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Abstract The present thesis examines the postcolonial content in the select plays of Badal Sircar thematically as well as technically. Badal Sircar was a renowned first- generation Bengali dramatist of post-colonial India. His career as a literary genius covers more than half a century. He started writing plays in the early 1950s which continued till the first decade of the twenty-first century. The range of his creative writings is versatile and he wrote more than fifty five plays on diverse themes. He directed plays and wrote a novel as well. Badal Sircar was a civil engineer by profession. He used to do theatre as an amateur artist but in 1977 while working with Calcutta Metropolitan Planning Organisation and the Comprehensive Area Development Corporation, he came in contact with rural India. The pitiable condition of farmers and their causes forced Sircar to resign from his job in order to dedicate his entire time to theatre. He developed his own theatre technique called ‘The Third Theatre’ so that he could formulate an inexpensive and portable theatre form which could reach the common masses to make them aware of the injustices they are subjected to and create in them a sense of responsibility in order to bring about a revolutionary change in society. The present thesis consists of seven chapters including the Introduction and Conclusion. Four plays of Badal Sircar have been analysed from the postcolonial perspective in this study. The first chapter “The Origin and Development of Indian Drama and Badal Sircar” deals with the divine origin of drama from the Vedas as described by Sage Bharata in his The Natyasastra. It has been suggested by Prof. Albrecht Weber that Indian drama came into existence under the influence of Greek drama since after the conquest of India by Alexander the Great, India came into intimate contact with Greek culture. This view is supported by the performances of Greek plays in the courts of the kings of Baktria, Gujrat and Punjab after the advent of Alexander in India. Greek origin of Indian drama is also supported by the word yavanika used in connection with theatre which originated, according to E. Windisch, from the word Yavana—a name for Greek invaders said to be used by Indians in ancient times which came into Sanskrit usage in due course of time. But in reality the word yavanika originated from the Sanskrit word yamanika from the root yam meaning to bind or fix. According to Hemendra Nath Das Gupta, the use of this word can be traced to the plays of Rajshekhar of the twelfth century and is not found in the plays of Bhasa, Bhavabhuti, Sudraka and Kalidasa, the early masters of Indian drama. But the second view that supports the divine origin of drama from the Vedas is defended and justified by scholars and critics, such as A. Berriedale Keith, E. P. Horrwitz, Hemendra Nath Das Gupta and Pandit Haraprasad Sastri. These scholars opined that The Natyasastra is the oldest and most authoritative treatise on Indian dramaturgy. The Natyasastra is in the form of dialogues between the author and a group of sages who wished to know about The Natyaveda–the knowledge of the performing arts, such as dance, music and drama. The book consists of 5,569 sutras or verse-stanzas spread over thirty-six chapters. The teachings of drama, poetry, dance, music, painting, sculpture and architecture are described in the first chapter. The themes, the procedure of the performance of puja, kinds and usages of vrtti-s, rasa-s, bhava-s, alamkara-s, and sandhi-s; essential elements of the dramatic diction, types of playhouses, gestures of the main and subordinate parts of actor’s body on stage, costumes, props, make-up, décor, types and nature of plays, types of the male and the female characters and several other features necessary for the production of a play, as mentioned in The Natyasastra, are dealt with in this chapter. A description of the descent of drama from Heaven to earth, as available in The Natyasastra, is also discussed in the first chapter. Then the chapter focuses on the development of Indian drama from Asvaghosa who flourished in the 1st or 2nd century A.D. up to drama after independence. The origin and development of Bengali drama is also taken up in this chapter. The reason behind describing the origin, characteristics and varieties of Indian drama is that while developing his own theatre form, Badal Sircar was greatly influenced by Indian or Sanskrit and folk drama forms. The scenario of dramatic art and performance in India had changed after independence and the regional theatres started growing and developing rapidly but most of them followed the techniques of proscenium theatre. The chapter also discusses how Badal Sircar also began his career as a dramatist with the proscenium theatre and how he became disillusioned with it because this theatre form was unable to fulfill his aim. He was the champion of the down-trodden and subaltern groups of society and his main concern was to make them aware of their suppressed condition. This is the reason why he, relying on the strength of theatre, decided to convey his message through it. But proscenium theatre disappointed him and he invented his own theatre technique. Sircar’s anger against colonial rule and its ill effects on Indian people forced him to adopt neither their theatre form nor their 2 language. So, he established his own theatre form and called it the Third Theatre and wrote his plays in his mother-tongue. All these aspects have been dealt with in detail in chapter one. The second chapter “Trends in Postcolonial Studies and Badal Sircar” is a study of major theories and trends of postcolonial studies worldwide in general and in India in particular. This chapter discusses what postcolonialism is and how this term is defined and used by different theorists and critics such as, Jane Hiddleston, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin, Elleke Boehmer, C. L. Innes and Taisha Abraham. It is also highlighted that postcolonialism is not limited to the political, economic and cultural domination of the ex-coloniser on the ex-colonised but includes questions of race, class and gender as well. The theories and viewpoints of prominent theorists and scholars like Edward W. Said, Leopold Senghor, Aime Cesaire, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Homi K. Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Ranjit Guha are also discussed. Then the focus of this chapter is on how the writers of various ex-colonies express the nature of exploitation by the coloniser and its effects both during colonial and post-colonial periods through their literary writings. The writings of various South African, Australian and Indian novelists, poets and dramatists are briefly dealt with in this chapter. Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Nelson Mandela, Dennis Brutus, Bernard B. Dadie, Derek Walcott and Wole Soyinka are the prominent writers of Africa and Nigeria, examined in the chapter. The writings of Australian writers such as Patricia Grace, Sam Watson, Kim Scott, Judith Wright, Jack Davis and A. D. Hope are also discussed in this chapter. Khushwant Singh, Bharati Mukherjee, Salman Rushdie, Meena Alexander, Bama, Bapsi Sidwah, Shiv K. Kumar Nissim Ezekiel, Asif Currimbhoy, Habib Tanvir, Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar, Mahashweta Devi and Uma Parameswaran are significant novelists, poets and dramatists whose literary creations have also been dealt with in brief in the second chapter from the point of view of postcolonialism. Indian theatre’s successful presentation of the adverse effects of colonial rule, delineation of the conflict between the present and the colonial past; ancient and modern; civilisation and materialism; and the meaninglessness of existence and the love for tradition by various dramatists of post-independent India are also taken up in this chapter. The themes and techniques used by post- independence Indian dramatists are also examined as well, in order to show how and 3 why Badal Sircar’s plays and his techniques are different from the plays and techniques of his contemporaries. This chapter also describes Badal Sircar’s efforts to develop his own theatre group Satabdi. The reasons for the formation of his own theatre form, the Third Theatre, which was an outcome of a long thinking process and passed through different stages, have also been discussed. The Third Theatre, as a mixture of Indian folk dance and drama forms such as Jatra, Tamasha, Bhawai, Nautanki, Kathakali, Chhou and Manipuri and of Western experimental theatre forms such as the theatre-in-the-round, Joan Littlewood’s theatre in London, Yuri Lyubimov’s Taganka Theatre, Cinoherni Klub Theatre, Pantomime of Jari in Prague and Jerzy Grotowski’s Theatre Laboratory in Wroclaw, is also analysed. Sircar’s most important contribution; that is, the performance of his plays both in Anganmancha and Muktamancha is also discussed. He attempted to perform in Muktamancha or the open air because he was committed to do theatre in order to make the common people aware of their exploitation and to encourage them to bring about revolutionary changes in the prevailing socio-economic conditions. This is the reason why he performed plays in such a way that common people may be provided the opportunity to see these plays, even those who cannot come to see the performances in theatre halls. Sircar’s plays largely express his protest against the exploitation of the subaltern groups, the division of society into the rich and the poor, and the capitalist economic system. All these aspects and his firm belief in Karl Marx’s theory of communism are also discussed in the second chapter. The third chapter, “Processions of Exploitation and Resistance: A Postcolonial Study of Badal Sircar’s Procession” demonstrates the destructive financial and cultural effects of colonial rule and the exploitative policies of the coloniser which ruined the life of the common people of India and forced them to protest against the oppressive rule.

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