(This article on his tribulations in 1992 appeared in a considerably curtailed form in The Telegraph, 3 July 1992. For the record, I have restored my original draft here.)
Habib Tanvir is known for his brushes with officialdom, so the latest incident—the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh denying him permission to film a documentary on Chhattisgarhi theatre in Bastar district—may not surprise those who follow his career. Bluntly outspoken, he has in the past criticized the Sangeet Natak Akademi’s folk-theatre projects as an exercise in promoting a fad which he rightly calls “pseudo-folk theatre”; he has questioned the Westernized training imparted at the National School of Drama, which he thinks is spoilt by lavish grants; he has protested the government’s demolition of the houses he and his group lived in, to make way for a shopping complex in Delhi, two years ago. But when politicians start wielding authority over artists as has happened now to Tanvir, the seriousness of the affront to creative freedom demands strong objections from all quarters.
You may or may not like Tanvir’s productions—several years ago, reviewing Charandas Chor for this paper, I wrote that I failed to see what the fuss was about this smash hit, since it looked to me merely like Brecht Indianized—but you cannot deny him respect and his place in contemporary Indian theatre. When pioneers like Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar and Chandrasekhar Kambar started mixing traditional performing styles into their plays in the early 1970s, Habib Tanvir had already preceded them. He single-handedly brought Chhattisgarhi theatre to the national limelight, and produced now-famous actors like Fida Bai and Bhulwa Ram. And for him, it was not just an art form, it was a lifestyle: he nurtured them, gave them shelter, made them part of an extended theatre family.
Tanvir’s roots lie in Chhattisgarh. Once, while visiting his mother there, he became fascinated by the power of its folk theatre (he says, “the folk actor ate up the urban actor by the sheer quality of his stage presence”), and decided that he wanted most of all to make a permanent contribution in this idiom. Thus began his work with Chhattisgarhi artistes three decades ago. He readily admits his mistakes in interacting with them in those early days—he imposed Hindi on them and academic, Westernized direction on them, the “pen and paper” style in his words: “turn right, tilt two inches, move diagonally”. He soon realized how much he was constricting them—illiterate, they could not handle texts; undisciplined, they practised free movement; spontaneous, their talent lay in boisterous humour.
So Tanvir’s education began, the unlearning of his Anglo-American-oriented training. Between 1970 and 1973, he presented their indigenous comedies to small audiences in Delhi halls like AIFACS. A workshop in Raipur with over 100 local performers led to the improvised musical Gāon kā Nām Sasurāl (1973), produced to great popular applause in Delhi. The next year came the breakthrough, Charandas Chor, as Tanvir put together a phenomenally entertaining full-length drama in Chhattisgarhi. The creative turning point, according to him, was Mitti ki Gādi (Sudraka’s Sanskrit classic Mrichchhakatika) in 1977, where everything jelled the Chhattisgarhi way: the language, an all-rural cast, their own movements, their improvisations, and Fida Bai as the heroine Vasantasena. Then followed Bahādur Kalārin, a tragic local tale about incest (1977), and Sone Sāgar Chandāini, a charming pastoral romance (1979).
Slowly he also expanded their repertoire. First Sanskrit masters like Sudraka, then Bhasa, later European plays from Moliere, Gogol, Brecht—all in Chhattisgarhi. Simultaneously, he instilled in them the subtleties of complex tragic acting but without falling into the early trap: “There are no rigid rules or regimentation … we explore theatre and life together.” A simple example of this freedom is how he permits small children of the actors to uninhibitedly walk onstage during a show when they so desire. In the 1980s (as in the forceful Hirmā ki Amar Kahāni), he mingled rural and urban actors carefully. Bhulwa Ram played the tribal chieftain, while Deepak Tiwari (the present Charandas Chor), an educated Hindi-speaking native of Bilaspur, played the District Collector; but both are Chhattisgarhis by origin.
He won a Nehru Fellowship to study the relationship between tribal culture and our approach to “developing” it. These are his conclusions: “tribal groups have evolved and perfected their own systems. To cut them off from that life and to put them on a path not understood by them amounts not only to imposition but a denial of intelligence. It produces a feeling of inadequacy in them. This results in total degeneration and disintegration of society. So, instead, if the tribals are taken as people endowed with enough intelligence and allowed to grow on their own, they might come up with forms of development suited to their needs. These forms may even provide a guideline for our type of development.”
Some uncharitably accuse Tanvir of using the Chhattisgarhis to enhance his own reputation. He likes to think of himself as just a “catalyst” in bringing them to everyone’s attention, yet he is candid about his influence: “many dying forms in that area have been revived. They have a better exposure, hence better economic conditions.” One interviewer asked him, “Are you God to them?” Tanvir’s answer best explains the bond he shares with his performers: “I shout at them and get shouted at. I curse them and get the choicest of curses back.” Can we allow politicians to disallow a man, who has dedicated his life to a regional art form and brought it to international prominence, from making a film on this very art form?