The Samvedan Cultural Programme against communal fear and hatred

(Published in: Magazine Section / The Hindu, 29 June 2008)

STAGECRAFT

Theatre of transformation

by Nughat Gandhi

The Samvedan Cultural Programme’s attempts to dissolve boundaries of communal fear and hatred are bearing fruit.


Sowing seeds of peace: “Aisa Kyun” questions notions of patriarchy.

Ahmedabad, 2002: Mahendar, a young VHP activist is part of the mob-driven frenzy of looting, throwing stones and breaking down Muslim homes. As a young boy, his childhood has been spent doing back-breaking labour, 12 hours a day, for as little as Rs. 10 a day. Glittering opportunities of a growing economy have not come Mahendar’s way. If there’s been a light at the end of this tunnel, it’s the VHP. Their workers come regularly to the slum where Mahendar lives, showering praise on his masculine physique, offering breaks no young man could shrug off. Mahendar is interested in body-building but has no gym membership. The VHP provides funding to build him his own gym. And all he has to do in return is to make young boys into men, teach the youth of his neighbourhood body-building.

So how does a young, athletic man like Mahendar slide down the spiral of terrorism? The answer is hope. Hopes of acquiring power over others where there’s no real power, hopes of belonging. Building hopes in a bleak landscape of poverty and hopelessness wins youth loyalty for life. That’s what the VHP does successfully. It has figured out the formula for sowing seeds of hope and then harvesting a vigorous crop of youth to propagate communal hatred for generations to come.

Women’s Day, 2008: Mahendar, now a talented actor, is visiting Uttar Pradesh as a star member of a theatre team, Samvedan Cultural Programme. Along with his natak team, consisting of Muslim and Dalit young men and women, he’s performing “Aisa Kyun” in colleges and schools in Allahabad. The play traces the historical development of human social, political and religious institutions, from pre-historic matriarchal and gender-equitable tribal societies, to the present day deterioration into aggressive, militaristic, male-dominated society.
Unlikely transformation

As I watch Mahendar perform, I marvel at this living example of the most unlikely transformation — from a sword-wielding rioter to a secular, peace-building, street theatre artist. When Mahendar later tells me his history his eyes glaze over, as he reflects on the impossibility of the path he has traversed. Not all young men are that lucky, he says. Not all can be saved like him. Mahendar has become a hope-builder but of a different kind. Through his acting, he conveys hopes of living an altered life, where men and women can build a world based on equality, peace, and harmony. This quest takes Mahendar with his natak team all over Gujarat and the country, giving hundreds of performances, in schools, colleges, slums, parks, wherever Samvedan Cultural Programme can find a willing audience.

Meet Fareeda, another member of the team. This young woman’s family home was razed to the ground when they escaped to the relief camps in Ahmedabad after the 2002 riots. When they returned, they found that a temple had been built where their home used to stand. Her mother is her staunchest ally, Fareeda tells me. Her mother has vowed to stay on in her neighbourhood and fight for justice, no matter how long it takes. And with her approval Fareeda tours as a performer with the Samvedan group.

Then there’s Jayesh, a former factory worker and the theatre group’s musical soul. When he breaks into song, a mystical silence descends over the audience. More than words, it’s the rawness of emotion in his voice that touches the heart. He’s an intense-looking, gentle-mannered young man, and in conversation with him, I sense his tenderness, his persuasive powers, his ardour for sowing seeds of peace, his mission for building a world we need not be ashamed of.

He tells me, he visited the young Muslim boy featured in Rakesh Sharma’s documentary based on the Gujarat riots, “Final Solution”. At the end of the film, the little boy vows to take revenge on all Hindus when he grows up. “I started playing with him and we had a lot of fun,” Jayesh says. “And in the end, I said to him, “Do you know who I am? I’m a Hindu.” The boy was stunned into silence. Jayesh says he saw fear and disbelief in the child’s eyes.

It is in these challenging silences that the boundaries of hate begin to dissolve. I thought of the turmoil that little boy’s soul must be exposed to each time someone like Jayesh reveals his identity.
Tear down barriers

Yet, he probably doesn’t meet enough Jayeshs to break down the wall of hatred he is cocooned in. He needs to have more friends like Jayesh, who tear down the Hindu-Muslim divide the little boy has erected for survival, who persuade him to give up the certainty of hating, making it impossible to name any one enemy with certainty. And it is such unsettling silences that “Aisa Kyun” also compels audiences to make room for.

Hiren Gandhi is the team’s artistic director and Saroop Dhruv, winner of the 2008 Hellman/Hammett award by Human Rights Watch for her courageous stance against state censorship, is the playwright. Along with a group of committed citizens who felt something needed to be done urgently to fight the forces of cultural fascism, to build a counter-culture to resist communal conflict, anti-poor globalisation values, and gender inequality, Saroop and Hiren became co-founders of Samvedan Cultural Programme for youth in 2003.

“Aisa Kyun” ends amid appreciative applause on a college campus in Allahabad. The theatre team invites questions from the audience. The response to the play is mixed. Men don’t like being called patriarchy’s soldiers. Men don’t want to be held solely responsible for the violence women suffer. Aren’t women the worst enemies of women, they ask. Isn’t it mothers-in-law who torture their daughters-in-law? Isn’t it women who want to abort their female foetuses? Patiently, Waqar, the team’s co-ordinator, and the actors answer questions, with polite humour. It’s not men versus women, they say. It’s the institution of patriarchy, which operates on power-usurpation by a group of elite men and oppresses not only women but many men — that’s what we’re up against. It’s all systems of oppression we are against, not individual men or women. As a society, we need to change the system. And so, men also have to change.
Moving performance

The most moving performance is at the Kasturba Gandhi School. A residential school on the outskirts of Allahabad, it houses 60 Dalit and Muslim girl drop-outs from rural schools. The teachers are a committed group of Muslim and Hindu women.

We are on the terrace of the small building, which serves as the school. Sixty girls, ranging from 10 to 14 years, are sitting on the ground, absorbed in the play. They don’t ask the kind of questions adults ask. And it’s not because they are conceptually lost. It’s because they are not stuck to rock-like prejudices adults have. Before the play started, they told me Women’s Day is a day for women to ask for their rights. They told me they have dreams of becoming teachers, lawyers, doctors. And even photographers after I gave one girl my camera to take pictures with.

The sun is setting behind the peepul tree in the school yard. In the distance, the bridge over the sluggish Ganga appears misty. Shimmering lights come on in houses across the river. The little girls make it seem so easy, so effortless. So why, if the little girls can make it happen, has it become naiveté to expect different groups of people to co-exist harmoniously with their differences?

Nighat Gandhi is an Oxfam Fellow. Samvedan Cultural Team’s visit to Allahabad was funded by Oxfam India Trust and Women’s Rights Alliance, Allahabad.