There is a storm raging in the theatre circles of Kolkata for the past few days.
Well known director Suman Mukhopadhyay has recreated the legendary Utpal Dutt’s Tiner Tolowar (‘the tin sword’). In the play, Sudipto Chatterjee, a man accused of rape by multiple women, performs two songs. Suman is a critically acclaimed and award winning director of theatre and films with three decades of work that has produced 10 films and over 25 theatre productions. Sudipto is a performance scholar, actor and playwright. He was arrested in October 2019 on two charges – one for rape and the other for molestation – after young actresses filed complaints against him at the Phoolbagan and Beliaghata police stations in Kolkata. They had also shared their ordeal on social media where other survivors too came out in support.
Both cases are currently under trial at the Sealdah district court in Kolkata.
At the end of the first day of the show, Sudipto was invited on stage. Shortly afterwards various voices raged and protested on social media against an undertrial rape– and molestation–accused being part of this much awaited play. Suman was asked to respond. A theatre professional Daminee ‘Benny’ Basu wrote a piece in the leading Bengali daily, Ananda Bazar Patrika. The piece generated interest but was soon removed from the portal. The theatre group Mukhomukhi, that produced the play mentioned on a social media post that Sudipto had been asked to leave after the first show. Daminee wrote another article, this time in Protidin Robbar, still asking for answers from the director, Suman who had been silent so far. She not only raised questions of safety in the theatre sphere of Bengal but also asked Suman why this protest was being seen as ‘trouble making’, when the language of protest was an important legacy of theatre in Bengal.
In the meantime, the producer of the play uploaded a video of Daminee’s father, the actor Asit Basu, who was part of Utpal Dutta’s original cast of this very play. In the video, Asit is seen promoting this play. The timing of this upload is interesting – it comes as his daughter is raising questions about the play.
Eventually, Suman wrote a piece in Protidin Robbar where he accepted his mistake of casting Sudipto. He also mentioned a few ‘but’s.
Much is being discussed right now in social media and elsewhere about the protests of Daminee and others, their way of doing it and whether they overdid it. There is also talk on Suman’s response and his anguish at being accused of being an enabler, and so on. There is still silence from the larger theatre community in Bengal. Much of Bengal’s cultural capital is at stake here with the past and present involved, as are Bengal’s patriarchy and its cultural hegemony. While battles are being fought online, since most of the conversations are in Bangla as are the pieces being written, not much has reached the larger theatre or arts community in the rest of the country yet.
I want to focus on the note that Suman wrote – and the ‘but’s he included – because the anatomy of an apology can offer many learnings.
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Over the past many decades of my life in the arts and culture, I have realised how hard it is for us women and other marginalised people to exist in the patriarchal, casteist, and deeply misogynistic worlds of our work. Every demand of equality, dignity and safety is accompanied by immense struggle as well as taunt and rebuke by those in power and their associates. We are chastised for being trouble–makers, and ‘hard to work with’. As I slowly rose to positions of power, the imbalances and injustices stared harder at me. Challenging the structural and wilful discrimination, and abuse of marginalised voices required more than the ‘tools that built the master’s house’ as Audre Lorde pointed out. The #MeToo movement came like a storm threatening to dismantle that house with rage and courage. The voices of women that had been stifled for so long suddenly sounded harsh and shrill to those used to the silence. Mostly they were younger women, those still not embedded in the economic hierarchies that are cemented together within patriarchy. The arts and culture sector too saw the deluge of #MeToo accusations. While many supported the voices of protest, there was also an outpouring of misogynist angst from the house of perpetrators and their friends.
From slut shaming to covert character assassination, from suspicions of political motivation to questions about financial gain – the responses covered the whole spectrum. And what I saw was that soon afterwards, the perpetrators were slowly being brought back into the very cultural spheres that had nurtured them. Around that time in 2022 I wrote an article about this that expressed my anger and disgust at this attitude of the arts and cultural sector normalising sexual harassment.
So when I finished reading the piece by Suman, two things struck me immediately. I wished his apology came earlier – before the proverbial shit hit the ceiling; and I wished his apology came without the few ‘but’s. These ‘buts’ consisted of his lack of mindfulness when he cast Sudipto, not knowing enough about what happened to the survivors of Sudipto’s violence, raising questions about why Daminee had not protested at other such situations, histories of his own struggles against systems and establishments, suffering at the hands of other powers, and finally his sadness at being accused as an enabler and wondering if he should leave the space of Kolkata theatre. I am summarising my learnings as three key points – the first about people in power, the next about people who are allies, and the third about allies who are in positions of power.
Firstly, I realised a deep truth – people in power have not learnt to say sorry. Simply to accept a mistake, acknowledge their shortcoming and apologise when facing an accusation seems hard for them. Mistakes happen to everyone. Sometimes those we make without thinking as much as we should have hurt others brutally. They express that anguish through ways that we may or may not like against the power that has hurt them. An apology then is a place of submission of that power. It is recognition of the inhumanity of power, and its privileges – an acknowledgment of the context within which the accusation has happened. It is laying down the arms that people in power forget they carry. So much of ‘power’ is also a habit. An apology is neither a place for explanation or justification of a mistake, nor one where one expresses their own sorrow with the accusation. One can think of other ways of venting that sorrow like talking to friends, but the apology is not the vessel for it. This dilutes the apology, taking away its key ingredient – submission and replacing it with resentment. And no healthy discussion around the accusation can even begin with this resentment. Suman could have just accepted his mistake and said sorry.
Secondly, I am not unaware that Suman is an ally; he is on our side so to say. He has been in very many battles against fascism and other powers and been suitably singed for it. Even in this case when Sudipto was arrested Suman made a public statement against him and stood by those who called Sudipto out. He was quoted in a piece in the Times of India, “I am deeply disturbed by such developments. Sudipto and I go back a long way. In Jadavpur University, he was in the English department and I was in Comparative Literature. We were in the US and spent time in New York together. We worked together on several important and intense projects, including Man of The Heart. We have performed together in several prestigious venues. I have seen him as an accomplished, sensitive and creative person. I am deeply pained by the allegations. I think it takes a lot of courage for a woman to come out in public and talk about her ordeal. I truly salute those girls for their courage. Sexual harassment in any field and any form is disagreeable. It becomes more unfortunate when it is done in the name of theatrical techniques and Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay. Now the matter is in the hands of law and let it take its own course.” He reminded us of this statement in his piece which was a good thing. However, an ally has an additional responsibility. Allies cannot think of themselves as so sacred and righteous, that they cannot be accused of wrongdoing. The grief that Suman talks about in his piece appears to come from a belief that since he is an ally and a fighter in his own right, he must never be interrogated. This I find problematic. Also allies don’t leave the scene when questioned. Suman writes in his piece and I translate from his last paragraph, “In spite of various differences, the voices which needed to remain united are fighting among themselves, making fun of each other, insulting each other. There is no space for respect – there is only dirty slander and slurs. Then I want to end this long career in theatre that I have. Kolkata does not have the environment for theatre anymore.” An ally has to do better.
Thirdly, and this is specifically my observation about those of our allies who are in positions of power. They must be very careful about the politics that happens around them by people who survive in their shadows and feed off the scraps of power strewn around them. Often these tail worshippers are more invested in the structures of power remaining intact than those in power because that becomes their only way of survival and accruing privileges. Their overt advice and so called protective instincts all apparently in the name of love and respect for those in power, actually serves to constantly preserve and extend the suppressive tentacles of power. Allies, if and when in positions of power, must remember they are in the master’s house and if they are truly allies then their job is to dismantle that house, not act in ways that protect it.
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So when faced with difficult situations that raise questions about their power’s role in brutality, they must go to those who can really give them sober and wise counsel on how to act. Allies in positions of power are often walking a tightrope. I have been there. But walking that tightrope is no excuse to take misguided advice from those whose interests lie only in protecting the structures of power. I feel, often, that many conflicts could be resolved if only people in power sought wise advice that is more humane than strategic.
And finally, to those who have raised their voices in dissent. If the book edited by Ashok Vajpeyi titled India Dissents is to be believed then dissent has a history of 3,000 years in this country, where people have questioned authorities of state, religion, caste, political traditions, patriarchy and God. Despite all attempts to silence them each movement of dissent has inched this civilization a wee bit forward. Albeit on the shoulders of those who suffered for it.
Theatre in Bengal has stood against many oppressors and spoken truth to power over decades – the colonists, fascists, capitalists, and religious fundamentalists among them. But till it stands against patriarchy and misogyny prioritising the safety and dignity of women and other sexually marginalised communities who work in theatre, we can neither call it fearless not truly progressive. I hope the voices that have been raised in the theatre space of Kolkata today will join and amplify with the many other voices we are raising across the country in the arts and culture sector for a world without the oppression of misogyny, patriarchy and caste.
Arundhati Ghosh is a writer and cultural practitioner residing in Bengaluru.
