People's Democracy

Safdar Hashmi Matyrdom Day Observed

Arjun Ghosh

JANA Natya Manch and CITU jointly observed the Matrydom Day of Comrade Safdar Hashmi, convenor of Jana Natya Manch and member of the CPI(M), and Comrade Ram Bahadur, CITU activist from Ghaziabad. The programme was held on January 1, 2004 at the Ambedkar Park at Sahibabad. Thousands of people from across Ghaziabad and Delhi thronged the venue battling the unusually severe cold.

The programme was set rolling with songs sung by local comrades. It was followed by a street play Bawra Man Dekhne Chala Ek Sapna by ‘Act One’. This play has a very simple allegorical plot which mourns the attack on creativity and creative individuals at the hands of barbaric and bestial forces. This was followed by series of songs by ‘Anant’. The songs sung by this group included two songs written by Safdar for Moteram ka Satyagrah and Safdar’s Kitabein.

Next, ‘The Players’ – a theatre association of Kirorimal College, Delhi University, performed a street play Hawalat. It was a satire on the police and the administration, which are unable to protect common people from hunger and poverty but allow a free hand to anti-socials, corrupt and communal organisations like the VHP. The MNCs which are robbing the people were also targeted in the play. The satire in the play was hard-hitting.

Jana Natya Manch (Janam) also started its performance with a group song - “Lal jhanda leke, comrade, aage badhte jayenge”. Janam then staged its play Woh Bol Uthi, which is actually a play of two short acts that highlight gender oppression in the form of the suppression of female desires. In the first of the two acts a young girl, who sometimes fills in for her mother as a domestic help, receives a gift of red ribbons. But due to repeated load of chores at home, and patriarchal strictures, she is unable to tie her hair with the ribbons. In the second act the conflict is between a male union leader and the women workers of a textile unit over the demand of a separate toilet for women. The union leader refuses to acknowledge the demand of the women as a serious demand and the workers break up into two factions over the issue, thus threatening their unity.

A public meeting followed the cultural programmes. Speaking on the occasion Pushpendra Grewal, CPI(M) Delhi state secretary, stressed that the best way to remember Comrade Safdar would be to intensify the struggles for workers' rights and the values Safdar lived for.

The main speaker of the afternoon was Subhashini Ali, president of the AIDWA and central committee member of the CPI(M). In her speech she highlighted that the primary reason why Comrade Safdar and Jana Natya Manch were attacked was because their plays were partisan for the working class. The attack on Comrade Safdar remains a constant reminder of the gross inequality and injustice which exists in our society. The period of economic liberalisation has severely affected the weaker sections of the people, particularly women, she said. What is projected by the media through the likes of beauty pageants and fashion shows is merely the story of the upper, affluent sections of women. The majority of the women have had to succumb to greater and greater difficulties and oppression in the era of liberalisation, said Subhashini Ali. She also criticised the BJP-led NDA government for failing to protect India's sovereign interests and kowtowing to the dictates of US imperialism.

Like every year, this year too Janam held an informal gathering Safdar Ke Yaad Mein on January 2, which was addressed by Kalindi Deshpande. She described Comrade Safdar as a competent activist of the Left movement, over and above being an excellent cultural activist. He possessed all the qualities that may be desired in an activist. She also recounted how Comrade Safdar took a keen interest in the work and development of AIDWA and helped the women's organisation in every way he could. Kalindi also placed before the gathering Comrade Safadar's tremendous contribution in organising the communal harmony march at the peak of the separatist Khalistan movement, and his ability of uniting broad sections of the secular opinion. Two films on Safdar were also screened the occasion.

On January 3, a poetry reading session entitled ‘Another World is Possible’ was held in which poems, both in Hindi as well as those translated front Spanish, Russian and other foreign languages, were read out.