Badal Sircar (1925-2011): A Curtain Call for Political Theatre

Author(s): SADANAND MENON

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 46, No. 22 (MAY 28-JUNE 3, 2011), pp. 16-20
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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COMMENTARY

through to the 1990s - almost all dealt

Badal Sircar (1925-2011): with the continuing asphyxiation caused
by "colonial violence" in a free nation.
A Curtain Call Frantz Fanon, in his The Wretched of the
Earth had described most artists and
for Political Theatre professors as disorientateurs (obfuscators)
who continually propagated "respect for
the established order", thereby separating
SADANAND MENON and insulating the exploiters from the
exploited. Fanon had proposed that a
A tribute to Badal Sircar, the true artist, rather than colluding with
ther was he a teacher. However this order, could only contest it - turning
radical theatre personality of
Badal when
Sircarhewas
set no
outpolitician; nei
on the second theatre, for example, into a site for resist
Bengal, who over four decades
phase of his theatre-making in 1972 ance.
with This was a strategy most consistently
rewrote the language of political
his group Satabdi in Calcutta, he was to
explored in postcolonial Indian theatre by
theatre in India. inaugurate the most historic artisticBadal
proSircar.
gramme in contemporary India of educat
In an insightful chapter on Sircar's work
in his 1983 book on Bengali political thea
ing and "conscientising" theatre audiences
tre Rehearsals of Revolution, Rustom
on the travesty - nay absurdity - of their
Bharucha makes a lucid point: "His thea
contemporary postcolonial deprivation.
A significant section of his audiences
tre does not pretend to be militant... It is
came from the urban middle or working
content with disturbing the consciousness
of its
classes. But he also made unforgettable in spectators... Sircar focuses on the
callousness
terventions with the rural poor, like in the of the middle class and their

Sundarbans and in the Santhal villages.

capacity to watch the suffering of people
His was a theatre that relentlesslywithout
and doing anything about it." In fact, a
self-consciously chose to operate as a
recurring chant in one of Sircar's most
Paulo Freirean kind of "pedagogy forperformed
the plays Bhoma, is: Akhon manu
sher rakta thanda/thanda, thanda, thanda
oppressed". Sircar had internalised a dictum
that to wash one's hands off the conflict (Today human blood has turned cold/
between the powerful and the powerless cold, cold, cold).
meant not neutrality but a tacit siding Sircar's search was never for something
with the powerful. as abstract as coherence. He was to say, "I
Outraged by the idea of "selling" plays live in a fragmented world, a chaotic
to audiences, Sircar and his group evolvedworld full of contradictions; is it not
the notion of a "free theatre". He was absurd even to seek coherence in such an
absurd world?" Instead, he made a virtue
among the initiators of the Curzon Park
open-air theatre expression from 1974
of -
disjointedness. For his themes he adapted
liberally
subsequent to massive protests after a from available and already pub
lished material. He took random passages
young spectator, Prabir Datta, was killed
from his own extensive notebook entries
in a brutal lathi-charge there. The collective
(Book of Feelings). He employed cut-and
protest by theatre practitioners of Calcutta
paste methods. He revelled in montages
drew over 3,000 people crowding the park
and collages, both verbal and physical.
every Saturday to witness half-a-dozen
He made a fine art of the short, punchy
groups enact volatile plays in an intensely
vignette. He freely jumped from idea to
charged atmosphere. The only time that
activity was suspended was during idea,
the concern to concern. He pooh-poohed
19 months of the Emergency. the overhyped virtues of structure and form
and technical virtuosity. He dismissed
A Site for Resistance
the importance of sets, props, costumes,
Badal Sircar's 50-odd productions,lights.
cumuTo an extent, he even questioned
Sadanand Menon (sadanandmenon@yahoo. com) latively performed over a thousandthe need for learning any acting or per
times
is a writer, photographer and stage-lights by his own group and multiplied manyforming
more technique. He had no need for
designer based in Chennai. He is also currently times by other theatre groups incontinuing
other with that mainstay of natura
Adjunct Faculty, Asian College of Journalism, listic
linguistic regions of India - setting up theatre
a - the creation of the illusion
Chennai.
sort of relay transmission from theof1970s
reality.

i6 may 28, 2011 vol xlvi no 22 0353 Economic & Political weekly

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 COMMENTARY

He jettisoned the English language taken aback, when he saw in Poland, the
miseasen scene for his newly written play
Michhil
alienating. He militated against the arti (Procession), he casually beganintensity of Jerzy Grotowski's actors in
ficial divide between the actor and the rearranging the benches meant for theApocalypsis
au cum Figuris.
dience in a manner that would distribute
audience, a fire-wall that was intrinsic to the From the derivative existentialism of

proscenium stage. He genuinely regarded his early scripts like Evan Indrajit and
the spectators and set the players right
amidst them. He suddenly realised heBagh (Tiger), Sircar took a more affirma
money as irrelevant and profit as vulgar.
His basic concern, till the end, remained tive direction in 1966-67 in his "anti
was, in fact, choreographing the audience.
Henceforth, his audience would have no
exploring the untapped energy of the indi nuclear" trilogy Baki Itihaas (Remaining
vidual and collective body to createother
a choice but to be in the thick of the History), Tringsha Shatabdi (Thirtieth
action, to "participate". There could be no Century) and Shesh Nei (No End). To date,
transformative experience for both, the
performer and the spectator - an ideaneutral
he voyeurism or disavowal. these remain the only critique in Indian
elaborated in his slim 1978 volume TheEarlier too, in his plays like Sagina Mahato theatre of the country's demented nuclear
Third Theatre. (1971) and Spartacus (1972), Sircar had pursuits. Sharadindu and Sumanta, the
begun exploring the unconventional use protagonists of these plays, are simply
Choreographing the Audience of space, entirely rejecting the proscenium unable to accept the violence and bestiality
But one resource Sircar did not abandon idea of the "invisible audience" that sits in of the 20th century's potential for mass
was his own training and early career as athe dark at one side of the auditorium, destruction and exhort their audiences to
merely consuming the play. Many of these reflect on how much they themselves
town planner. He remained acutely aware
ideas crystallised after a Nehru Fellow might be implicated in the perpetration of
of dimensions, planes, elevations, entran
ship enabled him, in 1972, to travel to the crimes against humanity like the atom
ces, exits and movement flows. Space was
his forte and he was comfortable withUnited States and spend time observing the bomb and what their own complicity might
training and performance methodologies of be in calamities like Hiroshima.
planning the spatial algorithms of human
agony. Sitting alone one day in 1974, in the
the East Coast avant-garde groups like the
Performance Group of Richard Schechner Open-ended Dialogic Character
small hall (capacity of 60 to 75) above the
Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta, which
and Joan Littlewood, the Living Theatre Learning from the experiences of Scheduler's
of Julian Beck and Judith Malina and La
had become his group's main performance Environmental Theatre and Grotowski's

and work space and thinking of the

Mama of Antony Serchio. He was alsoPoor Theatre, Sircar created the idea of the

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Economic & Political weekly E32ZJ may 28, 2011 vol xlvi no 22 17

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COMMENTARY

new experiment in the theatre of politics.

the impression we have developed economi
intimate Anganmancha (courtyard theatre)
in 1972 and, typically, created plays cally,
that become wealthier. But there's another
The Left Front government conceded power
figure: that the number of landless agricul
would have an open-ended, dialogic char after 34 years. The victors called it a "New
tural labourers has also doubled during the
acter rather than something dogmatic ordecade. That means poverty has
last Independence
also Day". No Badal Sircar script,
deterministic. Many of the plays wereincreased.
con saturated
You have to couple these two bits with the angst and agony of his
structed in the format of Tarja, a Bengali times,
of information to arrive at the reality. That is could have captured the cacophonic
what we do. We put both facts together
folk form of debate between two poets and
confusion of the moment, laden with in
let audiences decide what is true.
with opposite points of view. Prastab, Gondi, verted symbols of "liberation" and replete
Basi Khabar, Pagla Ghoda, SolutionHowever,
X, as Sircar elaborated in the Sri with degenerate slogans with pretentions
Ram Memorial Lecture in Delhi, in 1993, to "peoples' power".
Hattamalar Oparey, Ekti Hatyar Natyakatha,
all this is done with "an unforgiving anger
Khatmat Kring, Churna Prithvi, Sukhapathya Badalbabu would have winced in his

Bharater Itihas, Bhanga Manush - alltowards

tested those who cause poverty and civilised sort of way at this evacuation of
resist as well as to those who remain in meaning from language. He would have
out the strategy of creating internalhunger
ance to the propositions within adifferent
play. to them". To achieve this, of been aghast at this ironic "revenge of the
initialeach performer needs to be aware spectators" in real life. The legendary
This resistance corresponds to the course,
scepticism within audiences, who areofthen
the subject and be "immersed in the Brazilian theatre activist Augusto Boal, dur
content" even as he abandons the route of
won over through a judicious marshalling ing the staging of his plays of the Theatre of
conventional "enactment" and strives to
of arguments from the opposite flank. the Oppressed constantly warned against
Sircar explained this to me in an inter attain a "state of being" during the play. such "false" or "magical" solutions mas
view published 25 years ago: querading as "real" solutions. But Badalda
We set out to expose commonly held myths. Day of Passing knew "the play's the thing" where strategic
Quite often, therefore, our plays acquire a Eventually, it was ironic that after almost
exits are important and eased himself gendy
documentary nature. But we have to make it
five decades of exploring at the frontiers
into the night.
theatre, for it is the art form we have chosen.
of critical theatre work, Sircar (aged 86) Of course, it is tantalising to reflect now
For example, it is said that India's agricul
on how much the humiliated Left Front in
tural produce has doubled since Independ chose his final curtain call for 13 May, the
ence. It is true. But if you stop there, it gives day the Bengal electorate decided onBengal
a might have benefited if only they

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 COMMENTARY

had watched and listened and paid anasescort

attenas if it was to serve no more
theatre, the to travel along with him for re
ceiving
voice and expression of the oppressed.
tion to half the things on rural poverty, No the award. Promptly, from the
of the a more powerful theatrical other
deprivation and the brutalisationwonder end came the exclamation "No, No,
impulse
- disguised
poor in the state that Sircar had dealt with as a mass movement called
No". I laughed and reminded him of the
Naxalism
in his plays through the 1970s and same protest I had heard 40 years ago and
1980s. - overran the moment, proclaim
Being more alert and receptive toing
anits
artown catharsis of violence to said, "Now don't tell me you are travelling
counter
ist's voice might, perhaps, have never
the in a plane for the first time". He chuckled
brutalities of rampaging state violence.
brought them to this pass. Instead, they
Overnight, Indian theatre had lost itsand agreed to bring an escort.
agency.
conveniently dismissed him as a "middle Much of Badalda's personality was
Bridging
class messiah". They ranted and ravedthe Chasm formed by his Protestant Christian back
It is to Badal
against him, called him names, briefly re Sircar's credit that a decade ground and its work ethic. Spartan in his
down the line, he could bridge the chasm
strained him from performing outdoors personal life, he was frugal and forever on
and recapture this strand of political engagea guilt trip about spending money. His
and dubbed him an agent of the decadent
ment in theatre. He built upon this in anonly indulgence was the smoke which he
American avant-garde. In their typically
even shut
bureaucratic manner, the party-Left enjoyed. On two occasions during work
more significant way by embarking
its eyes and ears to the signpostson
ofa tireless
con shops in Chennai, one at the Kalakshetra
schedule of short workshops
cerns this sensitive playwright wasacross dance school and the other at the iit,
the country whose main purpose
laying
out for them. was the removal of psychological blocksMadras, I had to drive down on my scooter
and inhibitions
What they refused to acknowledge was in the participants. For
every two hours to bring him out of those
that Sircar and his Satabdi group repre
Sircar, that was the primary goal. He hadsprawling and strict campuses so that
a series
sented the cleanest example within mod of elaborate trust exercises and he could have a relaxing puff outside
improvisations to achieve this. He also
ern Indian theatre of a group relentlessly the gate, before being deposited back in
questioning its own politics and, in the the participants to try writing
provoked the workshop.
short
process, persuading its audiences also 10-minute plays as an exercise to
into
intense self-reflexivity. What the flag
wards Involvement with Esperanto
sharpening their ideas. In 30 years
he to
wavers of the organised Left failed would His other little known passion was, of
see have easily conducted over 300
long and
was that while they themselves picked course, Esperanto language of which he
upshort workshops and catalysed
issues that concerned a narrow bandwidth was a pioneer in India and an important
the work of a large roll-call of prominent
in India called the "proletariat", Sircar theatre personalities - from Heisnam figure in the international Esperanto
was speaking about a much more capa Kanhailal in Manipur to Prasanna in Kar community. He acknowledged the guru
cious bandwidth called the "poor". nataka; from Probir Guha in Bengal to ship of the Polish physician L L Zamenhof,
A cardholding member of the undivided Madeeha Gauhar in Pakistan. who had created this international auxil

Communist Party from 1943 to 1951, he iary language in 1887. It was particularly
The first time I met Badalda was in 1970
significant to Badalda that it afforded the
left the party when he found it "making toowhen, still an undergraduate, I dropped in
many compromises". As he told Nilanjan on the late choreographer Chandralekha's
possibility of breaking the barriers of lan
Datta in an interview last year (Current lovely home in Madras. He was thereguage. He told me once that he responded
E-paper): to the meaning of Esperanto - to live in
smoking a beedi even as he elaborated his
I did not join the party under the influence of idea of a physical theatre. What I rememberhope. One of his treatises Theaterer Bhasha
some dada. I came to the party from a feel is the merciless teasing Chandra subjected(The Language of Theatre) is also available
ing that this world has to be changed. Even him to, about his ignorance of Indian per
in Esperanto as Thiye Tarera Bhasha (1990).
after leaving the party, I feel I'm still doing
formance traditions and training disciplines. My last meeting with Badalda was three
its work - the work of changing the world.
That is not finished and I'm still doing it Chandra was on strong ground here andmonths ago, in February, when I called on
through theatre. I am still a Marxist, though him in his second floor room in the little
one could see Badalda wilting under her
outside the party. taunts. After some time she asked me to
"red building" on Peary Row, off Beadon
The radical postcolonial theatre activity drop him at his hotel on my scooter.Road in Manicktala. We were meeting
of the 1940S-50S epitomised in the directly after almost a decade and he leapt from
Immediately Badalda went "No, No, No"
political intentions of the Indian People's his chair for the customary embrace. He
and recoiled in protest. Later I learnt he
Theatre Association (ipta) was to suddenly had been busy scribbling the final seg
was sitting on a scooter for the first time.
run dry in the 1960s, to be replaced by the Forty years later, last year, I happened toment of his autobiography Purano Kasundi
more existentialist preoccupations of the (Stale Mustard Pickle). The cramped room
be on the jury of the International Theatre
newly emergent "urbanistas" like Mohan Festival of Kerala (itfok) which selected
had a cot in the middle, two Godrej steel
Rakesh, Vijay Tendulkar, Girish Karnad and Badalda for the first Ammanur Puraskaram almirahs cleverly de-commoditised by

Sircar himself. Preoccupations turned in (2010) for lifetime contribution to theatre.

being pasted over with a profusion of multi
ward and psycho-social rather than out There was a hefty purse with it too. Icolour paper cuttings from illustrated
ward and political. It was as if the idea of called Badalda to congratulate him andmagazines and his table and chair over
resistance had bypassed modern Indian looking the window.
also to convey that there was provision for

Economic & Political weekly ODES may 28, 2011 vol xlvi no 22 19

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COMMENTARY

After some quick reminiscences ofaround the world. I have no worry However, like many of his plans, all this
made
Chandralekha and Dashrath Patel and
because my Esperanto community willwill remain unfulfilled. The big dream he
expressing his condolences over their
look after my boarding and lodging inhad was part of his unique Third Theatre
various cities."
passing away, he said: "I have two impor manifesto:

tant things to tell you. One is that I'm feel

He then proceeded to rattle off a breath The ultimate answer... is not for a city group
ing 25 years younger. 1 have neverless itinerary of cities and people he inten to prepare plays for and about the working
felt
people. The working people - factory work
better. The second is that I've recently
ded to visit spanning Europe, England,
ers, peasants, the landless labourers - will
come into some money through some North and South America, Japan, Korea, have to make and perform their own plays...
Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and then back
awards which have substantial monetary This process, of course, can become wide
value (for one of which you too areto re
Kolkata. I said rather amusedly, "But spread only when the socio-economic eman
cipation of the working class has also spread
sponsible). I am feeling rich. Now, I Badalda,
have there's a big black hole in your
widely. When that happens, the Third Theatre
no intention of saving this money. Itour
plan plan - you have missed out on will no longer have a specific function and
Chennai".
to spend it well. So I have decided to go He chuckled and said, "Yes, of will merge with a reformed First Theatre.
on a world tour for six months and once course. Long time since I had that lovely That awaits the lifetime's work of
again meet up with all those friends filter
I coffee you make". another Badal Sircar.

Global Food Price (maize), wheat, soybeans, and rice - along

with other foods like cooking oils is hav

Increases and Volatility

ing a devastating effect on poor people
all over the world. Almost everybody's
standard of living has been reduced as the
middle class becomes increasingly careful
JOMO KWAME SUNDARAM
about its food purchases, the near poor
drop into poverty, and the poor suffer
Global food prices continue to even more. With increased hunger and
eighth consecutive month in Feb
rise month after month, driven malnutrition, the young, old, infirm and
Global food prices increased for the
ruary 2011. The Food and Agricul
by longer-term and more recent
other vulnerable groups will die prema
ture Organisation's (fao) Food Price Index turely or be harmed in other ways.
trends. Financialisation is an
averaged 236 points in February, up 2.2% Longer-term and more recent develop
important factor among the from January, the highest recorded since ments need to be distinguished to under

recent trends. There is strong the fao started monitoring prices in 1990. stand and address the current global
Meanwhile, the World Bank food price food crisis.
evidence of correlation among
index rose by 15% between October 2010
the markets for different financial Longer-Term Trends
and January 2011,29% above its level a year
assets, including stocks/shares, earlier, and only 3% below its 2008 peak. The major increases in crop yields and
commodities and currencies. The World Bank estimates that rising food food production associated with the quest
prices have driven an additional 44 mil for food security and the green revolution
Falling asset prices in other
lion people into poverty in developing from the 1960s to the 1980s - with consid
financial market segments countries since June 2010 as food costs erable government and international not
may thus be more important continue to rise to near 2008 levels. (The
for-profit support - gave way to new policy
fao index moved down a bit to 231 in
priorities in the 1980s. Agricultural ex
for explaining the recent surge
March and stood at 232 in April.) perts have warned of the risks of the flag
in food prices than supply
Lack of food is rarely the reason people
ging efforts to boost food output for years.
constraints or changing demand As food supply growth slowed, demand
go hungry. Even now, there is enough food
and other factors underlying continued to grow, not only due to popula
in the world, but more people cannot afford
tion increase but also for other uses. In re
to buy the food they need. Even before the
longer-term gradual upward
cent years, the world has been consuming
recent food price increases, an estimated
price trends.
more grain than it has been producing,
billion people were suffering from chronic
hunger, while another two billion were
cutting into reserves and driving up prices.
experiencing malnutrition, bringing theThe problem has been exacerbated by
total number of food-insecure people the
to significant drop in official development
around three billion, or almost half the
assistance for agricultural development in
Jomo Kwame Sundaram (Jomoks@yahoo.com) world's population. developing countries. Aid for agriculture
is with the Department of Economic and Social The rapid and simultaneous rise in
fell in real terms by more than half in the
Affairs of the United Nations, New York.
world prices for all basic food crops - corn
quarter century after 1980, e g, the World
20 may 28, 2011 vol xlvi no 22 ran?] Economic & Political weekly

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