This government and its minions have perfected the art of depoliticising history and wiping out any mention of mass movements that strove not only to challenge imperialism and fascism but also a highly unequal social order within India. The objective of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) formed in 1936 was to draw attention to patriarchy, poverty, social inequality, feudalism and to the struggle against reactionary forces. The Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) that reiterated these objectives was formed in the midst of tremendous global and national upheavals. A number of cultural organisations, troupes and activists came together in 1942 during the Quit India movement. IPTA was formally inaugurated on May 25, 1943 in Bombay. Professor Hiren Mukherjee presided over the session.
The international and the national context of the formation of IPTA was grim. Germany had overrun much of Europe, including Russia, during the Second World War. A global coalition of artists against fascism had created a platform to protest against the rising tide of Nazism that threatened to submerge major parts of the world. Members of IPTA were greatly influenced by the coming together of artists and literary luminaries across the world to resist the ideological onslaught of Germany and create a new culture of resistance. The formation of IPTA is in many circles credited to the Communist Party of India (CPI).
Like the PWA, IPTA was composed of members who held different ideological persuasions. What they had in common was commitment to struggle against the ills that submerged India and the belief that theatre as a way of reaching out to the masses and mobilising them. The role of theatre in particular, and art in general, in a highly exploitative society had to be rethought. This commitment to art not for the sake of art but for society had been enunciated in the manifesto of the Progressive Writers Association in 1936.
Also read: Murmurs of a Different Dream: Progressive Writers and Their Contribution to Indian Cinema
And now comes the oddity. While looking for the somewhat scant material on IPTA online, I came across a website under the aegis of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, Ministry of Culture, Government of India: Digital District Repository Detail’. The short piece on IPTA tells us that the organisation was set up to integrate and popularise the cultural movement alongside the struggle for freedom. ‘The main aim of the organisation was to inculcate national pride in the people, raise awareness of the issues faced by the people, and encourage citizens to participate in the Independence movement.’
It is precisely here that we get an idea of how the official history of a radical cultural movement like IPTA has been stripped of its dynamism, the passion of the members to eradicate poverty and illbeing, and above all their criticism of the Bengal Famine as the result of not only British policies but the zamindari system.
‘IPTA’, according to this short piece, did not follow one political ideology, it welcomed many members who were ‘mildly political’ but believed that culture could aid the independence movement.
‘Mildly political’ is frankly an insult to the intense commitment of members of IPTA to expose the hypocrisy of Indian society, and the realm of unfreedom that constrained millions to live lives of desperation.
Not all members belonged to the left, though many of them were members of the CPI. But like the members of the PWA, all of them were progressive, anti-imperial, anti-feudal and anti-capitalist. We have to but recollect the names of some of the members of IPTA to recognize what ideology they stood for. Among the members were Sombu Mitra, Bijon Bhattacharya, Utpal Dutt, Bhupen Hazarika, Raja Rao, K.A. Abbas, Balraj Sahni, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Sadat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chander, Inder Raj Anand, Prithviraj Kapoor, Kaifi Azmi, A.K Hangal, Bimal Roy, Satyen Bose, Basu Bhattacharya, Durga Khote, Dina Pathak, Shaukat Azmi, Salil Chaudhry, Sajjan, Satyen Kappu, M.S. Sathyu and Anant Nag. These are a few of the luminaries but all of them were motivated by intense and passionate commitment to propel change in reactionary traditions that held Indian society in their iron grip, and to break chains of unfreedom. IPTA gave us some marvellously radical theatre and films that cannot be forgotten.
The strategy to take theatre to the people was highly imaginative. Plays were emancipated from closed halls, and the provenance of elite audiences, as performances were held under open skies and in common spaces. This theatre was realistic, vibrant and intimately related to life experiences. The objective was to express through art, the predicaments and the aspirations of the masses. Artists took up issues of social abuse, religious bigotry, political oppression and economic domination.
Also read: Habib Tanvir’s Plays Raised the Ethos of India’s Diverse Culture
In the wake of the great Calcutta famine of 1943, Nabanna (the bountiful harvest) staged under the direction of Sombu Mitra in 1944, is seen as the first major production of IPTA. The play was written by one of the founding members of the association Bijon Bhattacharya. The narration of the exploitation of peasants by landlords, that escalated poverty, starvation and death was heartrending. The great famine Bijon Babu stressed, was man-made, it was not a natural disaster, it was the product of intense deprivation. The play showed a group of peasants who leave their famine-stricken village and make the long journey to the city only to find themselves beggars, confronted by the indifference of the metropolis. Their stay in the city politicises them and they decide to return to the village with their new awareness.
Those who had turned their attention away from the corpses that littered Bengal in 1943 wept when they saw Nabanna. The play according to the great film maker Ritwik Ghatak demonstrated that theatre was not only a part of the social struggle, but also its weapon. Bijon Babu first showed, he said, how theatre had to be committed to the people and how to portray a fragment of reality as an undivided whole on the stage. To describe this theatre as mild politics is a gross misrepresentation.
Sajjad Zaheer’s Bimar, a one-act Hindi play written in the early 1930s, and published in 1941 in an English translation ‘The Living and the Dead’, presented sharply and evocatively the opposition between the peasant-labourer and the middle classes. On the verge of death, Bashir, the central character of the play says bitterly, “The law as it now stands says that he who labours shall not get the fruit of his labour; the custom is that those who do nothing become lord and masters of those who toil. The workers might die of hunger while the leisured spend their time in comfort and luxury. Convention demands that if those who labour ask for the fruits of their labour, then they should be called seditionists and rebels, and serve as targets for bullets…Wealth, which ought to be the fruit of labour, is in the hands of useless, inept, stupid, half-witted and short-sighted fools. And he who has wealth has power; and he who has power lays down the law and makes principles. For me obedience to such principles is a crime against humanity.” The political message was clear, the appropriation of labour ought to be one of the central concerns of theatre because it is at the heart of exploitation, misery and deprivation.
IPTA impacted Bombay films of the 1950s and 1960s greatly. Their films make us reflect on how India even after independence could not shrug off its chains of social and economic unfreedom. In sum, to describe the politics of IPTA artists as ‘mild’ is not only to do them injustice, it is to sideline marvellous organisations that came together to greatly expand the idea of freedom. If marginalising radical organisations is official history, then people in power fail to understand what politics is about. Politics is contestation. What is not contested is not politics.
Neera Chandhoke was professor of political science at Delhi University.
