Bengal’s theatre of protest against oppressive systems is still bustling with action. From plays like Utpal Dutt’s Dushwapner Nagari in the 1970s to Fandigram, a satire on the post-Nandigram violence and the most recent Poshu Khamar, based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the state’s intellectual fraternity has been cornering the ruling dispensation on burning issues.
Poshu Khamar, adapted by well-known playwright Saonli Mitra, was denied permission to be staged in March in West Bengal’s Hooghly district by the police. Directed by Arpita Ghosh and staged by their troupe Pancham Baidik, the play is a hard-hitting comment on the monolithic, totalitarian Communist regimes, says writer-political analyst Monobina Gupta in her book, Left Politics in Bengal.
“The former Soviet Union, it is well-known, had banned the book. Defending her play, the director says Poshu Khamar reflects the present in West Bengal, a telling testimony to the powers of an intolerant regime,” Gupta says.
“Sure enough, the resemblance was not lost on CPI(M) leaders,” Gupta says.
The play ran into a rough patch in 2006 when the troupe sought information about the Singur project from chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The group was told to replace the play with another one in December 2006.
Bengal, which has always been the first to rebel against repressive regimes and social conditions, has a long history of protest theatre.
The controversy over Poshu Khamar is similar to an incident in 1974 (May 16) when Congress supporters had stopped the Utpal Dutt’s reactionary production, Dushwapner Nagari (The City of Nightmares), a satire on West Bengal under the Congress regime of Siddhartha Shankar Ray.
In her book, Smaraney Bismaraney: Nabanna Theke Lal Durgo (In Memory, In Forgetfulness: From Nabanna to Red Fort), Dutt’s widow Sova Sen, noted stage actress and the force behind the People’s Little Theatre (PLT) , alleged that the police helped the attackers.
Utpal Dutt, who was a Marxist supporter, consolidated the contemporary Leftist Revolutionary Theatre in Bengal, which took up issues of popular and global concern to make statements.
Three of his radical plays, Barricade, Dushwapner Nagari and Ebaar Rajar Pala, played to packed houses through the 1970s despite being officially banned.
Dutt was jailed in 1965 for several months because the West Bengal government feared that his play, Kallol (Waves of Sea) based on the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946, which drew packed audiences at the Minerva Theatre, would trigger anti-government protests.
Between the 1950s and 1970s, many “resistances had found their way into the world of films, music, literature and theatre”.
It led to a new genre of work depicting poverty, hunger and exploitative class relations in West Bengal. A play by Bijan Bhattacharya, Nabanna, became a corner-stone of Bengali resistance theatre.
Poetry by Jyotindra Moitra, Bishnu Dey and Subhas Mukhopadhyay spoke of the resentment and anguish. —IANS