped by six male members of the powerful local Mastoi
clan in 2002, on order of a village council following a family dispute. Mukhtara’s
12-year-old brother, Shaqoor, a low-caste boy from a poor Gujjar community, had
been accused of sexually harassing a high-caste 20-year-old Salma from the Mastoi.
Mukhtar’s ordeal was to atone for a crime said to have been committed by her
brother, and she was ofered as barter by her Gujar family to the powerful Mastois
in Meerwala village in Pakistan. In this case, the rape was meted out as punishment
for a false allegation of indiscretions against her younger brother about his having
taken advantage of a Mastoi girl. This incident was certainly not the frst account
of a female body being negotiated for honour in a family. However, unlike hun-
dreds of women who accept the violation of their bodies silently, Mukhtar Mai, the
148 Urban Proscenium Stage

survivor, had daringly preferred to fght back. She spoke up and pursued the case,
which was highlighted and supported by both domestic and international media.
In July 2002, the Pakistani government awarded her the sum of 8,500 US dollars
as compensation and sentenced her attackers to death. On 1 September 2002, an
anti-terrorism court condemned six men (including the four rapists) to death for
rape. But, in 2005, the Lahore High Court, citing “insufcient evidence”, exoner-
ated fve of the six sentenced men and transmuted the sentence of the sixth man
to a life sentence. Mukhtaran and the government appealed this pronouncement,
and the Supreme Court adjourned the acquittal, held appeal hearings and, in 2011,
released the accused. Mukhtar Mai lost her case, but she set an example for the
women of Pakistan and for women across the world by adhering to the appeal for
justice instead of seeking revenge. Her determination to face her adversaries on a
public platform was an unusually courageous choice in a society where legal frame-
works are sluggish and social acceptance problematic.
Mukhtar Mai started a school for girls and now runs Mukhtar Mai Women’s
Organization, (MMWO), founded in 2003, which works for women’s rights and
education. She now travels the world over and speaks for women and has become a
symbol for thousands of others who have survived similar predicaments. MMWO
is the guardian upholder of women’s rights and education in the Southern region
of Punjab Province, Pakistan, an area with some of the world’s cruelest cases of
women’s rights violations, such as rape, gang rape, domestic violence, honour
killing, Vani or Swara (trade of women in resolving the disputes) and forced and
child marriages. Beside activism and awareness operations, MMWO ofers legal,
paralegal and paramedical support and protection to approximately 500 survivors
of violence annually through Mukhtar Mai Women’s Resource Centre and Shel-
ter Home. In her inspiring memoir, Mai describes her experience and how she
became an agent for change and an example of hope for subjugated women around
the world. In the Name of Honor is an inspirational memoir of a woman who fought
and triumphed against exceptional odds.
Ganguly’s motivation was to work on a Hindi play that connects a host of
seemingly disparate incidents of honour and revenge in the subcontinent, inter-
twining the experiences of women of vastly diferent backgrounds. When her
teacher Maitreyee Sengupta suggested that she read the memoir, she was amazed
by the extraordinary courage and strength of purpose shown by an ordinary girl
from a remote village in Pakistan. She decided to portray the life of this brave girl
for the Indian audience as she realised everywhere there are many like Mukhtar
Mai who are victims of brutal torture and injustice in the court of law. They are
either not aware of their right to fght back or are too afraid of the consequences
to contest. Ganguly says:

I was shaken when I read Mukhtar Mai’s autobiography, In the Name of Hon-
our: A Memoir. And trust me, every day, in some of the other parts of the
world, a woman is abused. I don’t know a woman who has not been abused
mentally or physically. All this drove me to use the stage to create a differ-
 Urban Proscenium Stage 149

ence. My idea behind Hum Mukhtara was to raise awareness about Mai’s
battle to regain her lost dignity.
(Guha, 2013)

It made sense to her to connect the various incidents with what had happened
in Mukhtaran’s life. Along with the conception and performance of the play, she
also has plans in future to form a women’s theatre group with Madiha Gauhar of
Pakistan and Sara Zakir of Bangladesh. She believes it is crucial that women of the
subcontinent fnd their voices on stage (TNN, 2017).
The frst-person plural pronoun Hum as a prefx in the play’s title refers to one
or more other people considered together and symbolises the sensitivity of women
in this multiplicity, using Mukhtara’s story as a symbolic core. Hum Mukhtara and
sab Mukhtara (I am Mukhtara, and we all are Mukhtaras) function as a refrain
throughout the play. The name Hum Mukhtara points out that women across the
world are Mukhtaras because

all women have been abused, violated, victimised, humiliated and oppressed
at one time or another not only by men but more importantly, by family
members, society and the legal and judicial system of each country that holds
man as supreme and woman as one who should be controlled by man.
(Chatterji, 2015)

The title Hum Mukhtara straightforwardly speaks of the Mukhtar Mai buried in
all of us, waiting to come out. This collective appeals to the spirit of Bhaginivarg
(sisterhood) and this common identifcation that would multiply/trigger feminist
solidarity to transgress gender discrimination and androcentrism (Kumari et al.,
2016).
The play is rendered compelling through the innovations in form and structure,
turning Mukhtara into a unifed group voicing solidarity against patriarchy (Gan-
guly, 2015). Since its frst production, the shows are ongoing in diferent cities of
the country, and Mukhtara’s consciousness raising among the audience is reiter-
ated in strong terms: “I do not seek revenge, I am not cowed down by terror, all
I seek is justice” (Chatterji, 2015). The strong words reverberate the angry voices
of the people who were crying out against the gang rape and killing of Nirbhaya
and vociferously demanding justice. Ganguly deploys the theatrical interpretation
of Mukhtar Mai’s story to double up as a symbolic tribute to Nirbhaya, who was
raped and killed in Delhi in 2012. Mukhtar Mai is a woman unto herself. She also
becomes a symbol which represents all women across the world who have been not
only victimised by violence but are also twice beleaguered by the discriminatory
judicial system.
The play mixes narration, performance and songs. In the opening scene, an
aesthetic of immediacy is established; we are directly drawn into the character’s
experience. The play opens up on a conspicuous note with a group of young
women moving on stage briskly till they become a multitude: the members of
150 Urban Proscenium Stage

the cast, moving inexorably, by the rhythm of the performer’s movements, their
energy, pacing, circling, in the opening and intermittent sequences dressed in black
clothes, their faces covered with black veils (burqas) entering the stage. An older
woman with a red dupatta (scarf) standing out in relief leads the group and works
as both anchor-person and sutradhar (narrator), using the Greek chorus technique.
The props are minimal, and each of the props in the play, like ropes, masks, pup-
pets, lanterns and dupattas (scarfs) of diverse colours, is used variously and has a
symbolic aspect (Figure 4.1).
They enhance the tapestry of the performance and establish the mood for the
play. The background music used by Ganguly from the Russian composer Pyotr
Tchaikovsky deepens the efect of the play. The music is appropriately used as it
conveys gloom and softens when Mukhtara is overcome by grief, and the notes
heighten in celebratory defance of women.
The bodies of women move on stage, briskly enacting scenes from the memoir
to signify the collective power of women to initiate change in their lives. A chorus
similar to that of the classical Greek theatre is presented as a harmonised, non-
diferentiated group of people who, with persistence, express and comment with
a collective gesture, movement or voice on the dramatic action. These women are
like the Greek chorus. The dark setting, dressed entirely in black throughout the
play with their faces fully covered in black tends to make the women indistinguish-
able to the audience; possibly, this is done by design to underscore the violence
against women existing everywhere and mobility of women’s demonstration in

FIGURE 4.1 Usha Ganguly in Hum Mukhtara

(Source: Courtesy Pranab Basu)
 Urban Proscenium Stage 151

public spaces. The chorus returns with their faces concealed in black monochrome
burqas in the end, and their actions register silent dissent and seething rage.
The colour black is mostly seen as a symbol of something dark, evil and intimi-
dating. It is pervasive in the play. On one level, we can see the black masks and
black dresses as the dark, gory act that the rape represents and the darkness engulf-
ing the characters’ lives after the crime, in addition to the silence and complicity
of the society, as well as the unfriendly and unapproachable law. On another plane,
however, the blackness permeates the stage, its production and performance, the
aspects of physical action, as a march and medium of power and protest (Figure 4.2).
However, the two rapid scenes at the outset of the play (the unveiling of the mask
by the women and Ganguly’s proclamation of resistance) carry the essence of the
play: the women transgressing disciplinary boundaries as they signal their defance
against patriarchal authority. Mukhtara wears a white scarf along with the black
burqa (veil), symbolizing her purity and innocence even though she has been defled.
The white scarf also stands for her faith and the beginning of her transformation
from a victim to an empowered individual. The narrator, on the other hand, wears
a red scarf, which is symbolic of her role as the one from whom powerful energy
emanates. It also depicts her rage against the inhuman, brutal act that forms the core
of the play. Mukhtara, along with the narrator, stands out as a member of the group
of women. Each member in this chorus epitomises Mukhtar Mai collectively and
individually; when the actors choreograph the brisk movements, move in a group
and join a queue to depict the communal force, Mukhara’s claiming a fair deal, and,

FIGURE 4.2 Usha Ganguly in Hum Mukhtara

(Source: Courtesy Pranab Basu)
152 Urban Proscenium Stage

at other times, a single young woman breaks away to face the audience to showcase
their individuality and become Mukhtar Mai demanding justice.

Through mobilization, bodies traverse a given terrain that by traversing, they

constitute . . . Mobilization foregrounds th[e] process of how bodies are
made, how they are assembled, and how demands for space produce a space
of identifiable demands through a practical activity.
(Martin, 1998, 4)

The use of the mask in theatrical performances to hide and to protect gained
popularity in Greece and Italy; however, here, the use of the mask is not for imper-
sonation or disguise but to emphasise the collective uprising of nameless, faceless
women (Figure 4.3).
The mask glides of to display their real faces, sometimes as women per se,
sometimes as protesting women and sometimes as mothers, symbolised by the
puppets they hold in their arms. The chorus is used as a trope to universalise
Mukhtara’s plight, i.e., as something sufered by all women in general, and their
resistance to sexual exploitation and violence all over the world, thus justifying the
word “Hum” (We) in the title of the play.
The universality of the theme is hammered repeatedly in the play by the char-
acters. At the outset, Mukhtara spells out that her tale does not belong to the realm
of fairy tales, nor has she descended from the dark skies. Still, her story is grounded
in reality and portrays the curves in her life and charts how she has coped with the
darkness and difculties that plagued her life:

Hum Mukhtara, na adhero se, na ujale se, na zamin se, na asman se, na pariyo ki
dastan se, na Alif Laila ke qisso se; keval apne naqse-qadam par calti hui torti adhero
ki galiya, hum Mukhtara, sab Mukhtara. [We are Mukhtara(s), neither from the
darkness, nor from the light, neither from the earth nor from the sky, neither
from the fairy tales nor from the stories of Alif Laila, only striding on our
own planned path and streaming forward shattering the shackles of darkness.
We are Mukhtara(s), all of us Mukhtara(s).]

The story of Mukhtara is a strong statement of her relentless resilience in the

face of violence. It is presented as a warning not to be passive or mute in the face of
violence but to act and restore and retrieve one’s self-respect. She promises to take
her stand not just individually but collectively:

Na banengi hum mom ki battiyaan, banengi hum dhadhakti mashaalien . . . hum

Mukhtara, sab Mukhtara . . . ek baar nazar daudao, udhar dekho . . . sab Mukhtara.
[We are not going to be wax candles. We will become burning torches,
glance around once, see that side, we all are Mukhtara.]

echoes in the hall as the curtains come down with the women chanting these lines.
 Urban Proscenium Stage 153

The narrator is the sutradhara of the play, as well as a part of Mukhtara’s con-
sciousness and, at diferent points in time, the other women in the chorus. The
characters challenge all forms of oppression with an intensity in their declara-
tion; they swear to graze, tear, break the culture that encourages violence against
women. Once again, the similarity of their fate in a patriarchal culture is under-
lined, and faith in the communal bond is maintained:

Hargiz nahi bilkul nahi, toregi chuppi ki divaro ko, aur sannate ke maqbara ko. . . .
nochti rahegi pharti rahegi adhero ko, bas adhero ko. Hum Mukhtara, sab Mukhtara.
[Never, ever; we’ll break the wall of silence and the tombs of silence. . . .
[W]e’ll be grazing and shredding away the darkness, only the darkness. We
are Mukhtara(s), all of us Mukhtara(s).]

Bringing in Nirbhaya as a point of reference for an audience who are well aware
of the gory details of Nirbhaya’s rape and death: how her guts were frayed apart as
she was thrown from a moving bus, left on the streets to writhe in pain and die,
Ganguly passionately asserts that there will be zero tolerance for violence against
women: it will not be accepted. They refuse to be cowed by the violence they are
subjected to: “[A]pne pet ki sari atriya cirvakar jeene ki tamanna lekar Nirbhaya ki tarah
jite ji mar jau”. (Even if all our intestines are ripped apart like Nirbhaya, we will still
tenaciously cling to the hope to live.)
Sexual violence is often deployed as a means of coercive control and assertion
of power. It is used as a punishing mechanism to monitor women’s movements,
to degrade, reproach and humiliate their sense of self-dignity and self-esteem.
Mukhtara asserts that false notions of shame, guilt and honour will not bother
them, and they will bravely confront social inhibitions, casting of guilt, humilia-
tion and passivity:

Kyo laute qadam hamare piche? Na muregi, na sarm se jeeangi. Hum Mukhtara. Na
banegi ham mom ki battiya, hava se bahakkar guzarnevali mom ki battiya, har bar
pighalkar guzarnevali mom ki battiya. Na banegi hum mom ki battiya. Banegi ham
jalti masale, tez hava se larti masale. . . . Na rukegi, na jhukegi, dharakti masala.
[Why should we step back? We’ll neither turn back nor live embarrassing
lives. We are Mukhtara(s). We are not going to be wax candles, candles of
wax smothered by quivering in the breeze, every time being snuffed by dis-
solving like wax candles.]

The narrative moves ahead, and Mukhtar has to be sacrifced for her brother’s
alleged crime. Son preference and the value of sons over a daughter are demon-
strated when the father has no qualms in foregoing the daughter as a penalty for the
son’s purported crime: “[A]p jo kahege ham manne ke liye taiyar haı, ap sirf hamare bete
shaqoor ko chor deejiye” [Whatever you say, I’m ready to accept, but you must release
my son Shaqoor.] Mukhtar had to take the blame for her brother’s actions and
later was gang raped by four men, including a man from the Jirga (village council)
154 Urban Proscenium Stage

She was released after 90 minutes of brutal torture and paraded naked amidst the
onlookers.
The rape scene that follows is set in a highly metaphorical manner with images,
colours and shrieks followed by utter silence. Non-realism is deployed very pow-
erfully here, allowing for the use of choruses, choreography and ensemble work.
Ganguly gives Mukhtara the voice and agency to speak of her plight and divests
the oppressors of their speech. Rape is represented allusively, aesthetically and sym-
bolically; she eschews showing it mimetically, realistically or naturalistically, instead
using background music, coloured robes, shrieks and the sounds of a horse to
connote the act and create the impression of the horror of the action. Ganguly
uses Bertolt Brecht’s theatrical techniques as a useful means for feminist revisions
of dramatic realism. Her performance articulates a relationship between actor and
spectator wherein both become critical observers (not without empathy) of the
actions the actor performs. The play manufactures and manipulates actions that
were both themselves and symbolic of larger social practices. The stylised perfor-
mance efectively alienates the audience from the spectacle by denying the viewers
any scopophilic pleasure and almost becomes a space for critical observation and
change. Her theatrical representation of rape undoes the voyeuristic illustration of
rape, and this aids in contesting misogyny and rape.
The symbolistic and the graphic stage add dimensions to our understanding of
the play. Ganguly has used her challenging theatrical strategies. She used the cho-
rus as a backdrop, prop or setting to support the central subject and interaction of
characters. The lighting was employed to emphasise each mood of the performer.
Physical space in the play was defned mostly by the narrator’s movements between
two worlds: the performance world of the narrator and the textual world inhabited
by the characters she played. Using voice modulations, stage movements, body
language and minimal props, she negotiates with the complex realities that each of
her stage roles demands. Ganguly’s dexterous deployment of theatricality, colour,
movement and music intensifes the mood of the play.
Mukhtara is gang raped and momentarily overpowered by grief and despair, let
down by the society and by her parents. For no fault of hers, she sufers extreme
despair. It is a life-in-death situation for her; she sufers from low self-regard; she
feels utterly violated by the hideous act. According to Cahill, “rape must be under-
stood fundamentally . . . as an afront to the embodied subject . . . a sexually specifc
act that destroys (if only temporarily) the intersubjective, embodied agency and
therefore personhood of a woman” (2001, 13). It becomes difcult for Mukhtara to
reconstitute herself as a subject. She utters a long, painful, heart-rending monologue:

Maı vaha thi, phir vaha nahi thi. Maı vaha hu, phir vaha nahi. Maı yaha hu, phir
yaha nahi. . . . Kaha hu maı? Zinda hu, phir zinda nahi. Kaisa hota hai jite ji mar
jana, gunah kie bagair sarm se mar jana? Mera yah jism, mere dono bazu, meri ye
ugliya, yah kuch bhi mera nahi. Meri dono ․tage bhi meri nahi, ve ghasitte
․ hue maz-
but baho se ghore ke astabal me le jate haı. . . . Mere kapro ko nocte hue, khasotte
hue. . . . Aur meri . . . cikhti hui avaz: “ya Allah, raham kar, raham kar mujhpar”.
 Urban Proscenium Stage 155

[I was there, but I was not. I am there, yet I’m not. I’m here, yet I’m not. . . .
Where am I? I am alive, yet I’m not. What is it like to be dead while living,
to die of disgrace without committing a crime? This body of mine, these two
hands, these fingers – none of these are mine. Even my two legs are not my
own. They drag me by their strong arms to the stable . . . preying and ripping
my clothes. . . . And my . . . shrieking, “O Almighty Allah, be compassion-
ate, have mercy on me.]

As a rape survivor, she has a feeling of being not only worthless, but also numb,
absent or deadened. The humiliation and shame often experienced by rape victims
are predictable results of experiencing total subjugation and the ultimate loss of
control of one’s body. The victim feels violated, defled or desecrated, and these
reactions are often exacerbated by cultural judgments of raped women as dirty and
impure or as “damaged goods” (Banerjee, 2003; Baxi et al., 2006; Ruggi, 1998).
Rape is not just a physical assault; it has a wider reach. It destroys the self. Feelings
of shame and disgrace become overpowering and compel the victim to be silent
about the deed out of the fear of scandal and dishonour. Speaking up against the
abuse entails a second victimisation. Sexual harassment invades a woman’s privacy,
threatens her sense of safety and often forces her to alter her path as she performs
her daily tasks. Mukhtara’s bodily abuse leading to her loss of self-respect forms in
her a desire to die:

Mera jineka koi maqsad nahi. . . . Jiskelie kuch na bacauska mar jana hi behtar. Ya
khuda, mar de mujhe, ab nahi jeena. [I don’t have any purpose to live. . . . One
should rather die who has nothing else remaining. O Almighty, kill me, don’t
want to live any further.]

Mukhatar sufers severe psychological damage, which causes extra stress, anxiety
and and fear. She ofers herself to us as a spectacle of feminine abjection; however,
this feeling of self-loathing, denigration and abjection soon leads her on to anger
and retaliation, and she vows to take revenge: “khatam kar dalugi banduq se unko. . . .
[B]arbad kar dalugi”. [I will shoot them with a gun. . . . I’ll destroy them.] Better
sense soon prevails, and she realises that the right way is to seek justice: “to “Badla
nahi, insaf cahie. Ya khuda . . . mujhe insaf dila, insaf”. [I want justice, not retaliation.
O Almighty, bequest me justice, justice.]
Many-hued ropes are seen hanging vertically on the stage, which take on
diverse connotations as the play progresses. The multiple ropes are the multiple
entrapments that a woman faces in her life. One is used to make a loop by a
troubled and distraught Mukhtara when she contemplates suicide. Conversely, the
same ropes that operate as the device for self-annihilation become a gun to enact
revenge. The women in the play are shown carrying puppet dolls to signify their
existence as voiceless, without agency, controlled and manipulated by others. In
the last analysis, the locus of Ganguly’s Hum Mukhtara is not sexual violence, har-
rowing experiences, vulnerability, critical self-analysis or distressing predicament;
156 Urban Proscenium Stage

FIGURE 4.3 Usha Ganguly in Hum Mukhtara

(Source: Courtesy Pranab Basu)

it encapsulates in its fundamental core courage and solidarity and searches for self-
worth and to live life with dignity. Ganguly, as both the narrator and Mukhtara’s
friend, shows her the meaning of faith, courage and hope:

[J]ab asman me sare tare gayb ho jae, pura ka pura adhera ho jae, sari khirkiya band
ho jae, to kahi kisi ek kone se kisi khirki ka darvaza khulta hai aur uski gili rosni se
pura ka pura asman bhar jata hai. Daro na, ghabrao na. Insaf milega. Zarur milega.
[When all the stars disappear from the sky when darkness engulfs the sky, all
the windows get shut, then a window from some corner of the sky opens up
and the whole sky gets illuminated by its moist light. Don’t get scared, don’t
be afraid. You’ll get justice, and you’ll get it.]

The play

spells hope instead of anger. It celebrates the universality of women who

have the courage, patience and determination to fight against every kind
of violence and injustice but fail to get it within the patriarchy that resides
within the social, economic and judicial system across the world.
(Chatterji, 2015)
 Urban Proscenium Stage 157

Mukhtara fnally resolves to take the matter to court and fght it out for herself.
However, voices of caution and counsel are uniformly sent out to her. It is even
suggested that she marry one of her rapists as her honour would be protected: “Ma
to kahti hu sara qasur Mukhtar ka hai, Mastoi ke sath nikah kar leti”. [I believe that all
the fault is Mukhtar’s; she should have married a Mastoi man.] Ganguly’s Mukhtar
takes a well-informed decision and refuses to sign blank sheets:

Lekin Allah . . . mujhe socne ki taqat die hai. Do akhe die hai dekhne ke lie, do kan
die hai sunne ke lie, aur zuban bolne ke lie. Mukhtar Bibi in kore khali kagazo par
agutha nahi laga degi. [But Allah . . . has given me the strength to think. He
has given two eyes to see, two ears to listen, and tongue to speak. Mukhtar
Bibi will not put her thumb impression on these blank sheets of paper.]

Sharing one’s experience through testimony “is an act of resistance, a political

gesture that challenges the politics of domination that would render us nameless
and voiceless. As such, it is a courageous act – as such, it represents a threat” (hooks,
1989). Mukhtara’s breaking of the silence and coming out of the abyss of despair to
fght for justice paves the frst step towards her empowerment. Mukhtara’s recovery
of speech is as much a personal process of healing and transformation that protects
her from dehumanisation and despair as it is a political act aimed at deconstructing
the patriarchal discourse of male power/violence and female weakness/victim-
hood. Alcof and Gray also emphasise speech “as a central locus of power. The
act of speaking out in and of itself transforms power relations and subjectivities,
or the very way in which we experience and defne ourselves” (1993, 260–290).
Likewise, Ganguly’s Mukhtara soars above the category of passive victim through
her exemplary courage and fortitude by shattering the guilt, silence and passivity
to reclaim her subjectivity.
Ganguly’s Hum Mukhtara is as much a theatrical attempt as a political one, with
the experience of Mukhtar Mai being politicised as a platform to voice concerns
about the myriad forms of oppression against women, in line with the feminist
motto “the personal is political”. She turns angry when she speaks out against the
savagery and brutality of society:

Yah kaun-sa saitan hai? Yah kaun-si jinn-si harkat hai jo unhe aisa karne par majbur
karti hai? Kaun-sa pagalpana hai? Barhta jata hai . . ., kahi rukne ka nam nahi
Kahi koi darvaze band hone ki jagah nahi. Har roz . . . sare ke sare log jaise ajgar
ki tarah cupcap baithke tamasa dekhne ke lie utaru rahte hai. Ya Allah, kab chutkara
milega?
[What kind of devil is this? What kind of evil mischief is this that forces
them to act in such a way? What kind of lunacy is this? Keep increasing . . .,
there seems no end to it. There is no place anywhere for these doors to shut.
Every day . . . all the people are ever ready to enjoy this jeering farce quietly
seating like a python. O Almighty Allah, when can we get rid of this?]
158 Urban Proscenium Stage

The play continues to be performed at various educational institutions, theatre

festivals and diferent auditoriums across the country to raise awareness of sexual
violence. Gender violence, as a systemic social problem, requires a collective soci-
etal response. The catchphrase of the play, “hum Mukhtara, udhar dekho – Mukhtara,
nazar dauṛao – sab Mukhtara” [we’re all Mukhtara(s), see that side – Mukhtara, look
around – all Mukhtara(s)], proclaims the solidarity among the oppressed to fght
in unison against the prevalence of gender violence. As a consciousness-raising
agenda, Hum Mukhtara celebrates female empowerment and creates communities
of resistance. In the fnal part of the play, Ganguly celebrates Mukhtara’s empow-
erment, which comes in the form of establishing a school for girls. Through this
school, Mukhtara initiates a drive towards creating awareness among the village
women in order for them to realise their civil, political and constitutional rights, as
well as to combat sexual violence.
The play ends on a positive note and with a message that urges one to be
strong, to fght back and to be brave. Performers can be seen as “performances of
possibility”(Butler, 1988, 519–531) because they authorise the marginalised subject
with agency and, with narrative authority, “reveal otherwise invisible lives” (Hed-
don, 2002, 3) and enable those who are marginalised by the hegemonic structures
of society to talk out, talk back. The play is fascinating not only in presenting a
universal tribute to women everywhere but also in the way the director has used
every strategy of theatrical performance to make a strong statement. In the con-
cluding section, women are seen holding lanterns and moving ahead. The torch
becomes a symbol which is as personal as it is global as it symbolises the wish for
a bright future for women. Fundamentally, the lamp provides light. Light, in this
context, helps women individually and collectively lead the way forward, towards
the future, and pushing aside the engulfng darkness.

Walk: a body of protest

Theatre is like human breath. As artists, we use our bodies as a medium to reach out
to people. Instead of lamenting about what we cannot achieve due to the rising real
estate prices or culture policies, this is the time to provoke a dialogue.
(Mhatre, 2014)

The Nirbhaya gang rape and murder in Delhi inspired Maya Krishna Rao to create
her 35-minute monologue called Walk,11 in which she argues that women should
reclaim the streets and be able to walk alone. Walk was performed for the frst time
on 31 December 2012 at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). More than a piece
of theatre, the performance shapes up as the immediate responses she had after the
heinous rape and death of Nirbhaya (Figure 4.4). She says:

Staying in the same city where the rape took place, I had to talk to people about
what has gone wrong with our public life, our families, our civil behaviour, our
laws. Walk was therefore a medium for the talk that I wanted to initiate.
(Mhatre, 2014)
 Urban Proscenium Stage 159

FIGURE 4.4 Maya Krishna Rao in Walk on 30 November at OP Jindal Global University

Walk, with its minimalistic setting, widely performed across schools and col-
leges, malls, even literature festivals, becomes an illustration of how artists can bring
theatre to people in unconventional ways. The unrehearsed piece Walk, in Hindi
and English, is performed by Rao herself. It has several versions; with each perfor-
mance, the version changes as per the diverse audiences in diverse locations. It is
sometimes presented as a street play, though not truly in the tradition of street the-
atre. She has performed this piece in Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Thrissur, Varanasi and
several other Indian cities, in unconventional spaces like cafes, colleges, universi-
ties, theatre festivals, literary meetings, conferences, streets, parks and multinational
banks. She recently devised her Walk in three varied settings of Mumbai: a trendy
cafe in Lower Parel, a college in south Mumbai and an invitation-only show for the
staf of a multinational bank. In each setting, there was no conventional stage. She
spoke directly to the audience, came close to them, looked into their eyes, smiled
and raised a basic question: shouldn’t women and men expect their fundamental
right to safety in public spaces?
Rao has been presenting Walk as her personal reaction to a horrible tragedy.
As she says in one of her interactions, “More than a piece of theatre, these are my
immediate feelings after we lost Nirbhaya to a heinous crime” (Mhatre, 2014). Rao
says that the 16 December incident opened up an avenue to discuss and to reposi-
tion gender issues for what it means, for both men and women, and that she uses
her performance of Walk to talk to her audience about “negotiating relationships,
160 Urban Proscenium Stage

FIGURE 4.5 Maya Krishna Rao in Walk on 30 November at OP Jindal Global University

identities, spaces, issues I see lots of young boys grappling with too” (Bhatt, 2014)
(Figure 4.5).
The performance opens with light tap beat. A spotlight falls on as her as her
back is turned to the audience. She turns around, gyrates towards the audience and
in almost chanting manner, opens a dialogue with the audience:

I want to walk, I want to walk, will you walk with me? . . . Not one, not
four, not five, six, seven, but at twelve midnight . . . I want to walk the
streets. At two, three, four, I want to walk, sit in a bus, lie in a park. I try not
to be afraid of the dark. Will you walk with me?

She insists the lights be switched on stage and on the space where the audience
is sitting as she wants to see and speak to the audience. With the hall illumined,
she rakes up a host of urgent concerns against the backdrop of Nirbhaya’s violent
rape case: the subject of lights, poorly illumined streets and alleys, more safety
during night time, the right laws, questions about fundamental human rights like
the right to be in a park after dark, sexual predators who haven’t been convicted,
issues of consent and marital rape, women who do not support other women,
ministers who are unapproachable and who turn their backs on us and many more.
She briefy touches on all her concerns, which she goes on to explicate as the per-
formance moves further. Her performance is an invitation to the members of the
 Urban Proscenium Stage 161

audience to claim safety in public space as their basic right. The statement “I want
more” recurs like a refrain. She brings in the issue of police ofcers who refuse
to fle FIRs or register cases. A rape victim is never comfortable about going to a
police station and reporting a case; hence, it is easier for an ofcer to intimidate her
into withdrawing her complaint or not registering an FIR at all. She says she has
been to the police station and seen the registers. There were 754 cases registered
for sexual harassment in the year 2012. She points out the low rate of conviction in
rape cases, theatrically asking for the number of convictions in the year 2012, the
year of the Nirbhaya case:

Give me . . . in that year, 2012, convictions, actions? 754 cases registered.

Action? Conviction? Not three hundred, not two hundred, not one hun-
dred, not fifty, not four, not three, not two, matr ek [only one], just that one
conviction, all of 2012.

The reason for the low conviction rates lies in the deeply entrenched biases
within the justice system. She wants action for all 753 remaining cases and will
write the names of the perpetrators of the crimes in public places, in zebra crossings
so that they are under the public eye. She is critical of the law for not coming to
the aid of the victim, and as Rao points out, in several cases, law itself is gendered.
Rao’s Walk is more about her wrath towards a smug society where gendered vio-
lence is the order of the day. In order to provide justice and protection for women,
and despite various legal amendments, the process for granting justice is slow and
tedious. The failure to provide timely justice to the victims shows the state’s inef-
fciency and inadequacy in safeguarding the fundamental rights of its citizens. She
is also critical of the police personnel responsible for registering cases of sexual
abuse. They are often not sensitive in treating the victim, and the victim is further
traumatised; this becomes a deterrent for the victim to come out and seek legal aid.
She is critical of the police and its inability to perform its duties:

I must go, I must get my case registered. He must write. The policemen
must write whatever his district be, wherever he be from, he must write
every word.

On the issue of consent, she says a man can claim that a woman did not say no, but
the question should be whether she said yes. This focus on resistance and violence
rather than on consent has an impact not only on the reporting of rape but also on
wider awareness of sexual violence, both of which are key aspects in the preven-
tion of rape and tackling impunity. The simple truth is that sex without consent is
rape. Failure to recognise this in the law leaves women exposed to sexual violence
and fuels a dangerous culture of victim blaming and impunity reinforced by myths
and stereotypes.
For a victim navigating the legal system in the wake of an alleged sexual assault,
it can be too difcult. The play calls for stringent laws that are supportive of the
162 Urban Proscenium Stage

victim and sensitive to her state and do not cater and pander to the victimiser.
However, after the horrifc Nirbhaya incident as per the new Criminal Law
Amendment Act 2013, harassment or unwillingness by a police ofcer at the time
of registering FIR in cases of sexual assault or sexual harassment will no longer go
unpunished. The Act has gone a step further by widening the ambit of ofences for
which registration of FIR is compulsory; it includes voyeurism and stalking. Fur-
ther, a case can be registered irrespective of the area police station the case belongs
to, and this, as Rao points, out happened in the Nirbhaya case. The policeman did
not register her case and hence caused inordinate delay, and this could have maybe
even averted her death. Rao repeatedly makes the plea: “I want more”; “We need
a law”.
We often speak of the apprehension of sexual violence in the public spaces,
ofces, schools, workplaces, buses and metros, but how do we contend with sexual
assault in private sphere by people we love and trust inside our homes, among
friends and relatives? She openly speaks of the violence within the family and par-
ents’ role in safeguarding the girl child:

Give me a mother who can hold her daughter right there on her shoulders
and stand up to that chacha [paternal uncle, father’s younger brother], that tau
[father’s elder brother], that uncle, that mama [maternal uncle], that neigh-
bour, that boss, that friend so called, who can hold her daughter tight in her
arms and stand up.

Statistics show that three-fourths of rapes are committed by a man the woman
knows. Studies show that a rapist can be anyone: a date, a boyfriend, a father, a
grandfather, an uncle, a neighbour, a friend, a brother, a son.
She is critical of the parents for rearing their children diferently and reinforcing
gender binaries in their children. She emphasises the responsibilities of parents in
no uncertain terms. Rao believes that it should be the responsibility of the parents
to sensitise their children to the other sex, right from the very beginning. She
rhetorically states:

Did I bring up my son? Did I bring up my daughter? When my son was that
height, did I teach him to know a “no” without hearing it, but only sensing
it from a look in the eye, from a stroke of the hand? Did I teach my son to
know what a “no” is?

These further initiate her to understand and critique the entire process of sociali-
sation, in which gender roles and identities are thrust on us, and daughters are
considered less valuable and meant to be protected as the honour of the family
resides in their chastity and purity and virginity. She passionately insists that daugh-
ters be brought up on equal terms as sons: “Give me a father who knows [how] to
bring out his daughter the way he bring out his son”. She questions the norm of
mobility in public spaces, which is perceived as a male prerogative, and women are
 Urban Proscenium Stage 163

FIGURE 4.6 Maya Krishna Rao in Walk on 30 November at OP Jindal Global University

thereby denied their right to equal enjoyment of public resources for which they
pay taxes, such as public transportation, sidewalks, streets and parks. Street harass-
ment realises a natural ghettoisation of women, a ghettoisation to the private sphere
of the private space of home and hearth (Figure 4.6).
Walk is less about rape itself per se and more about the need to “change cul-
tural consciousness around the dialogue of women’s safety, which contributes to
the greater climate that allows rape to occur and remain unquestioned” (Rao,
2018). Rao says the piece is less on rape and more on our collective national
upbringing:

The focus of our debate is often misplaced. When we talk about safety of
women, we are talking about it as a citizen’s right. But the obsessive focus
on safety can also serve the traditional ideology of gender. We should not let
that happen.
(Mhatre, 2014)

She gives an example about the futile debate over women’s dress code; such criti-
cism, she warns, often blows up into a justifcation to rationalise acts of sexual
violence, placing blame on the victim rather than the perpetrator. “The point that
needs collective appreciation is the fact that men or women should not be judged as
164 Urban Proscenium Stage

per their clothing. Clothing is a personal lifestyle choice and should not be linked
to sexual consent” (Mhatre, 2014).
In Walk, Rao demands: “Give me a mother who will teach her son to sense/
hear/see/a ‘No’ from a woman and not construe a ‘Yes’ as per his moral mathemat-
ics”, pointing to the signifcance of socialising our sons to be sensitive.

Things are happening at a dizzying speed. And we are not talking enough
about them. Even before we could deal with the Delhi incident, another
horrifying rape shook Mumbai. Close on the heels of that came the Tejpal
incident which is even more multi-layered and complex.
(Mhatre, 2014)

The legal defnition of rape has changed, and people have more unanswered ques-
tions. Against this backdrop, Walk is an efort to generate a healthy debate on
several fronts.
Her voice of protest is distinct in the following lines:

Bistar par lete rahna hai ya luṛhakna hai? Agar luṛhakna hai to luṛhakte jao, sarak
ko apna ghar bana lo, khule am calo. Qanun badal jaegi. [Do you want to lie com-
fortably on your bed or roll out? If you want to roll out then go on rolling
out, make the street your home, walk publicly. The law will change.]

Rao’s Walk goes close to the opinion expressed by Kolkata’s Take Back the Night,
an assorted group of citizens who aspire to make city spaces safer for women
and other marginal groups. They organise marches, rallies, protests, meet-ups
and interventions, such as using public transport buses at night and speaking to
passengers and drivers about the issues of sexual violence. Such groups are doing
meaningful work in a set-up in which the state has done precious little. Many
politicians and government ofcials make the most disparaging comments about
women with impunity. Feminist campaigns in India are trying new methods to
change mindsets, such as sleeping in parks, hanging out at night, thus reiterat-
ing the misconception that it is a woman’s responsibility to protect herself from
assault by keeping safe. One of the initial movements by women to repossess
public space was Why Loiter? It is online and ofine campaign across Indian cit-
ies that reafrmed the importance of women’s ability to plainly “loiter about” in
public spaces. Then there is the Bengaluru-based Blank Noise, which carries on
several interactive awareness-raising campaigns about women’s experiences on the
street. For instance, the “I Never Asked for It” campaign asked women to submit
photos of the clothing they were wearing when they were harassed. The aim was
to demolish the notion that only certain kinds of dresses invite harassment. The
Meet to Sleep project was about women meeting up and sleeping in parks, some-
thing men do often in India. These groups have added to the conversation around
rethinking public spaces for women and about women’s freedom to move around
as they choose (Sengupta, 2016).
 Urban Proscenium Stage 165

Walk is used by Rao as a metaphor to challenge gender conventions and fght

against the oppression of women. She does not focus on the efect of rape but on
the root cause that efects the dehumanisation of women. It looks at how women
are stratifed in gender roles and modes of behaviour.

No one taught me how to walk; so, why would anyone teach me where to
walk, who to meet when I walk, what I wear? . . . [W]hether it’s down till
there or up till there or even there, why would anyone teach me what to
wear?

Rao then brings up the issue marital rape. She questions the legal right of the hus-
band over his wife and, furthermore, extends her argument to include date rape
as well. She questions, “Did he ask you . . . when you had sex tonight, did he ask
you, did he look into your eyes, could he read your eyes?” She goes against conven-
tional morality, expressing her frm conviction that a man should “ask his partner,
his wife, before they have sex tonight”. Consent should be taken by husband each
time. Rao further elaborates,

Today I may want to draw the line here, tomorrow I may want to overstep
my own line. Will you wait for me, will you look out for me, will you not
overstep as I overstep? Tomorrow, day after . . . I need to watch for it, he
draws it there, she draws it there, I’ll wait, I won’t overstep, I let her step, I
let her be on the cliff, top. She wants to fall, she may not fall, she learnt from
her own mistakes, but let her be, . . . consent to myself.

Through her act, she feshes out the marital rape debate in India and points out that
India has yet to criminalise marital rape. She voices her opinion that India’s patri-
archal society makes it necessary and imperative that marital rape be criminalised.
She says the reason extended for not criminalising it is that criminalising marital
rape would undermine the convention of marriage as marriage is considered a
sacred ceremony in Hinduism, and the wife is a possession of the husband. This
has been extended as a plea by the Assembly against the illegalisation of marital
rape. The crime or rape is said to have been committed when consent is missing.
Rape should be treated as a culpable crime irrespective of the fact that a woman
is married or not. She further argues that several laws safeguard married women
from domestic violence. If the Domestic Violence Act of 2005 does not disturb
marriage as an institution, then it is duplicitous to not consider marital rape as a
form of domestic violence.
Rao, through her play, questions the age-old convention and preaches the
necessity of mutual consent:

[B]efore I reach my hand out to him, I need to know from the twitch in his
eye from his lip, from his eyebrow, if he is ready to hold out his hand, but
much before all of that I need to feel consent . . . with myself.
166 Urban Proscenium Stage

Consent in sexual relations makes both partners active sexual agents instead of
becoming a sexual object, a means for the gratifcation of the dominant part-
ner. Through her passionate cry, she restates her conviction of the importance of
respecting each individual’s rights and argues for the need to inculcate the value of
consent. Victims of sexual assault are further victimised in the law courts and soci-
ety. They are often questioned about their past relationships. She strongly harps on
about the need to criminalise such acts. She extends solidarity with all the victims
of sexual assault and emphatically calls for a refusal to support to the perpetrators.
Having a past history of sex or even being a prostitute does not absolve a man for
having forced sex without consent. “We know when to say yes. We’ve learnt, we
know how, when to say [no]”.
She always makes necessary alterations to the script according to the nature of
the audience and performance space. In the performance I have selected for my
case study, she broached the 2017 agitation led by the students at Banaras Hindu
University, the venue of that day’s performance. She addressed the questions of
sexual harassment, women’s safety and liberty in educational institutions and out-
side in her performance and even discussed them at length during the open forum
after her performance (Rao, 2018). She spoke about the patriarchal and sexist
norms that continue to defne the lives of young women. Not unlike many other
universities, at Banaras Hindu University, too, female students are subject to dra-
conian rules. For instance, the administration banned the use of mobile phones by
female students after 9 pm. They have no Internet access at night, are not allowed
to use library at night and have a curfew of 8 pm and a regressive dress code on
campus. Women students were made to sign an afdavit pledging that they would
not indulge in any protest or agitation. The “library movement” that Rao dis-
cussed in the performance was the students’ agitation over a decrease in the hours
of operation of the 24-7 cyber library. The agitation started in May, when a few
students approached the administration to demand the opening of the cyber library.
The patriarchal tropes of “protection” and “traditional values” found an echo at
the ofce of the Vice Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University, who believed that
Indian culture placed a huge emphasis on respect for women, who represent soci-
etal prestige and honour and had, in fact, said that “girls who study in the night are
immoral”. Diktats regarding the ban of non-veg in girls’ hostels because it violates
“tradition” and labelling an alleged sexual harassment case a “simple incident of
eve-teasing”(India Today Web Desk, 2017). In 2017, the large-scale agitation car-
ried out by the students of Banaras Hindu University against the regressive regime
stirred university campuses nationally and internationally and even found reso-
nance in the Parliament. However, the upheaval resulted in a knee-jerk response to
women’s concerns around security and only served to constrain women’s freedoms
more than ever.
She even deliberated on the issue of the beef ban as an example of dietary profl-
ing, food fascism and vigilante cow protection groups and asserted that it smacks of
cultural imperialism and is a brazen attack on India’s secularism and constitutional
values. She asserted that we should respect widely diverse food practices; diverse
 Urban Proscenium Stage 167

religions; regional diferences; and caste, class, and gender diversity. The Me-Too
movement as a global campaign also fgured in her performance. She said that the
good thing about movement, primarily concerned with sexual harassment and
sexual assault, was that it enabled women across the spectrum to open up and share
their stories about abuse.
Walk could be about gender, but it could also be extended to indicate a repres-
sive institution. Rao’s Walk not only articulates contemporary concerns, but also
seeks to unify men and women to refect on core humane issues. “The idea is to
link things so people see that there is a connection between gender equality and a
state that cramps free thought”, she says. “The point is to make people think and
join the dots” (Mhatre, 2014). It has been performed at a forum about an alterna-
tive republic, at a forum questioning sedition and at an event that focused on the
importance of the Right to Information Act in a democracy. The unscripted nature
of the performance helps Rao adjust the monologue from an array of perspectives.
Rao performed Walk at JNU in support of the JNU students, denouncing state
repression. She skillfully blends the issues of rape, liberty, parity and justice for
women with freedom of expression and the rights of every individual.
Theatre is not a box-set drama. It can happen anywhere, even without the trap-
pings of an auditorium. Walk is minus lavish sets, props, costumes, a multi-member
cast and technical fourish; it rests on a minimal musical background score coupled
with an unscripted monologue. No two shows have been similar; she makes slight
changes to the play for each diferent city in order to connect her work and her
message to disparate audiences. The duration and texture of the shows change as
per the audience reception. Maya’s art, besides being this minimal, is a one-person
project. She starts with a space, her body is the instrument, an emotive medium;
the body, voice, spine and breath make the piece. For her, this solo act, in a way,
embodies her life itself.
For Rao, Walk creates a semblance of home as people who are around are
friends, relatives, strangers, neighbours, mothers and fathers on the street, who
need to be talked to. “We need to walk an extra mile to talk to them. The street
is therefore an extension of the self!” (Mhatre, 2014). She considers street space as
crucial, and her performance of Walk, then, is another way of bringing home the
role of the street in human life.

Indians are living in such constricted lives that we do not consider remaining
on the street after a certain hour. We claim to be super busy and whatever
time we spend on the street is driven by the fear of the unknown. We are so
confirmed about our views on (not experienced) street life that the thought
of watching a squirrel at night in a park does not ever cross our minds. It is
never ever factored into our calendars.
(Mhatre, 2014)

While Walk is an educational tool to underline the necessity of a national dia-

logue, it has another vital side in the context of theatre practice. In large cities like
168 Urban Proscenium Stage

Mumbai, there is always a dearth of performance space, but Rao feels we need to
override the idea of a traditional proscenium stage: “We have to carve our own
spaces to do contemporary theatre” (Mhatre, 2014). Unconventional spaces of per-
formance are fuid and fexible and facilitate dialogue.
With angry outbursts onstage, Rao turns hard-hitting at times while calling for
change. She wants a society where she can freely walk wherever and whenever she
desires:

Can I, will I, not eight, not nine, not ten, not eleven, at twelve midnight I
want to walk the streets of my city. I want to cross the roads, get into a bus,
lie . . . in the park. I’ll try . . . not to be afraid of the dark.

And she frmly asserts: “Hum apna (apni) mashal khud ban jaege”. [I will be my own
torch.]
Her clothing, hand and foot actions, facial looks and commanding voice all
caricature the masculine and feminine gesticulations, thereby impersonating and
destabilizing the diferentiated gender binaries. The male and female reside easily
in her acting repertoire; she slips efortlessly between the gender binaries through
her deft androgynous performative style. Walk clearly emphasises that identity is a
performance, which means it is dynamic and open to collaborative and cooperative
construction, so it is important that we use the spaces that we encounter/develop
to invite others to co-construct feminism together, which demands understanding
the intersections of identity that construct people’s subjectivities.
Rao’s Walk provides agency to women, proclaiming their freedom from the
prescribed gender norms and autonomy to make choices and take decisions:

When no one ever taught me how to walk, to wear, think, look, green,
yellow, to get into a lift – free, step out of the lift – free, rolling to my bed –
free, roll out of bed – free. Bistar me sone ki azadi, uthne ki azadi, lipstick ki
azadi, decision ki azadi, values ki azadi. [Freedom of sleeping on the bed,
freedom of getting up, freedom of lipstick, freedom of decision, freedom
of values.]

Rao celebrates female sexuality and insists on women who can

sit inside her arms . . . and stretch it and pull it up and pull it and hold it, and
let it go, and seek, and move and love, . . . and talk, and cry, and think, and
laugh, and stretch to she falls out of her own skin.

Women have right to their body, to their sexuality. Walk is about speech, consent
and marital rape. Maya Rao, through her powerful performance, suggests all the
necessary legal amendments that are required to curb violence against women, as is
evident in her appeal: “I want more”. She invites the audience to come to the dark
locations where women are abused and violated and rally ahead to pledge change
 Urban Proscenium Stage 169

in their situation: “All of us say let’s go for a walk, hey, let’s go for walk”. Remark-
ing on the resolution of the play, she states that it is

not just about the freedom to walk the street at any hour of day or night
without fear; it’s about taking hold of the night to think, reflect, talk to
each other; it’s about doing all the things that Jyoti Pandey cannot do
anymore.

At the university after the performance, she came forward and sat on the
stage dangling her feet, and as the microphone was handed to her, she says we
will not have a question-answer session, but rather, we will just share our sto-
ries and experiences. The important thing is to feel, think and dialogue. The
performance is followed by an open house post-performance interactive session,
in which Rao discusses various issues concerning the implications of gender
performativity on young boys and girls. Several experiences and questions were
raised. One parent asked her how one should handle a situation in which her
son is taught ideas of gender segregations. She recalls a question asked by a boy:
“So, should we not allow girls to go out at night?” and realised that “the boy
was well-meaning but was unable to articulate his thoughts. Boys, like girls, are
looking for answers, but there aren’t any easy ones available. They need to talk it
out”. Rao believes in theatre’s capacity to bring about a revolution and change
in society through the enactment of certain problems and seeks to unite the
common people against it:

If a man doesn’t know how to sit next to a woman . . . next to a boy, . . .

next to a man, if a man doesn’t know [how] to look at a woman, at a
boy, at a man, if a man doesn’t know how to touch a girl, a baby, a boy,
a man, if a man doesn’t know [how] to ask his partner, his to stay away
from girls – Rao’s response was this is an issue and neither can we say to
our children don’t listen to the teacher or even listen and follow what she
says it’s like a catch-22 situation she says in such cases we must act clearly
and explicitly form communities of parents address the issue to the school
and not ignore it. Wife, before they have sex tonight, don’t walk with
him, I’ll walk with you, don’t talk to him, I’ll talk to you, don’t give him
a job, and most of all, watch out . . . for every election, don’t ever cast a
vote for him.

She says we need to say times up for all irregularities and excesses in our society.
Until we speak out and speak up, nothing is going to change, and she positively
reminds us that, as a democratic country, we have made signifcant strides, and we
need to keep the work going. Finally, while this performance was happening in
2018, she referred to the 2019 Indian general election to be held in seven phases
from 11 April to 19 May 2019 to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha. As she leaves the
stage, she sounds her caution once again.
170 Urban Proscenium Stage

Bodies in performance: corporeal agency and

liberatory action
Body may be seen solidly a fxture of nature, because it is born and because it ages
and dies, it is equally an aspect of culture celebrated, decorated, anointed – a site
upon which social motifs and civic supervisions are marked.
(“Actors Prepare”, Anuradha Kapur)

The product of the beliefs and conceptual models of society . . . as well as the
everyday practices, the contingent realties, and the complex process by which these
are structured [which is] the constitutive realm of the subject. It is therefore “pow-
erfully coercive in shaping the subject; but since it is also heterogeneous, changing
and open to interpretation, it can become a site of contestation and consequently of
the reinscription of subjectivities”.
(Rajan, 1993, 10)

Women’s bodies are seen as vulnerable to a range of violent assaults, including rape,
honour killing, domestic violence, forced prostitution and sex-selective abortion,
among others. Women experience and fear various types of sexual abuse in public
spaces, from undesired sexual comments and physical contact to rape and femicide.
It occurs in public spaces as well as in homes. These subtle and blatant acts of
sexual violence hamper women’s mobility. They lower their capacity to partake in
school, workplaces and public life. They confne their approach to necessary skills
and their satisfaction of cultural and recreational opportunities. They also adversely
afect their health and well-being. Women’s physical space is restricted space in
almost any culture. Women function from confned, enclosed spaces while men
have access to broader, more open public spaces. Woman’s bodily movements are
therefore restricted and, as Young points out, “there is a failure to make full use of
the body’s spatial and lateral potentialities” (1990, 145–147).
Underlying these issues is a notion that the woman’s body is inscribed with the
culturally coded and socially sanctioned contexts of the appropriate code of con-
duct, including self-efacement and self-denial.
Gender identity is a construct, and clearly, it is not biology, but, as Judith Butler
remarks, the culture that “becomes destiny” (1990, 8). It is through the “habitus”,
as Bourdieu uses the term, that power operates from within us and has taken root
in many webbed ways in our ways of thinking, knowing and seeing. The female
body, as Foucault would have us believe, is then the “docile body” to the extent
that it may be “subjected, used, transformed and improved” (1977, 136) and is
entirely ruled by its dominant other, which, however, it has internalised as its own.
Bourdieu, in a new formulation, explains “symbolic violence” as “the violence
which is exercised upon a social agent with his or her complicity” (1992, 167).
The rules for the presentation of the bodily self in everyday life are clearly defned,
and we are socialised into conformity from very early on. The body is perceived as
the instrument or medium of culture; for example, in the work of Bordo (1993)
and Bartky (1975), following Foucault, they argue that “culture’s grip on the body
 Urban Proscenium Stage 171

is a constant, intimate fact of everyday life” (Bordo, 1993, 16). Then, one may
question, as Butler does: “How do we reconceive the body no longer as a passive
medium or instrument awaiting the enlivening capacity of a distinctly immaterial
will?” (1990, 8). The answer is located in Simone de Beauvoir’s classic statement
that “one is not born but becomes a woman” (1952) and, as Butler points out, that
“woman itself is a term in process, a becoming, a constructing that rightfully can-
not be said to originate or to end. As an ongoing discursive practice, it is open to
intervention and resignifcation” (1990, 33). It is possible, therefore, that gendered
embodiment is not determined but produced through construction with both cre-
ative and transformative possibilities, the extent of which needs to be examined in
any given socio-cultural setting.
In patriarchal societies, women’s bodies are fashioned into conventional notions
of femininity, and if the body resists the disciplining process, subtle coercion is
exercised. Women are denied the “biological control over their bodies” (Millett,
2000, 54) because their sexuality is dreaded, and, therefore, there is a tendency to
regulate it. Women’s bodies become texts where ideational signs, such as honour,
dishonour etc., are pinned to their bodies.
Ghosh and Singh rightly point out that the plays Hum Mukhtara and Walk are
a form of protest against the female body as a mechanism of control and surveil-
lance by directly promoting the authorisation of women and liberation from their
bodily constraints (2017, 219–252). Both plays, Hum Mukhtara and Walk, bring in
the body, which writes itself on the stage, and explicitly address the severity and
pervasiveness of rape’s harms and how infrequently victims receive justice. The per-
formances’ attention is directed at how woman, as her embodied self, is defned by
the outside and what strategies and modes she may use or the performance uses to
manipulate and transform this social construction. Both performances address the
question of rape: its representation, victim blaming, victim shaming and notions of
honour associated with women’s bodies. Virdi points to the complexity in address-
ing sexual violence:

As feminists, we are caught between a rock and a hard place: the erasure of
rape from the narrative bears the marks of a patriarchal discourse of honour
and integrity; yet showing rape, some argue, eroticizes it for the male gaze
and purveys the victim myth. How do we refuse to erase the palpability of
rape and negotiate the splintering of the private/public trauma associated
with it?
(2006)

The metaphorised and non-naturalistic portrayal of the gang rape of Mukhtara

resists voyeuristic responses from the audience by highlighting the violence and
challenges of the protagonist rather than focusing objectively on the body of the
victim. Similar to Ganguly’s approach in Hum Mukhtara, Rao’s attention is also on
the predicament of the victim post the traumatic event. She advocates dialogue,
legal recourse, fling PILs and forming Jathas (collectives) to confront issues. She
172 Urban Proscenium Stage

explicitly addresses issues of sexuality and says that at least the word sex, which was
considered obscene and had been unspoken to date, is now discussed in public
spaces without inhibitions. She stresses the importance of dialogue for any mean-
ingful resolution. Altering the law is not the only solution; amendments in the law
coupled with education and a cultural change in the way we think about violence
will hopefully help mitigate the trauma. Both performances similarly emphasise
“breaking the silence” around rape, and the enactments become a form of “speak-
outs” and consciousness-raising, where women share their experiences of rape and
other forms of abuse.
The performances are located in that moment of crisis in normative social
behaviour when the experiences of the lived body explode and implode the set
codes and conventions of society. The main focus of the performance is how
people express themselves through and with their bodies. The subtle processes
of corporeal acts are inscribed on the body but, at the same time, step out of the
constraining nature of habitus and refect the more liberatory elements of play,
movement and unfettered expressions of the self. Thereby, it ofers a challenge to
the whole way of life by enabling us to look at things from diferent vantage points.
The play deals with issues relating to resistance and alternative possibilities of the
construction of ourselves as embodied, gendered subjects. It can also point us to
resources for potentially liberatory political transformation. The politics of our
bodily agency recognises “the way that bodies as such function as sites of power,
rather than merely being the instruments of the powerful”.
Both performers were trained initially as dancers in the classical Indian modes
and continue to integrate singing and dancing into their performances. Ganguly
was trained as a dancer in Bharatnatyam, while Rao is a Kathakali performer. Both
employ gritty, unadorned style and language, and we can tease out problematic
questions of gender, sex and sexuality from their autobiographical, biographical or
true stories. Further, both address the issue of gender violence in their plays dif-
ferently. The assertions of the right to occupy space, as in Walk, and universalizing
violence and building a collective stressed by the groups of women, all in black
veils, making synchronised movements in Hum Mukhtara. Each play is diferently
structured to examine the interface between the gendered embodiment of the
female subject in everyday life in contemporary urban India. The problems of
physical embodiment and its efect on women’s social and interpersonal relations
are, therefore, central to the plays.
This chapter examines the works of two performers and their modes of sto-
rytelling through their creative composition and reconstructing of stories with a
refusal and an insistence to take up a victim position or the role of subjugation.
It unites the strands of examining the body as an instrument of discovery and
conscious action and the ways that woman live and perform. The plays take up
female-focused questions and are about the assertion of the identity of who they
or their characters are as women, and this adds to a body of knowledge about
their lives and how they experience the world. The performers devise strategies
to negotiate a space for women by revaluing the female body and all it stands for.
 Urban Proscenium Stage 173

Experimenting with form, striving for relevance within the Indian social context
and cultivating a special relationship with the audience become the hallmarks of
their performances. While presenting a scathing critique of patriarchal society, the
plays vociferously ask for legislative reform and demand an attitudinal change. The
truths they ofer debunk myths about women’s relationship with the world and
about their relationships with others in that world. They occupy a standpoint in the
epistemic process which enables them to become knowing subjects and exercise an
element of power and control rather than merely objects that are known by others.
They espouse an epistemic advantage of the double vision. All too often, narra-
tives of women as victims are what occupy our attention, but in the non-formulaic
political activism of these plays, what has been bought to public attention is their
vibrant actions. Democracy and the future will be brighter thanks to Mukhtar Mai
and Walk.

Notes
1 The Babri Masjid, a site of dispute between the Hindu and Muslims, was pulled down
on 6 December 1992 by activists of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied organisations.
2 A movement in 2017 that questioned patterns of attacks on minorities.
3 Refers to farmers committing suicide due to crop failure and climatic conditions from
2014 to 2019.
4 Thangjam Manorama was raped and murdered by the Assam Rifles in 2004, leading to
protests against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
5 Shyamanand Jalan founded the Hindi Theatre Group in 1955.
6 Master Champalal, Jayshankar Sundari (1889–1975) and Fida Husain (1899–2001) cross-
dressed on the Parsi stage, and Mary Fenton alias Mehrbai (1854–1896) was the first
Gujarati, Parsi and Urdu theatre actress of European origin.
7 For the case studies, I have referred to the version of the play staged in Ravindralaya, Luc-
know, organised by All India Kaifi Azmi Academy, Lucknow, on 8 February 2015. The
role of Mukhtara is played by Mrinmoyee Biswas with Usha Ganguly playing the role of
the narrator. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r2PqZG2IJo. All translations are mine.
8 The play was staged on the first day of National Theatre Festival at Antrang Hall, Bharat
Bhavan, October 2013, Bhopal, and subsequently was staged at IIT Kharagpur on 4
November 2014, at Kolkata’s Presidency University on 14 April 2015 and soon after at
Tata Steel Ltd, Jamshedpur, on 17 April 2015. Lady Shri Ram College and WISCOMP
at a three-day conclave Breaking Barriers, Claiming Spaces: Women Leadership and
Change on 7 March 2015; on 16 February 2015 at the Academy of Fine Arts Audi-
torium, Kolkata; at the All India Kaifi Azmi Academy, Kaifi Azmi Award function, 8
February 2015; Punjab Naatshala, Amritsar, 18 December 2014; Qadir Ali Baig Theatre
Festival 2014 at Salar Jung Museum Auditorium, on 14 and 15 November in Hyderabad;
Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, 27 September 2016; IIEST Shibpur on 28 March 2017;
during Anuranan 6, the annual theatre festival of LES THESPIANS, 26 June 2018 (Tues-
day); Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, 3 March 2019 at Nagaon and 5 March at Shillong;
Bhoomigeetha Auditorium on 15 January 2019 at Bahuroopi National Theatre Festival
in Rangayana, Mysuru, to mention a few.
9 Means “respected big sister”.
10 Mai, Mukhtar. In the Name of Honour: A Memoir (with Marie-Thérèse Cuny). Foreword
by Nicholas D. Kristof [Translated by Linda Coverdale]. London: Virago, 2007.
11 I have referred to the versions of Maya Krishna Rao’s Walk performed at the Indian
Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi on 24 February 2018. www.
youtube.com/watch?v=-D8DaxmlAOw. All translations are mine.
174 Urban Proscenium Stage

For more videos on Rao and on her performance of Walk, see: Maya Krishna Rao Performed
to Give Strengths to JNU (VIDEO). Performed by Maya Krishna Rao, Jawaharlal Nehru Uni-
versity, New Delhi, 15 February 2016. Published 18 March 2016. Video, 14:43 min. www.
youtube.com/watch?v=Vqtq5LeXPb4 (accessed June 27, 2016).
———. WALK KM College Part 1. Performed by Maya Krishna Rao, Kirorimal College,
New Delhi, 19 March 2013. Published 4 April 2013. Video, 11:42 min. www.youtube.
com/watch?v=IOrR-XO3vms (accessed June 27, 2016).
———. WALK KM College Part II. Performed by Maya Krishna Rao, Kirorimal College,
New Delhi, 19 March 2013. Published 4 April 2013. Video, 07:03 min. www.youtube.
com/watch?v=XEvzbOvapuM (accessed June 27, 2016).
———. Walk, Jaipur Literature Festival. 28 January 2013. Video, 9 min. www.youtube.com/
watch?v=msUvCWKcCVQ (accessed May 24, 2017).
———. Walk, “People watch over parliament”, organised by “Freedom without Fear”at Jantar-
Mantar, New Delhi. Video, 10.01 min. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkTyvOKUZ4E
(accessed May, 24, 2017).
———. WALK, Women in Black. Performed by Maya Krishna Rao, Women In Black,
Mt Carmel College, Bangalore, 16 November 2015. Published 15 December 2015. Video,
16:48 min. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g0Ot9p6VtU (accessed June 27, 2016).

Bibliography
Alcof, Linda, and Laura Gray. (1993) “Survivor Discourse: Transgression or Recuperation?”,
Signs, 18(2), Winter, 260–290. Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/3174976 (Accessed:
3 November 2014).
Ambai. (2005) “Crossing the River”, in Tutun Mukherjee (ed.) Staging Resistance: Plays by
Women in Translation. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Banerjee, N. (2003) “After the War: Urban Violence: Rape (and Silence about It) Haunts
Baghdad”, New York Times, July 16.
Bartky, Sandra Lee. (1975) “Toward a Phenomenology of Feminist Consciousness”, Social
Theory and Practice, 3(4), Fall, 425–439.
Baxi, P., S. Rai, and S. Ali. (2006) “Legacies of Common Law: ‘Crimes of Honour’ in India
and Pakistan”, Third World Quarterly, 27, 1239–1253.
Beauvoir, Simone. (1952) The Second Sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Bhatt, Neha. (2014) “Sita Makes Her Stand”, Outlook, March 3. Available at: www.outlookindia.
com/magazine/story/sita-makes-her-stand/289576 (Accessed: 7 October 2017).
Bordo, Susan. (1993) Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1992) “Thinking about Limits”, Theory, Culture & Society, 9(1), 37–49.
Butler, Judith. (1988) “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenom-
enology and Feminist Theory”, Theatre Journal, 40(4), December, 519–531.
Butler, Judith. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge.
Butler, Judith. (1993) Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York: Routledge.
Cahill, A. (2001) Rethinking Rape. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Chandani, Priyanka. (2018) “Feminism Takes Centre Stage”, Deccan Chronicle, October 21. Avail-
able at: www.deccanchronicle.com/sunday-chronicle/cover-story/211018/feminism-takes-
centre-stage.html (Accessed: 22 December 2019).
Chatterji, Shoma A. (2015) “Hum Mukhtara: Theatre as a Political Statement”, The Citi-
zen, November 18. Available at: www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/
1/5874/Hum-Mukhtara-Theatre-As-A-Political-Statement (Accessed: 23 October 2019).
 Urban Proscenium Stage 175

Farber, Y. (2008) Theatre as Witness: Three Testimonial Plays from South Africa. In Collabora-
tion with and Based on the Lives of the Original Performers. London: Oberon books.
Foucault, Michel. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan.
New York: Vintage.
Ganguly, Usha. (2015) “Hum Mukhtara”, February 8 Ravindralaya, Lucknow, organized by
All India Kaif Azmi Academy, Lucknow. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
r2PqZG2IJo (Accessed: 6 August 2018) all quotes from ‘Hum Mukhtara’ are from this
video.
Ganguly, Usha. (2018) “Personal Communication”, March 25.
Ghosh, Paramita. (2010) “Woman on Top”, Hindustan Times, October 8. Available at: www.
hindustantimes.com/art-and-culture/woman-on-top/story-YPFzXzTwbW3Fhtbvj0c7pI.
html (Accessed: 4 March 2019).
Ghosh, Soumya Mohan, and Rajni Singh. (2017) “Violated Bodies and the Reclamation of
Female Subjectivity in Usha Ganguli’s Ham Mukhtara and Maya Krishna Rao’s Walk”,
Archiv Orientální, 85(2), 219–252.
Guha, Shilpi. (2013) “It’s about Power Play”, DNA Syndication, February 21. Available at:
http://dnasyndication.com/dna/Art_Culture/dna_english_news_and_features/It%E2%
80%99s-about-power-play/DNJAI39322 (Accessed: 30 November 2015).
Heddon, D. (2002) “Performing the Self ”, M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, V5(5).
hooks, bell. (1989) Talking Back. Boston: South End Press.
India Today Web Desk. (2017) “BHU Protest: 10 Statements Made by VC Girish Chandra
Tripathi That Prove Silence Could’ve Been Golden”, India Today, September 26.
Iyengar, Radhika. (2019) “Where Are the Women in Indian Theatre?”, Live Mint, March 27.
Available at: www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/features/where-are-the-women-in-indian-
theatre-1553661934006.html (Accessed: 13 October 2019).
Kapur, Anuradha. (2001) “A Wandering Word, an Unstable Subject”, Theatre India No. 3, 5–12.
Kapur, Anuradha. (2004) “Actors Prepare”, Theatre India, 9, May, 7–28.
Katyal, Anjum. (1997). Rudali: From Fiction to Performance. Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Kumari, Tanima, Rajni Singh, and Soumya Mohan Ghosh. (2016) “Feminist Movements in
India: A Study of Stree Sangharsh, Forum against Oppression of Women, Vimochana,
and Saheli”, Journal of Dharma: Dharmaram Journal of Religions and Philosophies, 41(2),
181–200.
Lieder, K. Frances. (2015) “Not-Feminism: A Discourse on the Politics of a Term in Mod-
ern Indian Theatre”, Asian Theatre Journal, 32(2), Fall, University of Hawai’i Press.
Malik, R. (2013) “Jurrat Closing Music Concert”, held at JNU with closing-music-concert-
held-at.html (Accessed: 22 September 2017).
Martin, Randy. (1998) Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
Mhatre, Sumedha Raikar. (2014) “Theatre Artist Maya Krishna Rao’s Monologue Analyses
Women’s Safety”, Mid-Day, March 7. Available at: www.mid-day.com/articles/theatre-
artist-maya-krishna-raos-monologue-analyses-womens-safety/15143067.9 (Accessed:
24 January 2017).
Millett, Kate. (2000) Sexual Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Nair, Malini. (2017) “Maya Krishna Rao: The Argumentative Actor”, Open: The Magazine,
September 27. Available at: https://openthemagazine.com/art-culture/theatre/maya-
krishna-rao-the-argumentative-actor/ (Accessed: 27 December 2019).
PTI. (2015) “Theatre Artist Maya Krishna Rao Returns Sangeet Natak Akademi”, Business
Standard, October 12, New Delhi. Available at: www.business-standard.com/article/pti-
stories/theatre-artist-maya-krishna-rao-returns-sangeet-natak-akademi-115101200946_1.
html (Accessed: 7 December 2018).
176 Urban Proscenium Stage

Rajan, Rajeswari Sunder. (1993) Real and Imagined Women: Gender, Culture and Postcolonial-
ism. London and New York: Routledge.
Rangakarmee Theatre Group Website. Available at: https://rangakarmee.com/director.php
Rao, Maya Krishna. (2014) “No Other Art That Is as Close to Life as Theatre”, India Theater
Forum (91), April 15.
Rao, Maya Krishna. (2018) “Walk”, February 24 Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras
Hindu University, Varanasi. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D8DaxmlAOw
(Accessed: 20 January 2019). All quotes from ‘Walk’ are from this video.
Rao, Maya Krishna. (2019) Interviewed by Neha Kirpal, “A Woman Let Loose”, Tri-
bune, March 3. Available at: www.tribuneindia.com/news/spectrum/a-woman-let-
loose/737063.html (Accessed: 29 December 2019).
Ruggi, S. (1998) “Commodifying Honor in Female Sexuality: Honor Killings in Palestine”,
Middle East Report, 206, 12–15.
Sengupta, Anuradha. (2016) “Reclaiming Public Spaces for Women”, Gulf News, Weekend
Review, June 29, 11:37. Available at: https://gulfnews.com/lifestyle/reclaiming-public-
spaces-for-women-1.1854528 (Accessed: 12 November 2018).
Sharma, Riya, and Niharika Lal. (2017) “Won’t Let Delhi Forget Nirbhaya, Asserts City’s
Theatre Group”, Times of India, December 18. Available at: https://timesofndia.indiatimes.
com/city/delhi/wont-let-delhi-forget-nirbhaya-assert-citys-theatre-groups/articleshow/
62106179.cms. (Accessed: 15 November 2019).
Subramanyam, Lakshmi (ed.). (2002) Mufed Voices: Women in Modern Indian Theatre. New
Delhi: Shakti Books.
Tandon, Aditi. (2004) “Using Theatre to Voice Her Deepest Concerns”, Tribune News
Service, September 20, Monday, Chandigarh Tribune, Chandigarh, India. Available at:
www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040920/cth2.htm#6 (Accessed: 14 December 2017).
Tiwari, Atul. (2006) “Theatre Gupshup”, Prithivi Theatre Festival, Meet the Playwrights
session, Mumbai Theatre Guide, November 11. Available at: www.mumbaitheatreguide.
com/dramas/interviews/usha_ganguli.asp# (Accessed: 5 November 2018).
TNN. (2017) “Usha, Sampa Staging Plays on Mukhtaran Mai”, Times of India, January 11.
Available at: https://timesofndia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bengali/movies/news/
Usha-Sampa-staging-plays-on-Mukhtaran-Mai/articleshow/8393546.cms (Accessed: 23 June
2019).
Virdi, Jyotika. (2006) “Reverence, Rape and Then Revenge: Popular Hindi Cinema’s
‘Women’s Film’”, in Annette Burfoot and Susan Lord (eds.) Killing Women: The Visual
Culture of Gender and Violence. Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 251–272.
Young, Iris Marion. (1990) Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays in Feminist Philosophy and
Social Theory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
5
CONCLUSION

This book represents the voices of fve performers. All come from diferent back-
grounds and use diferent genres, but they all share a concern for identifying the
status of women in India at the beginning of the 21st century. Misogyny, violence
and rape are issues shared by all the performers discussed in this work. These
performers work and perform individually; they have diferent vocabularies and
methods to ignite a cultural conversation about gendered violence and challenge
the cultural scripts that write women’s bodies as weak and violable. When we
speak of gendered violence, we understand it as a spectrum of acts, ranging from
physical, sexual and emotional abuses against women to laws that nullify and
demean women’s self-worth. The performances demonstrate not only the multi-
plicity of theatrical forms but also their acts of political intervention, challenging
systemic social problems and incidents of rape and sexual violence. As case studies
of fve plays, observations, interviews, reviews and analysis of related documents
as data collection techniques have been used. The overall arrangement of the
book was to consider performance as part of a wider nexus of social and cultural
practices. Each of its chapters, then, as a case study, was attentive to the contri-
bution of actors, directors, the script, the history of the genre, the enactment,
the structure of the theatrical space, performance venues, subjective assessment,
responses and reviews or talk-backs after the show: in short, all elements that
played a part in shaping the performance and the audience’s engagement with
the production.
Common threads that can be traced through all the selected performances are:

1 They are located in different genres. In this book, they are situated in the long
line of the histories of the style and their innovations and experiments with the
performance practice.
178 Conclusion

2 They deploy different vocabularies of performance in their engagement and

understanding of the multiple forms of gendered violence.
3 They present interrogations of the representations of women.
4 They question the illegality of the violence and legal obligation of the state to
protect and promote human rights.
5 They break with the gender script through performing gender roles in new
and often subversive ways.

Stage, gender and genre

All fve performances follow the language, structure, grammar and aesthetics of
their specifc genre. For Sarama and Dastak, I have used the umbrella term commu-
nity performance as they address contemporary social, political and cultural issues and
draw inspiration from the life of the community itself. Along with that, they take
a critical position regarding social issues and develop conscious awareness and col-
lective empowerment. Sarama is forum theatre and engages a group of characters;
its predominant emphasis lies in the post-performance interaction and interven-
tions initiated by the Joker. Somewhat close to it is Dastak, which, in the form
of street theatre, similarly uses a group of performers to address the audience in a
direct and intimate way. It is often performed amid the viewers fanked on all sides.
Issues raised by them are immediate, political, social and cultural. Sarama allows
the audience to search for answers for the issues raised in the performance. Dastak
brings solutions for the spectators in the sequence of the play-acting. The two plays
hence formed one chapter of the book. Similar to Sarama, Teejan Bai’s Pandavani
also has a rural base, although it is now widely performed nationally and even at
international sites. Pandavani is a folk performance and a living link to the epic tra-
dition of narrating the incidents from the Mahabharata. However, Teejan Bai does
not merely reproduce the episodes; she attempts to contemporise, add humour
and satire and enliven her performance with her insights and experiences by using
mimicry, impromptu dance and rousing theatrical movements. Maya Rao’s Walk,
as a modern urban solo experimental performance, is widely diferent from the
folk monodrama of Teejan Bai. Rao, trained in the classical Indian dance form
Kathakali, integrates singing and dancing into her performances. Her performance
practice is a beautiful mélange of theatre, dance, music and dialogue. Like Rao,
Ganguly is also a modern urban performer, using innovative performance styles.
Maya’s Walk is a solo performance, whereas Hum Mukhtara uses an ensemble style.
Ganguly practices diferent performance styles in her works; for instance, her play
Antaryatra (2002) uses a solo performance style while in Hum Mukhtara, she follows
a communal style in a proscenium stage. A group of performers occupy the stage in
synchronised movement. The use of the collective form enables her to universalise
the issue of gendered violence and afrm sisterhood and cooperative action. As the
Sutradhar declares in the play, “Hum Mukhtara Sab Mukhtara”. [I am Mukhtara, and
we are all Mukhtaras.]
 Conclusion 179

Performing gender violence

Dastak itemises several occurrences and forms of violence a woman has to con-
front from her birth. The broader resolution that the play projects against the
gendered nature of violence is that society needs to rethink its outlook and revalue
women and girls. Sarama’s approach to violence is interlaced with issues of class,
caste and gender, and Sarama refuses to be bowed down by the powerful goons
and politicians. She seeks relief in a women’s group. However, this smooth and
neat resolution of the play is questioned in the post-performance interaction by
a spectator named Phulomani, who believes the nexus of class caste and gender
is profoundly entrenched, and comfortable resolutions as extended in Sarama are
unreal and utopian. The play is about feminism played out at the grassroots level.
Teejan reiterates Draupadi’s humiliation in the Kauravas court and Krishna’s
rescue of her. Despite all its seriousness, she enacts the scene with a hint of humour
when, as Draupadi, she calls out to Krishna for support and he delays, she playfully
comments on how Krishna will save the women of India if he keeps coming late
in the scene of the crime. The episode indicates that, despite Draupadi’s cry for
help to Krishna, she herself was quite competent to handle her insults. Draupadi’s
courageous demeanour is perceived in the Assembly scene, when she confronts a
room full of men and challenges them on their failure to execute dharma and sub-
sequently swears retribution, which she accomplishes in the Dushasan Vadh (Killing
of Dushasan) episode. Unlike Sarama where solutions and resolutions of gendered
violence are kept in abeyance, Teejan as Draupadi takes her humiliation head on,
swears vengeance in the Assembly scene and executes her revenge by dramatically
bathing her hair in Dushasan’s blood.
Rao’s repetition of “Will you walk with me? Walk, walk, walk” as a chant
becomes a larger metaphor for all kinds of violence against women for which she
advocates a need to raise our voices individually and collectively. She uses a fuid
androgynous performance style with a commanding presence which is neither
male nor female. In her performance, she confounds the very binary notion of
gender identity, exploring and celebrating the possibilities of being a woman dif-
ferently. Commenting on the conception of the play, Rao elsewhere states that it is

not just about the freedom to walk the street at any hour of day or night
without fear; it’s about taking hold of the night to think, reflect, talk to each
other; it’s about doing all the things that Jyoti Pandey cannot do anymore.

She uses Walk as a symbol to challenge gender conventions by resisting a dualistic

identity and authorising the agency to women, proclaiming their freedom from the
prescribed gender norms.

I want to walk; I want to walk will you walk with me? . . . Not one, not four,
not five, six, seven, but at midnight . . . I want to walk the streets. At two,
180 Conclusion

three, four, I want to walk, sit on a bus, lie in a park. I try not to be afraid of
the dark. Will you walk with me?
(Walk)

Walk is more about the need to change cultural consciousness around the dialogue
of women’s safety, which adds to the more signifcant climate that allows rape to
occur and remain unquestioned (Mhatre, 2014). Rao responds to it by reclaiming
the public space and redoing the body, fnding a voice and fnding a body. Gan-
guly’s response to the violence is by universalising the problem of discrimination,
keeping Mukhtara Mai as a universal symbol of the victim who does not get justice.
Her victimisers are left free, so the play proclaims “Hum mukhtara sab Mukhatar”
[I am Mukhtara, we all are Mukhtaras], asserting sisterhood and collective action.
The idea that brought all performances under an umbrella was the fact that all the
performances were concerned with looking at the way violence is enacted on the
female body and raising questions as to how one contends with such violence and
how one makes an artistic representation and counters such violence by doing so.
Walk is conceived as a form of criticism and observation on societal attitudes
to gender violence. We fnd a direct response to the horrifc rape of Nirbhaya; the
play takes on an even larger dimension by conveying the playwright’s concern for
women’s safety. Ganguly, on the other hand, chooses Mukhtar Mai as the subject of
her play, also alluding to Nirbhaya and countless other faceless and nameless victims
of sexual abuse. She says, “Yeh Pakistan ki Mukhtara Nahin, Saari Duniyaki is Waqtki
Mukhtara hai”. [This is not the Mukhtara of Pakistan, but of this time of the whole
world.] (Hum Mukhtara). Likewise, Rao stresses the bond of sisterhood, inviting
her audience to join her in her protest walk for visibility on the road towards the
empowerment of women. Although the Mukhtara Mai incident provided Ganguly
with a factual base for her play, it was after the Nirbhaya case and the ripple created
in society by the protests and candlelight marches, as well as the public perfor-
mances, that the play Hum Mukhtara was conceived as a disturbed artist’s reaction to
the events around her. Both performances are powerful and hard-hitting in nature,
intent on creating a mass movement against the widespread culture of female sup-
pression and violence. “Hum Mukhtara and sab Mukhatar” functions as a refrain
throughout the play. The title Hum Mukhtara points out that women across the
world are Mukhtaras because

[A]ll women have been abused, violated, victimised, humiliated and

oppressed at one time or another not only by men but more importantly,
by family members, society and the legal and judicial system of each coun-
try that holds man as supreme and woman as one who should be controlled
by man.
(Chatterji, 2015)

The title Hum Mukhtara directly speaks of the Mukhtara Mai suppressed in all of
us, waiting to come out. The play is rendered compelling through the innovations
 Conclusion 181

in form and structure and turning Mukhtara into a unifed group voicing solidarity
against patriarchy.
If Sarama tells us about the oppressive structures of class, gender and politics,
Dastak speaks loudly about the systemic structures and purposes to bring about
a fundamental shift to create new structures, new ideas and fresh images to move
beyond the binary conceptual constrictions and the unreasonable habits of andro-
centric practices in society and “evoke a vision of female feminist subjectivity in a
nomadic mode” (Braidotti, 1994, 1–3) to learn to think diferently about what it
means to be a woman.

Staging gender justice

Teejan, through her enactment of Draupadi, uses the idea of dharma as law and the
sense of a fnal/universal/supreme authority which separates the lawful from the
unlawful, the right from the wrong and the good from the bad. In ancient times,
the king was considered to be the leader and his people his subjects. Draupadi
is let down as a subject by the two kings she appeals to – her husband and King
Yudhishthira – and the Kaurava king in whose court she stands demanding justice.
Teejan Bai, attempting to contemporise the epic, fnds diferent ways of fore-
grounding gender discrimination, confating the saga and the modern age as she
says, “Through this story, she says: ‘I want to tell people not to commit atrocities
against women. Otherwise, they’ll face the fate that befell the Kauravas’” (Masih,
1997). Teejan Bai, in her performance of Draupadi, the wife of the fve Pandava
brothers, challenges, resists and questions the mechanisms of power, authority, vio-
lence, honour, shame and rule of law of/by men in the Sabha Parva, when she
pointedly asks: “Whom did you lose frst, yourself or me?” and later threatens its
order by the retribution she enacts in the episode of Dushasan vadh and drawing up
a parallel justice system.
Sanjoy Ganguly’s Sarama as a forum theatre; its eight short episodic scenes talk
about a woman who was raped in broad daylight and the complexities that ensue –
the response of the society, the political party, the keepers of law, the women’s
organisations and the raped woman herself to the violence enacted with impunity.
The police botch the case and delay the FIR (frst information report); the doctor’s
examination was done after 40 hours following the event. Further, the police made
Sarama take a bath before the test, thereby washing away the evidence. The assem-
bled public comment on the unscrupulousness of the police, the political party and
the state, but they are helpless and too meek to put up a fght against them. The
horrifc rape becomes the occasion for a political battle between the ruling and
oppositional parties. It uncovers the nexus of the political parties, the miscreants
and the police and shows how the poor people are used for furthering the interests
of the political parties, and women are hit worse in this electoral game. Sarama’s
story is about the multiple intersecting questions of gender, politics and class. The
Women’s Commission that sets up an inquiry also turns out to be sham. It is
working in the interest of the political parties. We here see the nexus between the
182 Conclusion

party, the police and the miscreants; local party leaders protect the rapists because
they might need the miscreants to use force on behalf of the party. Sarama and the
villagers realise that the protectors of law and order are themselves corrupt. The
play leaves us with a vital question: in such a scenario, what hope do we have for
acquiring justice when political parties and the police fout codes of conduct and
deliberately and systematically participate in organised crime themselves?
Shilpi Marwah mainly came into prominence for being one of the leading
voices and faces of the anti-corruption and Nirbhaya movement, which led to
her being labelled as Kaale Kurte mein Mashaal (torch in black shirt). Dastak, using
a street theatre format, vehemently speaks of the rape of minors, dowry deaths
and sexual harassment. One actor reels of the statistics, according to which a
woman is raped every 18 hours or molested every 14 hours in New Delhi. And
more shockingly, the majority of the attackers are younger than 25 years old.
In that particular year (2018) alone, some 600 cases had been recorded in New
Delhi. Shilpi Marwaha, as the narrator or Sutradhar, raises several questions: “Iss ka
zimmedar kaun? Police, prasashan, sarkar yaah hum or aap?” [Who is responsible for
this? Police, the government or is it you and me?] (Dastak). The purpose of the
play Dastak was to hit at our face for our attention, whack our conscience to alert
us that it is time to revamp the way we think and question our pervading beliefs
that assign weakness to women and strength to men, which restricts women’s
movements and inhibits her free expression and right to live with dignity. And as
its conclusion, it states that neither the police nor the law can be sufcient to end
crimes against women, a radical shift in what we think is required to bring about
positive changes in the society.
Hum Mukhtara, as a docudrama, has a historic-political background. It is a the-
atrical interpretation of Mukhtara Mai’s memoir, In the Name of Honor: A Memoir.
The play is sourced from a real-life incident that happened in the life of an illiterate,
unmarried Muslim woman, Mukhtaran of Meerwala village (Muzafargarh district)
in southern Punjab, Pakistan, who was gang raped by six members of the powerful
local Mastoi clan in 2002. Mukhtar Mai lost her case when in 2011; the Supreme
Court acquitted the accused. She may have lost her case, but she made an example
of herself for her Pakistani sisters and for all women across the world by sticking
to the demand for justice. The play shows the injustice of the judiciary system. It
captures the spirit of bravery and the strength of the women but moves beyond
that and asserts that we need to carve our way ahead without being pulled down by
troubles. The play ends on a positive note and with a message that urges one to be
strong, to fght back and to be brave. Says Usha Ganguly, “Yeh Pakistan ki Mukhtara
nahin, saari duniya ki is waqt ki Mukhtara hai”. [Mukhtara does not belong to Paki-
stan alone; she is of the entire contemporary world.] (Hum Mukhtara).
The Nirbhaya gang rape and murder in Delhi inspired Maya Krishna Rao to
create her 35-minute monologue called Walk. She rakes up a host of urgent con-
cerns as the background of Nirbhaya’s violent rape case: the subject of lights, poorly
illumined streets and alleys, more safety at night time, the right laws, questions
about fundamental human rights like the right to be in a park after dark, sexual
 Conclusion 183

predators who haven’t been convicted, issues of consent and marital rape, women
who do not support other women, ministers who are unapproachable and who
turn their back on us and many more. Her performance is an invitation to the
members of the audience to claim safety in public space as their fundamental right.
The statement “I want more” recurs like a refrain. She then brings in the issue
of police ofcers who refuse to fle an FIR or register cases. Rao’s Walk is more
about her wrath towards a smug society where gendered violence is the order of
the day. To provide justice and protection for women, and despite various legal
amendments, the process for granting judgment is slow and tedious. The failure to
provide timely justice to the victim shows the state’s inefciency and inadequacy
in safeguarding the fundamental rights of its citizens. Walk is not just a play about
rape. It is about the need to change the social perception about the discussion of
women’s security, which adds to the environment that allows rape to occur and
remain unchallenged. Rao says the piece is less on rape and more on “our collec-
tive national upbringing” (Rao, 2014).
Usha Ganguly’s Hum Mukhtara, Maya Krishna Rao’s Walk and Shilpi Marwaha’s
Dastak. Sanjoy Ganguly’s Sarama explores the systemic structural violence inherent
in the law in India. Three plays – Hum Mukhtara, Dastak and Walk – made explicit
reference to the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and deliberated on the inequitable nature
of the Indian legal system. Walk, Sarama and Dastak are also critical of the police
personnel responsible for registering cases of sexual abuse. They are often not sen-
sitive in treating the victim, and the victim is further traumatised; this becomes a
deterrent for the victim to come out and seek legal aid. Dastak and Walk take up
the problem of a low conviction rate. The deeply entrenched prejudices within
the judicial system and the society are the cause of the abysmally low conviction
rate. In addition, a rape victim is never comfortable about going to a police sta-
tion and reporting the case; hence, it is easier for an ofcer to intimidate her into
withdrawing complaint or not registering an FIR at all. Sarama engaged with class
and gender matters and spoke of the unholy league between the law enforcers and
the politicians. Walk was a loud call for more adequate laws, discussions and dia-
logues to contest violence. Dastak perceives the judicial system as incompetent and
inadequate to bring about any change. Hum Mukhtara started with the failure of
the legal system to deliver justice but kindled hope in women’s communal power
to face all odds. Teejan’s Draupadi, humiliated and denied justice, evolves her form
of retribution. One is inclined to think profoundly about whether this provides us
with a thought regarding the limitations of our legal and judicial set-up, both in the
ancient times and in the modern world, and about the need to make law immune
to fallibility.

Re-staging the gender script

The body is the basis of our being. The performers referred to in this book ques-
tion the values, attitudes and ideologies that create societal myths constructing
women as passive, inefectual and submissive to the more active, dynamic and
184 Conclusion

aggressive men. The performances discussed have explored the gamut of societal
violence that is enacted against women’s bodies and refected on the many varied
ways that women oppose and survive violence. The body becomes a vehicle for
reimagining resistance, for visualising other possible futures and other forms and
modes for living. The plays have captured the complexity of the gendered resis-
tance by portraying the diferent ways women react to the violence and torture
inficted on them.
In all the performances selected for study in this work, bodies become an essential
site of the reclamation of agency. The play Sarama displays women’s struggle at the
grassroots level and illustrates Sarama’s resistance and retrieval of her right to her body,
her disregard of the rules of female purity and her refusal to be a victim. Sarama,
refusing to give in despite all odds, decides to deliver the child born out of rape and
shame. Sarama was an ordinary woman in the village with her set of dreams. Life
for her comes to a standstill when she is raped in broad daylight. Her rape becomes
an occasion for a political battle between the ruling and oppositional parties. The
police, the political party and the state show indiference; coupled with this, Adheer,
her lover, turns indiferent and abandons her. Amidst this utterly demoralising and
depressing scenario, we see Sarama come to terms with her tragedy. With the help of
a sympathetic women’s group, she gets the moral and fnancial support to give birth
to the child who was the consequence of the rape. The post-performance interaction
does not give the play closure but allows it to remain open to contestations.
As a solo performer of the episodes from the Mahabharata, Teejan Bai switches
to multiple roles; playing with only her voice and the tambura, in split seconds, she
becomes Bhim or Duryodhan or Krishna or Draupadi, using a distanced acting
style. In her role-playing, gender is performance, for her masculinity and femi-
ninity are two diferent ways of being. Still, she surely divests masculinity of its
culturally assigned meaning and invests femininity with new meanings to suit her
beliefs. She re-signifes masculinity and femininity to suit her purpose. Her por-
trayal of Draupadi is as a strong woman despite the fact that she requires Krishna’s
assistance to save her from the humiliation she was subjected to at the Kaurava
court. However, this does not detract from her courageous act of challenging the
men in the court with her dialectics.
Mukhtara’s story is undoubtedly not the frst account of a female body being bar-
gained for honour in a family. However, unlike the hundreds of women who accept
the violation of their bodies silently, the story of Mukhtara is a strong statement of
her relentless resilience in the face of violence. It is presented as a warning not to
be passive or mute in the face of violence but to act and restore and retrieve one’s
self-respect. She promises to take her to stand, not just individually but collectively:

Na banengi hum mom kibattiyaan, banengi hum dhadhaktimashaalien . . . hum

Mukhtara, sab Mukhtara . . . ekbaarnazardaudao, udhardekho . . . sab Mukhtara.
[We are not going to be wax candles. We will become burning torches,
glance around once, see that side, we all are Mukhtaras.]
(Hum Mukhtara)
 Conclusion 185

This echoes in the hall as the curtains come down, with the women chanting
these lines. Ganguly chooses Mukhtara Mai as the subject of her play, alluding to
Nirbhaya and countless other faceless and nameless victims of sexual abuse. The
three characters Sarama, Mukhtara and Teejan as Draupadi subvert the humiliation
of rape by refusing to accept victimhood and by hurling the shame back upon the
perpetrators.
In Rao’s play, we fnd a direct response to the horrifc rape of Nirbhaya.
She criticises parents for reinforcing gender stereotypes and for conforming to
the normative masculinities. Rao believes that it should be the responsibility of
the parents to sensitise their sons to respect women. Through her androgynous
performative style, she transcends gender boundaries. Dastak similarly addresses
the fundamental shortcomings in our culture that increase male violence against
women. Entrenched social bias against women fnds expression in India’s skewed
sex ratio. Dastak speaks of facing up to all forms of discrimination, which entails
challenging values embedded in religion, caste constructs, social hierarchy, family
structure and property rights. Relegating women to bodies of desire is symptom-
atic of mainstream culture and saturates movies, music, advertisements, literature
and songs.
Collectively viewed, the plays suggest that, along with the mindset of people,
the slow pace of the operation of Indian judiciary is another primary reason for
the increasing abuse against women in India. Walk and Dastak emphases that the
state machinery is neither competent nor impartial, and that makes the cases of
violence against women take time in the investigation phase. The stigma of social
pressure and shame inhibits women from coming out and reporting the matter to
the police. The plays make several suggestions to advance women’s safety. The frst
move could be to enhance the number of women in employed in every sphere of
society. Along with that, a change in the mindset of people is essential for the safety
of women. From family to educational institutions and all spheres of life, men
should be trained to respect women or, when we translate this into the broader
context of a pluralistic society, we must regard the otherness of others to ensure
safety, dignity and respect.
Additionally, the performances stress the need for fast-track courts to expedite
the cases in a time-bound manner. They further point out that strict laws alone
cannot solve the problem of women’s safety in India; however, the implementation
of these laws in a time-bound manner can resolve the issue to a large extent. It is
not enough to educate the girl and secure her safety. They also highlight the need
to teach our men and boys about gender, patriarchy and masculinity and also to
provide comprehensive sexuality education to every person in our country. Addi-
tionally, the plays speak of the necessity to organise advocacy campaigns so that
policymakers of this country will implement comprehensive sexuality education
from primary to higher levels of education. They also demonstrate how men are
raised with zero sensitivity towards women – their bodies, their periods and their
identity – and victim-blaming and slut-shaming enables patriarchy. They conclu-
sively state that in most mainstream discourses on the systemic and unrelenting
186 Conclusion

violence towards women, the intersectionality of gender, class and caste often
remains unseen and is hardly ever highlighted.
The performers focus on solutions and ways forward as much as critiquing
existing practice, creating a kind of toolkit to approach the questions of gender vio-
lence, including rape and sexual assault. By performing, they publicly create space
for the discussion of the issues of violence against women and unveil the extent of
the situation and the damage it inficts on society. Theatre as a special apparatus,
with its specifc mechanisms, can, in a way, make people listen and open doors for
social restoration and be personally and collectively therapeutic. This book views
the fve performers’ work as collaboratively outlining the central concerns about
what it means to do feminist work. Staging feminisms, then, entails that, despite
popular proclamations that we do not need feminism anymore, we still live in a
cultural environment that habitually undervalues women and puts women at risk, a
society in which inequalities certainly exist that support oppression in many forms,
and to overcome abuse requires a collective; we must face it together.

Bibliography
Braidotti, Rosi. (1994) Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Diference in Contemporary
Feminist Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chatterji, Shoma A. (2015) “Hum Mukhtara: Theatre as a Political Statement”, The
Citizen, November 18. Available at: www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/
index/1/5874/Hum-Mukhtara-Theatre-As-A-Political-Statement (Accessed: 23 Octo-
ber 2019).
Masih, Archana. (1997) “Songs in Ordinary Time”, Redif on the Net, December 5. Available
at: www.redif.com/style/dec/05teejan.htm (Accessed: 4 January 2017).
Mhatre, Sumedha Raikar. (2014) “Theatre Artist Maya Krishna Rao’s Monologue Analyses
Women’s Safety”, Mid-Day, March 7. Available at: www.mid-day.com/articles/theatre-
artist-maya-krishna-raos-monologue-analyses-womens-safety/15143067.9 (Accessed:
24 January 2017).
Rao, Maya Krishna. (2014) “No Other Art That Is as Close to Life as Theatre”, India Theater
Forum (91), April 15.
INDEX
activism 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 28, 31, 37, 39, 82,
91, 92, 95, 99, 108, 110, 112, 120, 124,
125, 148, 173
activist-performer 89
act of resistance 157
actor 1, 2, 3, 9, 11, 18, 19, 28, 59, 70, 72,
75, 85, 86, 87, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99,
100, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112,
113, 115, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 125,
128, 129, 134, 135, 138, 139, 140, 141,
143, 145, 146, 147, 151, 154, 170, 175,
177, 182
Adivasi Mahabharata 50
aesthetic(s) 10, 17, 19, 33, 37, 82, 85, 87,
92, 140, 178; of immediacy 149; of
resistance 87
agency-affirming feminism 26
agitprop 7, 90, 146; documentary drama 146
Akademi, Sangeet Natak 52, 54, 58, 71,
75, 120, 133, 135, 139, 140, 143, 175
androcentrism 149
androgynous 72, 77, 129, 168, 179, 185;
performance style 179
Ardhanarishvara 72, 77
Aston, Elaine 14
audience viii, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13,
15, 16, 17, 18, 25, 32, 33, 47, 52, 53,
54, 55, 61, 62, 63, 64, 70, 72, 75, 83,
85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97,
99, 100, 104, 105, 107, 108, 112, 115,
116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 127, 128, 129,
131, 132, 136, 137, 140, 141, 143, 144,
145, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154,
159, 160, 161, 166, 167, 168, 171, 173,
177, 178, 180, 183; appreciation 108
Auslander, Philip 4, 11
autobiography 121, 148
Bai, Teejan viii, x, 3, 26, 43, 44, 45, 46,
50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63,
65, 66, 69, 70, 72, 73, 76, 77, 79, 80,
81, 178, 181, 184
Bharatnatyam 131, 132, 172
Bhatia, Nandi 8, 89, 123
Boal, Augusto 94, 119, 122
body language 63, 100, 128, 154
body of protest 158
body subjects 15
Butler, Judith 72, 170
Carlson, Marvin 4, 16, 17, 34
cathartic 95, 147
celebratory protests 1, 33, 127
centre stage 9, 41, 108, 111, 128, 137, 174
Chauhan, Sabal Singh 51, 52, 55, 56,
62, 75
Chhattisgarhi 3, 9, 50, 56, 59, 61, 62, 63,
73, 74, 75
children’s theatre 132, 135
choreograph 151
collective action 96, 99, 130, 180
collective resistance 147
collective thinking 96
community theatre 1, 82, 83
complex issues 100
consciousness raising 149, 158, 172
188 Index
consent 11, 115, 146, 160, 161, 164, 165,
166, 168, 183
conventional theatre 82, 95
corporeal 14, 16, 18, 37, 38, 73, 134, 141,
170, 172; agency 170
cross-dress 70, 75, 141, 197
cultural scripts 32, 33, 130, 177
Dalmia, Vasudha 9, 89
Dasi, Binodini 9, 122
Dastak 26, 83, 103, 104, 105, 112, 116,
117, 118, 122, 147, 178, 179, 181, 182,
183, 185
decision making 90, 96, 122
democratic space 97
Devangan, Jhaduram 52, 58, 75
development theatre 84
dharma 43, 48, 60, 62, 66, 67, 68, 74, 79,
80, 175, 179, 181
Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava 9
dialogue x, 64, 86, 91, 92, 99, 116, 119,
144, 158, 160, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172,
178, 180, 183
difficultator 95
directorial role 132
disrobing viii, 26, 47, 48, 49, 65, 76, 115
distanced acting style. 70, 184
Dolan, Jill 7, 16
domestic violence 22, 23, 28, 31, 67, 85,
90, 108, 113, 118, 121, 124, 125, 148,
165, 170
dramaturgy 8, 91, 107
Draupadi 26, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51,
52, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69,
70, 73, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 140, 143,
144, 179, 181, 183, 184, 185
Dushasan vadh 44, 179, 181
efficacy of performance 5
embodied presence 2, 13, 16, 44, 130
embodiment 3, 12, 19, 21, 23, 37, 42, 89,
123, 171, 172, 186
empowering presence 2
empowerment vii, 32, 33, 36, 77, 79, 82,
83, 85, 94, 99, 107, 108, 117, 121,
123, 124, 125, 130, 131, 143, 157, 158,
178, 180
enact possibilities 130
episodic 90, 100, 143, 147, 181
ethical 2, 14
female agency 27, 32, 40, 47
female authority 137
female experience 46
female impersonation 129
female performers 128, 130, 131
female subjectivity 45, 130, 131, 175
femininity 30, 32, 44, 62, 70, 72, 73, 129,
171, 184
feminisms x, 1, 7, 19, 21, 23, 36, 38, 186
feminist intervention 44
feminist movement 21, 93, 137, 138, 175
feminist performance 7, 8, 24, 25, 32, 36, 38
feminist perspective 33, 47
feminist politics 4, 6, 10, 25, 38, 120,
125, 130
feminist reading 1, 24, 45, 47
feminist theatre 6, 7, 8, 14, 24, 35, 39, 129
feminist viewpoint 138
finding a body 13, 14, 130, 180
finding a voice 13, 14, 130, 180
Fischer-Lichte, Erika 16, 17, 18, 19
folk epic 1, 43
folk form viii, 45, 55, 120
folk monodrama 178
folk performance viii, 53, 56, 74, 137, 178
forms of oppression 95, 128, 153, 157
forum theatre 3, 86, 178, 181
gang rape ix, 26, 28, 34, 110, 116, 122,
124, 129, 130, 136, 145, 146, 147, 148,
149, 153, 154, 158, 171, 182, 183
Ganguly, Sanjoy x, 3, 83, 94, 95, 97, 100,
123, 181, 183
Ganguly, Usha x, 3, 127, 129, 130, 131,
133, 139, 145, 147, 150, 151, 156, 173,
182, 183
gender discrimination 10, 44, 58, 90, 112,
142, 149, 181
gender fluidity 70
gender script 72, 178, 183
gender sensitisation 29, 130
gender stereotyping 140
gender violence viii, x, 3, 4, 26, 31, 42, 77,
107, 121, 131, 158, 172, 179, 180, 186
Goffman, Erving 5
Goodman, Lizbeth 7
grassroots activism 92
Greek chorus 150
Hiltebeitel, Alf 43, 46, 47, 48, 49
Hindi theatre 8, 9, 132, 173
honour killing 148, 170
Hum Mukhtara 127, 129, 130, 131, 132,
147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 156,
157, 158, 171, 172, 174, 175, 178, 180,
182, 183, 184, 186
Husserl, Edmund 14

Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA)
83, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 117, 118,
119, 120, 121, 123, 125, 126, 138, 139
Indian theatre ix, 6, 8, 9, 10, 35, 37, 42,
53, 54, 78, 79, 89, 123, 126, 128, 134,
135, 136, 140, 144, 175, 176
indigenous forms 9, 54, 100
integrated semiotics 2, 17
intersubjective connectedness 45
interventionist performances x, 1, 3
Jana Sanskriti 3, 83, 84, 86, 94, 97, 123,
124, 125
Jan Natya Manch 90, 119, 138
Kapalika 51, 61
Kathakali 3, 134, 135, 136, 172, 178
Krishna Rao, Maya x, 3, 32, 127, 129,
130, 134, 135, 158, 159, 160, 163, 174,
175, 182
Kurukshetra 47, 62, 68, 76
liberatory action 170
liminal 6, 18
liveness 2, 3, 11, 35
live performances 83
MacKinnon, Catharine 27
Mahabharata viii, 3, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48,
49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 62, 67, 68, 69,
73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 142,
178, 184
Mai, Mukhtar 131, 147, 148, 149, 151,
152, 157, 173, 180, 182
male-centric narratives 137
male-dominated viii, 7, 9, 68, 131, 138, 143
male gaze 118, 145, 171
marital rape 31, 111, 144, 160, 165,
168, 183
Martin, Randy 15
Marwaha, Shilpi x, 3, 83, 85, 108, 116,
119, 122, 124, 125, 182, 183
masculinity 25, 27, 28, 40, 41, 47, 62, 69,
70, 72, 73, 129, 144, 184, 185
mask 150, 151, 152
material event 2
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 14, 16
minimalistic setting 159
minimal props 128, 154
misogyny viii, 26, 113, 145, 154, 177
monologue 99, 142, 146, 154, 158, 167,
175, 182, 186
mythical women 144
myths 49, 50
Index 189
narrative x, 2, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 30, 32,
33, 40, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50,
51, 61, 67, 73, 77, 78, 89, 95, 100, 111,
124, 130, 137, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144,
146, 153, 158, 171, 173
National School of Drama 54, 79, 120,
133, 135
Natya Sastra 53
Nautanki 9, 137Nirbhaya ix, 26, 28, 31,
41, 67, 108, 110, 116, 117, 123, 126,
130, 131, 145, 146, 147, 149, 153, 158,
159, 161, 162, 176, 180, 182, 183, 185
objectification of women 9, 139
oppression 21, 24, 30, 33, 38, 83, 85, 92,
94, 95, 96, 99, 121, 128, 132, 142, 153,
157, 165, 175, 186
oral tradition 49, 50, 51, 75, 80
Pandavani viii, 3, 26, 43, 44, 45, 49, 50, 51,
52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61,
62, 73, 75, 78, 79, 80, 178
Pardhi 56, 57
Parsi theatre 75, 137
patriarchal societies 136, 145, 165,
171, 173
patriarchy 23, 27, 37, 39, 40, 65, 91, 107,
149, 156, 181, 185
Pavis, Patrick 2, 17
performance efficacy 32
performance practice 3, 10, 43, 44, 45, 46,
83, 144, 177, 178
performance styles 85, 178
performance vocabularies 127
performative turn 72
performative violence 4
performativity 1, 26, 44, 72, 169
performing agency 25
performing gender 72, 94, 178, 179
phenomenology 2, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,
34, 36, 37, 41, 72, 78, 174
physical space 128, 154, 170
political act 2, 15, 40, 56, 157
politics of performance 1, 31, 39,
41, 124
post-performance 11, 95, 100, 169, 178,
179, 184
props 59, 72, 100, 128, 150, 154, 167
proscenium x, 3, 25, 119, 127, 142, 143,
144, 168, 178
protest performance 83
protest theatre 130
public performances 87, 88, 131, 180
Puranas 1
190 Index
Ragi vii, 21, 57, 59, 61, 62, 72, 164
Ramayana 46, 55, 76, 142
Rangakarmee Theatre Group 3, 132, 133
rape viii, ix, x, 1, 2, 9, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27,
28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40,
41, 48, 74, 77, 91, 92, 93, 100, 101,
104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 111, 113, 115,
116, 118, 121, 122, 124, 129, 130, 131,
135, 136, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148,
149, 151, 153, 154, 155, 158, 160, 161,
162, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 170, 171,
172, 173, 174, 176, 177, 180, 181, 182,
183, 184, 185, 186; script 143; victim
29, 41, 155, 161, 183
reception 1, 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 33, 44,
47, 72, 167
reclaiming the public space 130, 180
reclamation 100, 131, 175, 184
redoing the body 130, 180
re-enactment 83, 85, 95
repertoire 59, 123, 124, 133, 168
representation of women 9, 137, 139
role-playing 5, 27, 70, 184
Sabha Parva 44, 62, 76, 181
Sanskrit drama 53, 54, 77
Sarama 26, 83, 100, 101, 105, 106, 107,
118, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185
Schechner, Richard 1, 4, 5, 82
self-assertion 130
self-styled performance 67
semiotic 2, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,
35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 100
setting 3, 29, 53, 72, 85, 128, 150, 154,
159, 171
sexual abuse 10, 26, 34, 48, 131, 144, 145,
146, 161, 170, 180, 183, 185
sexual harassment 22, 23, 27, 28, 34, 85,
91, 92, 110, 113, 115, 121, 145, 155,
161, 162, 166, 167, 182
sexual violence viii, 28, 29, 32, 33, 38, 41,
44, 113, 115, 130, 139, 144, 145, 146,
147, 153, 155, 158, 161, 162, 163, 164,
170, 171, 177
simultaneous dramaturgy 107
sisterhood 21, 130, 149, 178, 180
situated knowledge 12, 22, 38
social change 24, 85, 109, 112
societal awareness 130
solo performance 3, 111, 129, 130, 144, 178
spect-actor 107, 122
spectator 1, 2, 7, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 25, 33,
37, 85, 86, 95, 96, 99, 100, 107, 116,
117, 118, 122, 154, 178, 179
stage vii, xi, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 37,
38, 41, 44, 51, 54, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64,
65, 69, 70, 74, 75, 85, 86, 90, 92, 95,
96, 99, 100, 101, 105, 106, 107, 108,
109, 110, 111, 114, 118, 119, 121, 122,
123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 130, 133, 135,
136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 145,
146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 154, 155,
159, 160, 168, 169, 171, 173, 174, 178;
movements 128, 154
staging x, 1, 6, 8, 39, 40, 58, 87, 88, 134,
137, 174, 176, 181, 183, 186
stereotypical belief 115
storytelling 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 62, 118,
146, 147, 172
street performances 108, 111
street theatre 83, 85, 86, 87, 108, 116, 119,
124, 125, 135, 159, 178, 182
subordination of women 26, 47
Sue-Ellen Case 7
Sukhmanch 3, 83, 85, 86, 87, 108, 110,
111, 112, 116, 118, 119, 122, 126
sutradhar 61, 100, 105, 115, 140, 144, 150,
153, 178, 182
tamboora 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68,
70, 73
theatre activist 10, 35, 93, 109, 120, 122
theatre-based interventions 83
Theatre of the Oppressed 83, 94, 95, 96,
118, 122, 123
Theatre Union 92, 135
theatrical elements 3
theatricality 8, 65, 66, 70, 100, 154
theatrical space 7, 41, 87, 99, 128, 130,
131, 144, 177
theatrical techniques 154
top-down approach 94, 122
traditional cultures 54, 55
traditional theatre 18, 54, 77, 120, 122
transformative politics 20
Turner, Victor 5, 83
vaccha tradition 62
Vedmati 51, 75
victim shaming 144, 171
violated body 48
visibility of women 92, 138
visual appeal 69
volatile bodies 1, 38, 127
Walk ix, 26, 31, 32, 127, 129, 130, 131,
136, 144, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164,
165, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 174,
175, 176, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 185
Wandor, Micheline 6
woman-centric plays 129
womanism 21
 Index 191

woman’s language 143 women’s empowerment 108, 121, 130

women-centric narratives 139
women-centric stories 137
women directors 9, 129, 140, 142, 143
women’s agency 91
women’s autonomy 138
women’s issues ix, 10, 90, 92, 134, 137
women’s movement 34, 91, 92, 116,
123, 138
Zarrilli, Phillip 5