Budhan bolta hai

[Kerim Friedman]

Article about Budhan Theatre in InfoChange India. - kerim

Budhan bolta hai
http://infochangeindia.org/Agenda/Multiculturalism-and-intercultural-dialogue/Budhan-bolta-hai.html

By Anosh Malekar

The dialogue must go on, says Dakxin Bajrange, the moving spirit
behind Gujarat’s Budhan Theatre, a decade-old theatre group comprised
of Chharas, a tribe dubbed criminals by the British raj and still
stigmatised even after the repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act. Budhan
Theatre is their effort to communicate that no one is a born criminal,
and they believe that their theatre has transformed their lives and
their identities


“How do you convince a world that suspects you are a ‘born thief’? You
act like a thief!” Theatre person Dakxin Bajrange was matter-of-fact
as he explained the circumstances that led to the birth of a unique
street theatre at a pre-Independence-era resettlement site on the
outskirts of Gujarat’s commercial heart, Ahmedabad, where a people
called Chharas were subjected to forced labour and constant
surveillance by the British.

Budhan Theatre was founded on August 31, 1998, to commemorate the
repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act, 1911, on August 31, 1952. “The
withdrawal of the British law was supposed to lift the stigma of
criminality attached to our people. But the stigma remains to this
day. Budhan Theatre is an effort to communicate that no one is a born
criminal. In fact, we call ourselves born actors,” he said.

Bajrange had an interesting point to make: “Even if for a moment we
consider that we are born thieves, it still does not falsify our claim
to be born actors. A bad actor cannot be a thief. My father was a
thief. I realised while doing theatre that theft is also an art form.
It follows a fixed method and requires a fair amount of creativity. It
is like theatre -- there is a director, an actor and a stage. Your
audience should not know how they were distracted and picked. There is
a lot of drama in all this. We have tried to revive the art form, of
course in a positive way.”

Bajrange is a Chhara and has been the moving spirit behind the theatre
movement since its inception. He writes, directs and acts in plays
that revolve around real-life experiences of his community with law-
enforcing agencies, often involving illegal detentions and custodial
deaths. “Our goal is to tell the world that Chharas and other
similarly stigmatised people -- some 60 million across India now
referred to as denotified tribes (DNTs) -- are human beings with real
emotions, capacities and aspirations.”

The plays performed by Budhan Theatre are neither conventional nor
experimental as you would know them. They have unique themes that are
based on the personal experiences of the actors and have unfailingly
touched a chord with audiences. “In the last 10 years that we have
been performing, theatre has changed our identity; it has also
provided dignity. Established artists in Gujarati cinema and theatre
have started looking up to us as one of them. Earlier, our children
could not get into college for higher education, but now they do
because they are considered good actors. And often, even if their
grades are not up to the mark, they are admitted because their acting
skills are seen as an asset,” Kalpana Gagdekar, founding member of
Budhan Theatre and now an established Gujarati film and television
actor, claimed.

Gagdekar reminisced on the journey that began in 1998 when writer-
activists Mahasweta Devi and Ganesh Devy came to meet the Chharas at
their homes. They were warned by the police against entering the
‘criminal ghetto’, but they insisted and pushed their way through.
“Mahasweta Devi came and asked us what it was that we needed most. We
told her that we desperately wanted to read. She spent money from her
own pocket and bought us books. I think it was the first time in
Chhara history that someone from outside had made such a gesture,”
Gagdekar added.

The young boys and girls in Chharanagar found in her a pillar of
support. They started calling her ‘Amma’ and in gratitude composed a
play on the life and death of Budhan Sabar, a denotified tribal from
Purulia district in West Bengal killed in police custody. The first
performance took place before her, at the first national convention of
DNTs held in Chharanagar in August 1998.

Mahasweta, who was portrayed as a character pleading for the dignity
and rights of DNTs, cried as she watched those branded criminals speak
about their plight. The Chharas were only too familiar with police
atrocities, and it showed, though none of the actors were
professionals. They went on to perform some 500 shows of the play at
schools and colleges across India.

The media started writing about the library Mahasweta Devi helped set
up and the unique theatre experiment launched with her intervention in
Chharanagar. It provided the first ray of hope for a community living
on the margins of society and often banished to the crime section of
mainstream media.

Entering Chharanagar always felt like crossing an invisible border
into another world. Located beyond the Naroda railway crossing on the
eastern periphery of Ahmedabad, the streets are narrower and dirtier,
sandwiched between a warren of houses and small shops set out like
weekly market stalls. The area is crowded and noisy -- roughly three
square miles teeming with 20,000 human souls. The only open spaces are
pools of stagnant water overrun by pigs feeding on the abundant
refuse. The sharp stink of illicit liquor emanates from the muddle of
dilapidated, dark dwellings whose occupants eye strangers with
suspicion and fear. No auto or taxi operator would drive here.

It was no different in November 2008, nearly 10 years after I first
visited the place. The taxi driver failed to turn up at the last
minute; maybe he developed cold feet. Luckily I met up with an old
journalist friend who volunteered to drop me at Chharanagar proper on
his motorcycle. Even now journalists are among the few who dare
venture into the area.



The Chharas trace their origins to nomads from the Punjab engaged by
traders in transporting commodities like salt and honey between the
coasts and the inland forests, before the arrival of the East India
Company. The English too relied on the tribe’s knowledge of the vast
country to guide their armies through unknown territories and
establish trading relationships. But these networks were rendered
redundant as railways and telegraphs were built in the 1850s. The
colonial authorities grew nervous of the nomads who moved around
freely, carrying intelligence they could not directly control.

In the aftermath of the revolt of 1857 these former allies began to be
seen as potential enemies. The colonisers dubbed as ‘thugs’ some of
them who supposedly strangled, beheaded and robbed travellers in the
name of the goddess Kali. The colonial masters responded with equally
brutal repression. In 1871, an Act was passed for “the notification of
criminal tribes”. Overnight, hundreds of tribes became criminals. When
they could not be forcibly settled, they were shot at sight. Those who
were settled were kept in confined areas, subjected to a pass system
to control their movements, and rehabilitated through rigorous
labour.

The first such settlement came up in the northeast, then in the south
and in the Bombay Presidency. There were around 10-15 such settlements
across the country, the biggest one in Solapur, in Maharashtra.
Millions were detained in such settlements. Newborns were separated
from their parents at birth. The British feared that young children
would also become ‘criminals’ if they stayed with their parents.

But did the criminal tribes really exist, or did the British invent
them as an excuse to seize tighter control of India? Independent
researchers confirm the existence of different groups of ‘thugs’ over
the centuries, but the monsters the British made of them had much more
to do with colonial imaginings of India than with reality.

The tribes were formally denotified in 1952 after India’s
independence. But they were reclassified as “habitual offenders” in
1959. Many laws and regulations in various states prohibit certain
communities of people from travelling; others must register at police
stations in the districts they pass through. The percentage of such
tribes in custody and under investigation remains highly
disproportionate to their population.

The Chharas believe they were notified and settled by the colonial
masters at Chharanagar in the 1930s. They were engaged in industrial
and agricultural labour. After Independence, they were released from
the settlement but many chose to stay back, having no resources or
other means of livelihood, and no useful skills.

The elderly Chharas do not deny outright the tag of criminality,
explaining it as a social and economic compulsion after being
discriminated against as young children in schools and denied
opportunities of higher education. But they are proud of their 20
youngsters and some 40 children involved with theatre. The parents of
most of these children are petty thieves or brew illicit liquor.
Around 50% of the people in the area are still involved in illegal
activities. But these men and women want their children to become
actors. When the kids come back from school they are sent to the
library and encouraged to do theatre.

Roxy Gagdekar, founder member and a crime reporter with a leading
national English newspaper, said: “We never really knew why we chose
theatre in the first place. Perhaps the Chharas, like several other
DNTs, were well-versed culturally, but due to difficult living
conditions lacked the opportunity to develop their talent properly.”

Dakxin Bajrange recalls the performance of Badal Sircar’s Spartacus
way back in 1979-80: “Ahmedabad-based theatre personality Prem Prakash
was hunting for actors to play slaves in his production of the play.
The Chharas fit the bill, and Prakash was happy with their
performance. He kept coming to us and we owe our primary training in
contemporary theatre to him.”

He vouches for the innate and extraordinary acting talent among
Chharas. “If you ask anyone from this ghetto to sing, dance or act,
they will do so unabashedly. Their quality of facial expression,
speech and gesture is unmatched. Because acting is inborn, a tradition
dating back several centuries. They are still performing with what
little they have -- their bodies, their voices and their creative
talent -- in the hope of changing society so that they may have a
future within it.”

It was never easy to do theatre in Chharanagar. The one open space
available for rehearsals is right opposite the police station. “We
have no option, you see,” laughs Roxy Gagdekar. “We have always
performed the theatre of our lived experiences, never mind who the
audiences are. While Budhan Bolta Hai, based on a custodial death in
West Bengal, was performed at several police gatherings, Bulldozer,
which portrays the evacuation of the poor in Ahmedabad for the
beautification of the city, was performed outside the house of the
city’s municipal commissioner.”

The theatre group believes that if you have a cause then you must have
a voice. It has unemployed youth, young college girls and
schoolchildren venting their anger or simply speaking their mind.
Budhan’s repertoire includes some 25 plays performed across India from
streets to the stage: Budhan (1998), Pinya Hari Kale Ki Maut (1999),
Encounter (2001), Majhab Hamein Sikhata Aapas Mein Bair Rakhna (2002),
Ulgulan (2006), Mujhe Mat Maro… Saab (2006), Bhukh (2007), Bhagawa
Barrack (Saffron Barrack) (2007), Bhoma (2004), Khoj (2005), Ek Chhoti
Si Ladai (2005), Choli Ke Picche Kya Hai? (2007), Ek Aur Balcony
(2008), Ek Chhoti Si Asha, Sangharsh Aur Siddhi, Hamari Zindagi Hamare
Gaun, Swaraj, Budhan Bolta Hai… and so on. They have performed in
Ahmedabad, Baroda, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Mumbai.

The group also started making films in 2004 as a livelihood option for
the unemployed Chhara youth. The documentary Fight For Survival, based
on the conflict between a tribe of snake-charmers and animal rights
activists won the Jeevika Award in 2005. Other films like The Lost
Water (2007), Bulldozer (2006), Thought For Development (2005),
Bhasha@ten (2006), Actors Are Born Here (2006), Bhavai Nu Pedhinamu
(2007), It Is The Music (2008), Acting Like A Thief (a film on Budhan
Theatre by Shashwati Takukdar and Kerim Friedman, USA) have been
screened abroad at international film events.

Budhan Theatre counts among its supporters Keshav Kumar, a senior
Indian Police Service (IPS) officer in Gujarat, and danseuse Mallika
Sarabhai who runs Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad.
Roxy’s brother, Alok Gagdekar, is the first Chhara to graduate from
the National School of Drama in Delhi. Vivek Ghamande followed him.
Both are now struggling for a foothold in Bollywood. That is, of
course, the rosy side of the picture.

On May 11, 2003, Dakxin Bajrange was arrested for physical assault on
a person in Chharanagar. He was not present in the area at the time
the police claimed the incident occurred. He was put behind bars for
15 days, and told: “Bahut natak kar rahe ho police ke khilaaf?” (You
are performing theatre against the police?). Alok Gagdekar’s father
was once caught by the police simply because his sons were doing
theatre. They were not ready to accept that a boy from this ghetto
could get admission to a reputed institution in Delhi and tortured the
father to reveal the ‘real story’.

But the Chhara spirit keeps them going. Last year, actor Sandeep was
arrested by the police on a false charge. Two months later, he was let
out on parole to appear for a university examination. His parole was
till February 28, and the group was performing a play on February 26.
Sandeep went to Dakxin Bajrange and said he would like to perform, and
gave an energetic and spontaneous performance.

“Spontaneity in performance is our life. At Budhan Theatre, we first
perform and then write a play. This way our actors get involved with
the issues. We try to take our plays as close as possible to real
life,” Bajrange said, adding that this poses a different challenge in
his state: “Doing theatre in present-day Gujarat is not easy. People
do not want to talk or see real issues. It is okay if you are doing
soft comedies or plays based on family and religious values. Political
plays are the need of the hour, but in Gujarat they will not be
staged.”

The undeclared censorship did not deter Budhan Theatre from staging Ek
Aur Balcony, a hard-hitting take on the communal situation in Gujarat,
on its 10th anniversary. This was a loose adaptation of Le Balcon by
French playwright Jean Genet, incidentally himself a vagabond and
petty criminal in his early life who later became a political activist
and playwright.

The Chharas, after centuries of stigma and a little over a decade of
theatre, seem to have perfected the art of purposeful deceit. And they
have an open invitation for all those voices that go unheard, to join
them. “If you do not find a place to perform in Gujarat then come
straight to our ghetto. You will certainly find space here!” Devy, who
has been witness to the theatre’s growth from nowhere, jokes: “This
ghetto is the only place left in Ahmedabad now for meaningful cultural
exchanges.”

As twilight sets in, young members of Budhan Theatre gather at Dakxin
Bajrange’s house to practise their most recent and unusual production:
Non-instrumental Music. “It is music produced from the implements
traditionally used for brewing liquor. You will find it on Youtube,”
explains one of the child performers. Bajrange chips in: “The dialogue
must go on. It is another way of saying: Look we are not born
criminals; we are born actors. Any doubts?”

Any doubts were drowned in the music…

(Anosh Malekar is a senior researcher with www.infochangeindia.org and
Infochange Agenda)

Infochange News & Features, August 2009