'Art at its Most Vital Is Never Neutral': Amol Palekar

On March 25, 2026, actor, director, producer and author Amol Palekar was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META). Previous awardees include Badal Sircar, Zohra Sehgal, Ebrahim Alkazi, Girish Karnad and Shanta Gokhale.

The following is the full text of Palekar's acceptance speech.

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Good Evening Friends,

Tonight I receive this honour with gratitude and with a certain degree of reflection.

Awards, I believe, have their own timing. When they arrive at the right moment, they do more than acknowledge – they affirm; they lend renewed momentum to the journey.

My own journey has spanned over six decades. Honours have not always accompanied it.

There is a certain cost to speaking up – to questioning decisions, to not aligning conveniently, to maintaining a distance from political patronage. One learns, over time, that recognition is not merely about merit; it is also about how comfortably one fits within structures of power. And I have never chosen that comfort.

My visibility as a film star created an image that overshadowed my work in visual arts, theatre and direction. Individuals and institutions are not immune to bias, preference, or discomfort with dissent. I must also acknowledge that I failed to promote my work to the extent it may have warranted. It was perhaps for this reason that I felt the need to write my memoir Viewfinder to reintroduce myself, in a more complete sense.

At the same time, I cannot be ungrateful to my work in cinema. It gave me the financial independence to pursue theatre on my own terms. At the peak of my film career, that steady income enabled me to produce, direct and act in over 30 plays, allowing me to shape my own distinct creative voice.

It is from this understanding that the choices I have made, in life or in work, have emerged. Over the course of my 60-year journey, these choices were geared by a certain clarity of thought and conviction.

When the dominant trend was to present Western playwrights in Indian languages, I chose instead to translate, and stage plays from our own regional languages into Hindi and Marathi. I have always believed that theatre can function as a bridge of cultural synthesis. Through such exchanges, we created a space where different Indian linguistic and cultural traditions could engage with one another, deepening understanding and enriching the theatrical imagination.

Secondly, I have felt a deep need to ensure that the works of our own stalwarts do not fade from our collective memory. If we do not actively revive them, younger generations will grow up knowing only Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov, or Beckett, while remaining unfamiliar with the richness of our own theatrical heritage. With that in mind, I had organised retrospectives of Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar, and Ratan Thiyyam along with celebrating the rich Kannada-Marathi Sangit Natak traditions. Such efforts, I believe, are not acts of nostalgia, but of bringing the past into meaningful dialogue with the present.

In this process, I could create opportunities to extend a certain quiet support to senior theatre practitioners. My belief in the Gandhian idea of aparigraha has also shaped my conviction that those who have built our theatre should not have to face their later years in financial insecurity.

In the same spirit, I have also tried to open doors for younger practitioners by supporting new work.

And thirdly, my engagement with theatre has taken the form of resistance. I staged over 150 performances of Badalda’s play Julus during the Emergency. More recently, through Kusur, staged on completing 80 years, I explored our prejudices against minorities – so evident in today’s socio-political climate. My effort, throughout, has been to articulate a dissenting voice against injustice and authoritarian impulses. In 1974, I successfully challenged the ban on Vasanakand. Through my public interest litigation against pre-censorship, I have raised a fundamental question: why should theatre practitioners in Maharashtra and Gujarat alone be required to seek certification before performance, when no such rule exists elsewhere in the country? This discriminatory practice is unconstitutional, and I have sought redress from the Bombay high court. I only hope the matter is heard and resolved within my lifetime which, one must acknowledge, is now measured in only a few years.

Also read: Amol Palekar and a Dystopian Time of Censorship

It is in resisting such constraints that one begins to understand the true value of freedom. Theatre has always reminded us of the courage to be free. In Andhayug, Dr. Dharamvir Bharati gives Gandhari the moral force to confront and even to curse Almighty Krishna:

“यद तुम चाहते तो रूक सकता था युद्ध यह,
इंगत पर तुम्हारे ही भीम ने अधम कया,
क्यों नहीं तुमने वह शाप दया भीम को जो तुमने दया अश्वत्थामा को?
तुमने कया है प्रभुता का दुरूपयोग,
कया है तुम ने यह सब, कृष्ण तुमने कया है सब... सुनो, आज तुम भी सुनो!
प्रभु हो या परात्पर हो, कुछ भी हो... मारे जाओगे पशुओं की तरह।”

In such moments, theatre reminds us that no power is beyond interrogation. Swatantrata ka arth keval bandhano ka aabhaav nahi, apne satya ko jeene ka saahas hai (Freedom does not mean only the lack of restrictions, it is the courage to live ones truth). It is this freedom that has sustained me, allowing me to work without regret, to take risks without calculation, and to look back without a sense of compromise.

An artiste does not exist outside his times. These are times that demand attention – when democracies are narrowing, public discourse is fragile and wars define much of our present. In such a moment, art cannot remain ornamental. It must engage, question, and when necessary, resist.

Theatre in India has long carried this responsibility. Safdar Hashmi showed us that performance can be an act of courage in the public square. Habib Tanveer rooted theatre in the lived realities while expanding its language. Badal Sircar took it to the streets, redefining both form and audience. Girish Karnad interrogated power and history. Ratan Thiyyam created a visual language both rooted and universal. Across the world, from Brecht to Banski, art at its most vital is never neutral.

I accept this honour with gratitude, and dedicate it to my guru Satyadev Dubey, my colleagues from Aniket, the many great Bengalis who believed in me and deepened my artistic sensibility, and my loving family, whose unwavering support has sustained this journey.

I would like to end with Bertolt Brecht’s famous lines:

“In the dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.”

Let us then continue to sing without fear of the times we inhabit.

Thank you.

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