People's Democracy

 Sangh Parivar Attacks Habib Tanveer's Plays

Below we reproduce the statement issued by a number of cultural organisations condemning the Sangh Parivar attacks on noted playwright and director Habib Tanveer and appealing to all the patriotic citizens to stand by him. 

IT has been reported in the press that the goons of the Sangh Parivar have physically attacked and tried to disrupt the performances of internationally acclaimed director Habib Tanveer's plays at some places in Madhya Pradesh.

Intervening in the debate on the no confidence motion on Tuesday, August 19, Uma Bharati charged the Madhya Pradesh chief minister and Habib Tanveer with spreading communalism through certain stage productions. She did not name Tanveer, nor did she name the plays in question. She failed to mention that her party has been systematically targeting Tanveer and his plays wherever he goes in M.P and that, in Gwalior and Hoshangabad, the goon squad of the Sangh Parivar physically attacked the artistes and indulged in vandalism in their effort to disrupt the show. She also did not mention that goons of the Sangh Parivar have targeted Tanveer and his plays for well over a decade now --- all over India and even in England.

Here are the facts.

Sponsored by the department of culture of the MP government, Tanveer has been presenting a double bill of two of his well-known and well-loved productions Ponga Pundit and Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya.

PONGA PANDIT

The play, originally titled Jamadarin, was first composed in the 1930s by two Chhattisgarhi folk playwrights, Sukhram and Sitaram. Four or five generations of folk players of Chhattisgarh have been performing the play for the last 70 years. The play, which was created and traditionally performed by Hindu artists, has been seen and enjoyed by literally hundreds of thousands of Hindus all over India. Some of these actors joined Habib Tanveer's Naya Theatre at its inception. It is then that Naya Theatre inherited the play.

Ever since then, the play has been a part of the Naya Theatre's repertoire. The troupe has been staging the play since the 1960s for diverse audiences all over the country. All those years no one found it objectionable or called it anti-Hindu. Significantly, it was only in 1992, following the demolition of Babri Masjid, that the play first came under attack from the BJP-RSS-VHP cadre. Since then, it has been systematically targeted by these forces who have spread all kinds of lies and disinformation about it. The authorship of the play is mischievously attributed to Habib Tanveer whose Muslim name immediately invites the label of anti-Hindu from these forces.

Ponga Pandit is an excellent example of folk creativity in which there is a robust intermingling of the sacred and the profane, of pure fun and social incisiveness. The play does not ridicule Hinduism or the Hindu faith. When asked by the Brahmin not to bring his shoes inside the God's dwelling, the village simpleton retorts, "Can you tell me a place where God does not reside?" Even the jamadarin, the play's protagonist, believes in offering puja. When she takes away various objects including the idol, she does so, as she does in her last speech, to offer her own puja without the greedy and hypocritical pundit. So what she rejects is casteist discrimination and Brahminical oppressive practices in the name of religion. As such, the play is part of our 150-year history of the social reform movement which informs the vision of modern India enshrined in our constitution. Since the play attacks untouchability, hypocrisy, and priestcraft, it can hurt only those who believe in these practices and not all Hindus. It is also telling that the Sangh Parivar, for long a defender of Brahminism and Manuvaad, finds the play objectionable.

JIS LAHORE NAI DEKHYA WO JAMYA I NAI

The secular credentials of Habib Tanveer cannot be doubted. In his plays as well as in his utterances he has consistently opposed fanaticism and bigotry in all its forms and variation. Habib Tanveer has also produced Asghar Wajahat's play Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya… which attacked the forces of Muslim communalism and bigotry in no uncertain terms. The play is based on a true story of a Punjabi Hindu old woman who is left behind in a big haveli in Lahore as her family fled from home during the communal madness that accompanied the Partition. It shows both the bloodthirsty fanaticism of some vested interests as well as the ability of others to reach out with love and compassion to fellow beings, regardless of their creed. In visualizing Asghar Wajahat's script for the stage, Habib Tanveer has given an added appeal and interest by incorporating, by way of the chorus, a whole selection of anti-communal and anti-Partition poetry from Rahi Masoom Raza to Amrita Pritam.

It is obvious that the main message or thrust of these two plays is social amity and harmony. And yet, in their warped and mischievous way of thinking, the Hindutva brigade is targeting these in Madhya Pradesh today as communal and anti-Hindu. It will be clear to all secular-minded people that those spreading communal tensions are not Habib Tanveer and his actors, but the forces of Hindutva who are attacking them.

We appeal to artists, intellectuals and the secular masses to reject this politics of hatred and defend Habib Tanveer and his actors' right to the freedom of expression enshrined in the constitution.

The statement was issued by Jana Natya Manch, Aman Ekta Manch, Janawadi Lekhak Sangh, IPTA, Progressive Writers' Association, Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT), Jan Sanskriti, Delhi University Forum for Democracy, Delhi Science Forum, and Jan Sanskriti Manch.