'Diktats' muffle Ramjas theatre festival

Students protest against the cancellation of four street plays in Ramjas College on Friday. Picture by Pheroze L Vincent.

New Delhi: Ramjas College's annual street theatre fest saw only two groups perform, one protest and the audience wear black badges and tapes on their mouths on Friday, days after police stood by during auditions and even suggested dropping a play. The college was the epicentre of protests last month when the students union - controlled by the Sangh-backed ABVP - violently disrupted a seminar series to which JNU student-activists Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid had been invited. A protest march to the local police station the following day had been attacked, leaving several students, teachers and journalists injured. At the Mukhatib Nukkad Natak festival today, only Kirori Mal College's presentation, Accidental Death of An Anarchist, and Miranda House's Haadsa-e-Paidayish (Tragedy of birth) were allowed. The Lady Shri Ram College (LSR) team came but one of its performers made a speech saying they would not perform when "abnormal constraints are imposed to curtail the right to expression". "What is the use of street plays - whose idea itself is revolutionary - if they are censored. It is very frustrating that for the last month, anything seen as a challenge to authority is being questioned. We are not performing because this censorship constrains us, Ramjas and theatre itself," Vaishnavi, from the LSR troupe, told The Telegraph. Gurmehar Kaur, who was threatened with rape over posts decrying the violence last month, is from LSR. Several participants and members of the audience sat with black armbands and black tapes on their mouths, until a Ramjas teacher asked them to take them off. "Of the 17 colleges in the auditions on March 28, during which police were present at a distance, seven were shortlisted. Of this, four were not granted permission by the conveners (teachers) yesterday. We are sad because we are blessed to be born in India where there is freedom but not so blessed to study in Delhi University today where there is no free space to perform. All these plays have been staged in other colleges," Shubham Vaish, president of Ramjas theatre society Shunya, said. The four cancelled plays were Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College's The Trump Card, which talks about hero worship, and Gargi College's Main Kashmir, Aur Aap? Main Manipur, about insurgency and development. The others were Dayal Singh Evening College's Jokistaan -which draws parallels between today's India and Nazi Germany - and Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce's Sawaal to Uthega, about standing up to dictatorship. Khalsa's own theatre fest was cancelled last month, allegedly because of opposition from the ABVP. The Trump Card was not allowed at the College of Commerce after "advice" from the police. The ABVP had also objected to Gargi College's play when it was staged at JNU last month. Aastha Narang, from Khalsa's troupe Ankur, said: "Next time instead of thinking about a script, we should just set up a circus to make people laugh. We have formally been refused a place in three college festivals since last month. This is the new normal." One of the Ramjas organisers said "a head constable present during auditions suggested we should not stage Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies' play that had slogans of azadi". ALSO READ: Petrol price cut by Rs 3.77 a litre, diesel by Rs 2.91 Some students involved in the fest said they had been asked by teachers not to include plays that featured the word "azadi " or dwelt on cows and "anti-nationals". "There were several meetings yesterday which included us, the conveners and the principal. Two people, whom we think were plainclothes officers, sat in one of the meetings. We were asked to present scripts of all plays," the organiser said. He added: "At 6pm (yesterday), the principal said there would be a riot in the college again if those people who came on February 21 (when the seminar was stalled) did so again. He didn't specify whom. The situation is different today, he said, but added that we can't put the college at risk." Asked about the events, principal P.C. Tulsian said: "The students and staff decided which plays would be staged. The police were there in my office yesterday for some other work. We just want our festivals to be safe and go on well, as has happened." After the abrupt end to the fest with just two plays staged, some students held a discussion on theatre and the right to expression. They also sang and danced to drumbeats until some cops, present at the college venue, asked them to stop. A posse of CRPF was posted outside. Ramjas student Muntaha Amin wrote on Facebook later: "But then due to our singing, mind you singing, some teachers sensed some weird threat to the society and college and asked the organisers (of the gathering) to call off the whole thing and disperse... Next moment, police asked the dholwalas (drummers) to stop...The cluelessness of why would police do such a thing in a jolly looking ambience in a University for God's sake. But then, as Dylan says, the times they are a-changing." -The Telegraph, Calcutta