A Crisis and a Blessing
Artists under attack in Bangladesh find protection and a new theatrical voice by returning to their roots
By Mofidul Hoque
To be a theatre artist in Bangladesh means also to be an activist. Almost everywhere in the world, economic reality dictates that theatre must struggle to create its own space in society. But in Bangladesh, theatre also faces threats and attack from dogmatic, obscurantist forces. Some of these attacks are physically violent, and lives have been lost.
How has Bengal theatre responded to such threats? The challenge to artists’ right to make theatre has been met with more theatre—meaningful theatre that incorporates and interprets the country’s traditional theatrical forms, and that is vibrant, living and creative. In this context, the crisis has become something of a blessing.
Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim society, and Islam in Bengal has a strong liberal Sufi influence. Thanks to the syncretistic nature of Bengal culture, Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic rituals have all blended to shape the country’s performance tradition, which dates back a thousand years. The tradition begins with Charyapad, a cycle of mystic Buddhist songs; in the 16th century, the Hindu Vaishnava sect rendered song and dance in praise of Radha and Krishna; the Sufi Islam brought to Bengal by various saints took root in the medieval period, and the shrines they established became centers for music and performance. Researchers have identified more than 70 genres of folk performance in Bangladesh, but in the principal form, a lone narrator or his team presents popular stories such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Islamic story of Karbala, or narratives of indigenous deities.
Eventually, this narrative form was overshadowed by the advent of colonialism. Western proscenium theatre gradually came to be recognized as mainstream theatre in Bangladesh, while old forms were marginalized. Modern theatre was no longer linked with tradition.
In eastern Bengal, the part of the subcontinent which became part of Pakistan in 1947, theatre practice was threatened with the growing Islamization of the state. But the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 as a secular nation-state brought a new upsurge in theatre within an atmosphere of freedom. Bangladesh now has a vibrant theatre scene, with about 300 groups performing regularly. Although the infrastructural support is weak—artists face an extreme lack of performing space and facilities—nevertheless, the urge to express oneself through the art of theatre is very strong.
These days, however, the free nation of Bangladesh is unable to ensure a free space for theatre. Attacks from militant religious fundamentalist groups have become a global phenomenon, and in Bangladesh, over the past decade, there have been numerous assaults on the performance of theatre and music. The makeshift arenas of Jatra—a folk form of traveling theatre popular in rural areas—have been easy targets for brutal attacks by fundamentalist groups. The government has also, from time to time, imposed restrictions on Jatra performances on “moral” grounds. Violence has broken out at the annual religious festival of the shrines, where devotees engage in musical performance, and in April 2001 a large open-air concert held to celebrate Bengali New Year in the capital city of Dhaka was bombed, killing innocent spectators. Blasphemy charges have been filed against theatre directors and playwrights for vilifying Islam. All these actions—undertaken in the name of protecting the sanctity of religion—have led to a kind of self-censorship in Bengal theatre.
To resist such onslaughts, theatre practitioners have drawn inspiration from the history of Bengal theatre, returning again to traditional traits and forms and using them to depict contemporary themes. In doing so, theatre artists are reconstructing a national theatre form distinct from the Western model. This has opened up a lively debate and discussion on the history of Bengali theatre—and, most importantly, it has led to experimentation and the development of a new language of theatre. Young playwrights, directors and actors have given birth to a new narrative genre that is ritualistic in form and contemporary in content. Bishad Sindhu—a new rendering of the Karbala story by talented director Syed Jamil Ahmed—is a landmark production of this genre.
The practitioners of theatre have stood at the forefront of the struggle to protect the freedom of the artist. Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation and the National Alliance for Culture have become platforms uniting the community and inspiring the struggle for democratic rights and cultural freedom. The search for the roots of theatre in Bangladesh provides theatre artists with strong ground to stand on in thwarting attacks against their art. That theatre has been practiced in Bengal for a thousand years—blending religious rituals and appealing to all, promoting harmony and tolerance—has great contemporary significance and even greater relevance for the future.