PAPER-14 MODULE-9 Women in Hindi Theatre A) Personal Details Role Name Affiliation Principal Investigator Prof. Allahabad University, SumitaParmar Allahabad Paper Coordinator Prof. S.D. Roy Allahabad Univesity, Allahabad Content Writer/Author Dr. Jaya Kapoor Allahabad University, (CW) Allahabad Content Reviewer Prof. S.D. Roy Allahabad University, (CR) Allahabad Language Editor (LE) Prof. Sumita Allahabad University, Parmar Allahabad (B) Description of Module Items Description of Module Subject Name Theatre Studies Paper Name Women , Theatre and the Fine Arts Module Name/ Title Women in Hindi Theatre Module ID PAPER-14 MODULE-9 Pre-requisites The Reader is expected to have a brief knowledge of the history of Parsi theatre, the nationalist movement, the origins of IPTA, and NSD and the general growth of Indian theatre. Objectives To introduce the reader to the role of women in the Hindi theatre, placing it simultaneously in the context of the growth of the Hindi theatre Keywords Hindi theatre, Parsi theatre, IPTA, NSD Women in Hindi Theatre Introduction Introducing the emergence of women in Theatre in Hindi the Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre says “among Indian languages, Hindi theatre has possibly the largest number of active women writers and directors.” (pg. 158) It also adds that this is an achievement in a language where till the middle of the twentieth century, association with theatre was not considered a very appreciable thing. When we look at the development of Hindi theatre, we are broadly looking at a very big region of central and Northern India and also Bombay since a lot of growth in theatre took place in conjunction with the film industry. Hindi theatre evolved in the late 18thCentury from two different directions. In Lucknow, in the court of Wajid Ali Shah, the production of “Inder Sabha” set the trend for theatre performances for private audiences. Though the play was not very successful back home, it was performed by Parsi theatre where it was a big success and continued to run for a long time. But there was no participation of women in these performances. Another direction in which a significant tradition of amateur theatre was introduced was by Bharatendu Harishchandra who set up his theatre group and performed several plays in Varanasi and surrounding districts. He had been influenced by the tradition of company theatre in other regional languages. His initiative led to a lot of amateur theatre groups coming up in the region of Allahabad, Lucknow, Kanpur. The most successful production of his group was “Andher Nagri”. Here once again, women were not a part of either this group or the other groups that came up. In fact there was a lull in theatre activities after Bharatendu since none of the other groups could come up with anything substantial. And there was a tough competition from the professional theatre groups and Parsi theatre with its elements of the spectacular in action and production. The trend that was creating a tradition of participation of women in theatre was the Parsi theatre. Parsi Theatre The Parsi theatre evolved as an amalgamation of the European theatre techniques and local mythical, historical and religious stories presented with much music, dancing and humour, mostly bordering on ribaldry. Initially the companies relied on female impersonators for doing the women’s roles and some of the most famous impersonators included Bal Gandharv, Master Champalal, Master Wasi, Master Fida Hussain ‘Narsi’. And when women first entered the theatre, they were mostly given small passing roles as dancers and singers. The main roles were performed by the impersonators who were very resistant to the idea of women entering theatre. Even prostitutes were not easy to come by for enacting roles on the stage since it was believed to be bad for their business. So strong was the initial resistance that in the first movie “Raja Harishchandra”, the female lead was played by a boy, Salunke who was a protégé of D.G. Phalke. Women were even forbidden from watching the performances, even women who were not supposed to be respectable women. Mrinal Pande mentions an incident where a mistress of a King was physically removed from a theatre performance she had come to watch. The most ironical thing was that in these Parsi theatre companies, women from the families of the company owners were not permitted to act. Mary Fenton, who was a famous actress, later married the owner of the theatre company she was associated with and gave up acting altogether. The reason why this is an important point as far as the empowerment of women is concerned is that these actresses were some of the earliest women to gain economic independence through theatre but still the social pressures kept many away from it. Mary Fenton was an Anglo-Indian and was one of the earliest entrants into the theatre along with other actresses like Miss Bijli, Miss Gauhar. The profession of an actress was not considered to be very respectable. Phalke lamented the presence of such women whom he calls prostitutes and wishes for the time when women from respectable families would enter films and theatre so that roles of Sita and Savitri could be played by really good women and people could watch the theatre and films with families. Bal Gangadhar Tilak also echoes similar views in a column in in the paper “Kesari’ .Women from educated and respectable families did enter theatre a little later, but the theatre they did was entirely different. IPTA By the late 1930’s there was another wave of amateur theatre happening across Northern India under the influence of the Communist Party. The party had started making inroads into the central regions of the country after making a mark in Maharashtra and Bengal regions. Progressive Writer’s Association (PWA) and Indian Progressive Theatre Association (IPTA)as cultural wings of the Communist Party had been instrumental in creating a space for women in theatre. One of the central areas where the nationalist movement focused was improving the social position of women. But even in garnering the support of the women to their cause through attempts to reform and empowerment, they were reinforcing the traditional role of women as nurturers and life givers. What setting up of IPTA in 1942 did was to create a space where women were a part of the political movement and questioned the stereotypical image even the reformers were reinforcing. Being an extension of the Communist Party, it saw theatre as an extension of their political agenda. The participation of women in theatre activities was thus an extension of the political activities. Rashid Jahan and Ismat Chughtai The first attempt by women in the Hindi or the Hindustani amateur theatre happened through two Muslim firebrand writers - Rashid Jahan and Ismat Chughtai.Their writings were located in the melieu of the middle class Muslim society of northern India like so many other women writers of their time. Where they were different was the sensibility and the questions the characters in their stories raised within this limited framework. They were not telling the stereotypical stories revolving around the domestic space and romantic ideas but talking about issues that they felt were pertinent to improving the position of women in society. Both Rashid and Ismat belonged to the Central province region and were educated at Aligarh Muslim University. They were associated with the Communist Party from their university days as the University was the hub of substantial Communist activity. Rashid Jahan was senior to Ismat and also a strong influence upon her. Ismat Chughtai said of her, “I stored up her work like pearls … the handsome heroes and pretty heroines of my stories, the candle-like fingers, the lime blossoms and crimson blossoms all vanished … the earthy Rashid Jahan shattered all my ivory idols to pieces … Life, stark and naked, stood before me.” She was a doctor by profession, a dedicated member of the communist Party and a founding member of the PWA with contribution to the watershed collection “Angarey” along with Sajjad Zaheer and Ahmed Ali and Mahmud-uz-Zafar whom she married later. She found plays to be a better medium for expression as compared to stories because of the immediate connect they offered with the audience and the audio visual impact that they felt would make it possible to send the message go across more strongly than the written word. Her plays were usually revolving around the issues like education, health care and economic position of women in the Muslim society as these were areas that were completely overlooked. Issues like early marriage, sexually transmitted diseases, and birth control and its impact on the lives of women were discussed with unprecedented frankness. In her play “behind the Curtain” she had raised the issue of the impact constant child bearing has on a woman’s body and in the even more radical “Aurat” she discusses how a woman contacted a sexually transmitted disease from her husband and protests on being ill-treated by him. These were challenging subjects which by the defiance and progressive expression inspired many. IPTA in Bombay IPTA activities were centered in Bombay and Calcutta with Bombay being the more preferred place for their experiments. So we find that a lot of theatre activity took place in Bombay in this period. Women like Dina Gandhi, Rekha Jain, Shiela Bhatia, Shanta Gandhi, Reba Roychaudhari, were some of the dedicated workers who contributed to the presence of women in Hindi theatre. Shanta Gandhi and Dina Gandhi came from a Gujrati family and it was Shanta who introduced Dina to the IPTA circles. Since the artists were living together and there was a lot of work being done, the women in the group shed their inhibitions regarding working with men and started venturing into public spaces with little inhibitions.