Theatre and National Identity in Colonial India : Formation of a Community Through Cultural Practice

This book critically engages with the study of theatre and performance in colonial India, and relates it with colonial (and postcolonial) discussions on experience, freedom, institution-building, modernity, nation/subject not only as concepts but also as philosophical queries. It opens up with the discourse around ‘Indian theatre’ that was started by the orientalists in the late 18th century, and which continued till much later. The study specifically focuses on the two major urban centres of colonial India: Bombay and Calcutta of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. It discusses different cultural practices in colonial India, including the initiation of ‘Indian theatre’ practices, which resulted in many forms of colonial-native ‘theatre’ by the 19th century; the challenges to this dominant discourse from the ‘ swadeshi jatra ’ (national jatra/theatre) in Bengal, which drew upon earlier folk and religious traditions and was used as a tool by the nationalist movement; and the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) that functioned from Bombay around the 1940s, which focused on the creation of one national subject – that of the ‘Indian’. The author contextualizes the relevance of the concept of ‘Indian theatre’ in today’s political atmosphere. She also critically analyses the post-Independence Drama Seminar organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1956 and its relevance to the subsequent organization of ‘Indian theatre’. Many theatre personalities who emerged as faces of smaller theatre committees were part of the seminar which envisioned a national cultural body. This book is an important contribution to the field and is of interest to researchers and students of cultural studies, especially Theatre and Performance Studies, and South Asian Studies. Foreword I 5 Foreword II 7 Acknowledgement 9 Contents 11 About the Author 13 List of Figures 14 Chapter 1: Nation and Its Theatre: Towards a Methodology 16 1.1 A Matter of Conjuncture 16 1.2 Coagulating Communities: Towards a Methodology 20 1.3 The Historical Context 22 1.4 The Logic of Progression 27 1.5 Conclusion to the Introduction 29 Part I: Thinking Indian Theatre 31 Chapter 2: Critical Meanderings: ‘Theatre’ in Colonial India 32 2.1 The Beginnings of a Discourse on ‘Theatre’ 32 2.2 Discovery of an Identity 41 2.3 Discovering Indian Theatre 46 Part II: Performing Indian Theatre 60 Chapter 3: A New Sociability: The Colonial Urbes Prima Goes to the Theatre 61 3.1 Towards a Study of Colonial Sociability 61 3.2 Sociability in the Premier Cities: The Case of Bombay and Calcutta 63 3.3 ‘Handsome Actresses’, Colonial English Sociability and Prodigal Energies 70 3.4 English ‘Publicity’ and Colonial English Sociability 75 3.5 Colonial Knowledge Formation and ‘Discovery’ of the ‘Other’ 76 3.6 ‘Parthenon! Brotherhood!’: The Other Discovers Itself 81 3.7 A Detour: Gerasim Stepanovich Lebedev and His Bengali Language ‘Theatre’ 83 3.8 Colonial Sociability, ‘Theatre’ and Native Elite Brotherhood in Calcutta 85 3.9 Colonial Sociability, ‘Theatre’ and Native Elite Brotherhood in Bombay 87 3.10 Native-English Interaction, Cultural Hegemony and Distinctive Features of the Urbes Prima Sociability 89 3.11 The ‘Becoming’ of a Congregation: Is Our’s or Their’s a Relevant Question? 93 Chapter 4: Coming Communities and Vacillating Definitions: The Case of Censorship and Swadeshi Jatra 96 4.1 Theatre: The House of Satan 96 4.2 Sin, Salvation, Censorship and Theatre Within a Colonial Space 106 4.3 Theatre, Identity and Colonial Native Society 110 4.4 Public Arena and the Jatra 113 4.5 Coagulating Peoples, Mutating Identities and the Swadeshi Movement 117 4.6 Swadeshi Jatra and Vacillating Definitions 121 Chapter 5: The Commune-ist Air: The Case of the IPTA Central Squad 129 5.1 The Coagulating Communities at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century: A Case of ‘Rowing’ 129 5.2 The Commune-ist Air 130 5.3 Commune 131 5.4 Transforming a Thought Form to a Material One (I): Life in a Commune—The Case of IPTA CS 133 5.5 Transforming a Thought Form to a Material One (II): Performances of the IPTA CS 140 5.6 ‘Spirit of India’ 144 5.7 ‘India Immortal’ 145 5.8 Communism in India and the Commune-ist Air 152 5.9 Freedom and the Question of a National Theatre: Are They Contradictory? 157 Chapter 6: Epilogue: Indian Theatre: What Are We Talking About? 163 6.1 On the Question of the Vitruvian Man (Fig. 6.1) 163 6.2 Theatre and Thiyetar or ‘Yes, I Only Have One Language, Yet It Is Not Mine’ 167 6.3 Once More ‘The National Question’: The Present Perils of It 169 6.4 Towards Not a Nationalist But a Contextual Definition or What Do We Call that Which We Have Called Theatre? 170 Bibliography 172 Magazines and Newspaper Articles 178 Paper Presented at Colloquium and Conference 179 Manuscripts and Archival Material From - 180 Interviews 180 Websites 180 Index 181 This book critically engages with the study of theatre and performance in colonial India, and relates it with colonial (and postcolonial) discussions on experience, freedom, institution-building, modernity, nation/subjectnot only as concepts but also as philosophical queries. It opens up with the discourse around ‘Indian theatre’ that was started by the orientalists in the late 18th century, and which continued till much later. The study specifically focuses on the two major urban centres of colonial India: Bombay and Calcutta of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It discusses different cultural practices in colonial India, including the initiation of ‘Indian theatre’ practices, which resulted in many forms of colonial-native ‘theatre’ by the 19th century; the challenges to this dominant discourse from the ‘__swadeshi jatra__’ (national jatra/theatre) in Bengal, which drew upon earlier folk and religious traditions and was used as a tool by the nationalist movement; and the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) that functioned from Bombay around the 1940s, which focused on the creation of one national subject – that of the ‘Indian’. The author contextualizes the relevance of the concept of ‘Indian theatre’ in today’s political atmosphere. She also critically analyses the post-Independence Drama Seminar organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1956 and its relevance to the subsequent organization of ‘Indian theatre’. Many theatre personalities who emerged as faces of smaller theatre committees were part of the seminar which envisioned a national cultural body. This book is an important contribution to the field and is of interest to researchers and students of cultural studies, especially Theatre and Performance Studies, and South Asian Studies. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi Nation and Its Theatre: Towards a Methodology (Sharmistha Saha)....Pages 1-15 Front Matter ....Pages 17-17 Critical Meanderings: ‘Theatre’ in Colonial India (Sharmistha Saha)....Pages 19-46 Front Matter ....Pages 47-47 A New Sociability: The Colonial Urbes Prima Goes to the Theatre (Sharmistha Saha)....Pages 49-83 Coming Communities and Vacillating Definitions: The Case of Censorship and Swadeshi Jatra (Sharmistha Saha)....Pages 85-117 The Commune-ist Air: The Case of the IPTA Central Squad (Sharmistha Saha)....Pages 119-152 Epilogue: Indian Theatre: What Are We Talking About? (Sharmistha Saha)....Pages 153-161 Back Matter ....Pages 163-175