JNU, The Theatre And The Tradition Of Dissent
By Vidyadhar Date
02 March, 2016.
Countercurrents.org
We are now seeing an era of the persecution of the intellectual. It is interesting that it was a professor from the JNU, G.P. Deshpande, who first focused on the theme way back in 1974 with his Marathi play Udhwasta Dharmashala. This play was most topical then and it is more topical now. In a way G.P. Deshpande anticipated the present situation.
This is a real , first political drama of modern Indian theatre and it raises various issues. The main character is a Marxist professor Sridhar Vishwanath Kulkarni who is being subjected to an inquiry by the vice-chancellor and others including an opportunistic former Left sympathizer who has now joined hands with the establishment and has been rewarded with a seat in the legislative council. Kulkarni is accused of creating unrest on the university campus with his plays, study circles and other activities. Like G.P., the professor can see life in all its complexities, he knows Sanskrit, its classics, while differing with tradition, he does not blindly reject the traditional Indian ethos.
During the inquiry the Marxist professor asks the opportunistic character called only P.Y. in the play, why are you people so much afraid of a few study circles, some unions, some uncompromising individuals ?. P.Y. tells him the system is not afraid . However, people like the Marxist professor expose us, our opportunism, our limitations and so they must pay the price. If people like you had fallen in line, we could have looked after you, lauded you for your sacrifice, your dedication and sincerity. We would have given you awards, published your books, felicitated you, the opportunist says.( That truly reflects the Congress strategy of buying dissenters. The Congress was the dominant political force then as it remained for several years later.) The only condition the system lays down is that the intellectuals should not expose the system, do not point to the enemy.
The Marxist professor is a rebel from his young days, he campaigns against his own father, a Congress candidate in the assembly elections, and cannot agree with his wife whom he sees as careerist in the Communist party.
We have to thank the JNU for this brilliant play because the intellectual background there must have helped Deshpande to crystalise his ideas. The play also made the university better known to the cultural world in Maharashtra as it was quite new then, having been set up only five years earlier. Deshpande taught Chinese studies there.
The main role was brilliantly played by Dr Shreeram Lagoo, the top actor, and I clearly remember the first performance staged in the Chhabildas school hall in Dadar, then the simple but hallowed venue of the experimental theatre, on 28 October, 1974 (I get the date from the copy of the first edition of the book which I still have and cherish). Lagoo’s wife was played by his wife in real life Deepa Sreeram, and his once beloved Madhavi by Rekha Sabnis. The Hindi version with Om Puri in the lead role marked the inaugural play of Prithvi theatre in Juhu in 1978.
Dr Lagoo says there were many similarities in his own life and in the life of the Marxist professor. Lagoo is not Marxist but has very progressive views including his assertion that we should retire God from public life. Lagoo’s own father, was like the professor’s, a Gandhian. But Lagoo himself was not as well versed in political philosophy and the professor and the role was a learning process for him as indeed it became for many. They heard through this play for the first time about the Paris commune, the Telangana armed revolt and Communist politics.
Dr Lagoo says the professor was like the man who heard a different drummer, he did not compromise, he walks to his own beat, he is a dissenter. Such men may fall by the wayside, but the society benefits from their ideals.
In a sense the professor is also a rebel against the institution of the family which Engels saw as closely related to the institution of private property in a book which was published only 25 years after Darwin’s Origin of Species. Interestingly, the role of the family is questioned brilliantly by non-Marxists in two recent Marathi productions, the wonderful film Natasmarat and the TV serial Dil Dosti Duniya Dari. The film based on Jnanpith award winning author V.V. Shirwadkar’s play of the same name shows the importance of a wider human bonding beyond the family structure. A legendary stage actor is thrown out by his children after he gives away his property to them (reminiscent of King Lear) and he is given shelter by a poor Muslim family on the footpath and a kindly man polishing shoes. The Muslim character is added to the original theme and this is a wonderful idea as it demolishes the whole Hindu right wing ethos built on the edifice of family, Hindu majoritarianism, and Brahminical values. This edifice not only fails to protect the jewel of its cultural heritage but drives him out as he fails to abide by its values. The film is a triumph for Mahesh Manjrekar who was never a part of the progressive film culture. But as an artiste he has risen above his middle class surroundings and values. Like the Marxist professor in the play , the actor in the film is a rebel and a highly cultured man. Though he belongs to the old school, he is well read and gives quick references to Western plays and their background in his conversation.
The anti-intellectualism of the Modi and Hindutva brigade is not as isolated a phenomenon as it would seem. It is deeply entrenched in the United States and it is well documented through works like Richard Hofstader’s 1964 book Anti-intellectualism in American Life and the later 2009 book The Age of Unreason by Susan Jacoby.
As for dubbing people as anti-national by the Hindu right, it has been at it for some time. I just found a copy of my front page report in the Times of India of 1993 in which Mahatma Gandhi was repeatedly denounced as a traitor at a meeting in Mumbai held to pay tributes to Gandhiji’s killer Nathuram Godse on his death anniversary. I was the only journalist present at the meeting and some of the hateful observations I heard were chilling then and these making a chilling reading now. The speakers included Gopal Godse, younger brother of Nathuram and a co-conspirator in the murder trial, S.G. Shevade, who went about with the title Dharmabhushan and Charudatta Aphale who used to deliver sermons on the life of Nathuram.
As for the shrinking of media freedom, there are other factors beyond the Hindu Right and these have been there for several decades. The main one is the increased capitalist control of the media. When I joined the Times of India in Mumbai in 1968, there was much more freedom. The chief reporter V.N. Bhushan Rao, was the president of the Indian Federation of Working Journalists which was so powerful then that it conducted a nationwide strike of newspapers in that very same year for more than a month. It is also remarkable that such a unionist could hold a sensitive position. Now, the unions in the TOI and elsewhere have been systematically destroyed along with a lot of dissent. That is one reason which explains why there were almost no journalists from the Times of India when a demonstration was held just a few feet from its office in the Fort area on the issue of media freedom last month.
The union bashing in the media was accompanied by imposing the contract system of employment on journalists which completely took away their security and independence. Unfortunately, most top journalists slavishly accepted the system because of fancy monetary rewards. The price is being paid now and the contract system has come to stay. Such was independence we could assert that we could fight not only for the rights of journalists but also others including the striking textile workers. A committee was appointed in 1983 by the Bombay Union of Journaliss, then a very active body, to inquire into the misinformation on the strike in the textile industry. It included Prema Viswanathan, Susan Abraham, Mukul Pandya and Hema Nair. Quite a few journalists had no hesitation in foregoing our salaries while supporting the strike of print workers. The sly propaganda that the activist journalists were not good in their work is completely disproved by facts. Many of them did extremely well elsewhere, became authors, academics or pursued journalism with more dedication. I was reminded of this when I just found a booklet of the BUJ on the strike.
(Mr Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist and author of the book Traffic in the era of climate change. Walking, cycling, public transport need priority).