‘Theatre Is Questions. Theatre Is Debate’

Theatre actor and director Maharaj Kishen Raina (MK Raina) doesn’t call himself an activist, despite his often-perilous work in insurgency affected areas such as Kashmir and the North-East. “I call myself a shawl mender. I believe in mending. I don’t have an agenda like an activist. I have a cause, which helps humanity and the nation,” he tells Open. This self-definition runs through his newly released memoir, Before I Forget. Raina has set up theatre workshops across the country to revive old folk traditions, and has also made a series of films on the literacy movement in India, with a focus on women who emerged as the leaders of the movement. He also uses these initiatives to understand the communities in these areas, and to bring them together. He writes of his first workshop in Kashmir in 2000, where he got 30 young locals to participate. The intent was, as he writes, “Not just to teach the right kind of theatre but also to inculcate values in the participants, to teach them to become responsible, rational human beings who could work in a group and care for others’ welfare.” It was a particularly anxious time, as security forces had suspected that several of the youngsters may join the ranks of terrorists, yet this experiment was successful. This is only one of his achievements, yet as we sit in a nearly empty Delhi restaurant, Raina’s demeanour is low-key and matter of fact. He says, “There is a big task for all these youngsters in the nation. They must realise there is a much bigger duty, not out of patriotism, but to keep the nation safe.”

Raina has been an integral part of Delhi’s theatre scene for decades. He has acted in films, and in over a hundred plays. He is famous for directing plays like Karmawali, Hiroshima and Andha Yug. For his work in theatre, he has won several awards, such as the Swarna Padak from the Government of Jammu and Kashmir in 1996, and the BV Karanth lifetime achievement award in 2007. His work as a cultural activist is equally impressive, such as his helping to set up the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) after his friend Safdar Hashmi’s murder.

Several friends had repeatedly urged him to write down his experiences, but he admits he’s not a writer, though he’s written film and theatre scripts, and has written on drama. However, he also wanted to recount his experiences in fraught regions. “To write my experiences down, I needed a space where I did nothing,” The Covid lockdown provided it. Writing the book was relatively easy as he referred to his personal notes that he had kept all these years. The tumultuous events that Raina lived through, and his conviction that people can make a difference, gives the memoir an urgent tone. It is not just the story of one man’s life; it is also a broad but insightful look at Independent India’s first decades.

Before I Forget starts with Raina’s idyllic childhood in Kashmir in the 1950s, even though he had felt the undercurrents of unrest; then moves to the flourishing theatre scene in Delhi, and his response to transformative events that shook India, including the anti-Sikh riots and his family’s struggle in Kashmir in 1990.

Raina’s relationship with theatre started as a child, as he worked as a child actor in several productions. He writes how there was a lot of encouragement for the arts and culture, which perhaps allowed his family to support him. While his family were mostly engineers and his father was a dentist, they encouraged Raina to follow his interests. As a result, Raina was familiar with many of the actors and other figures in Kashmir’s cultural field. This book captures his sense of loss at the state’s current lack of the arts.

He writes, “In today’s context, it feels strange to know that Kashmir had a very strong progressive cultural movement.” Kashmir was then a different reality, he explains. It was tremendously progressive. The state of Jammu and Kashmir sent him to the National School of Drama, Delhi, with a full scholarship. It is not only the loss of Kashmir’s cultural scene today that Raina mourns in the memoir. As a “child of India’s socialism”, he was involved in marches and protests at a young age. He repeatedly emphasises the religious harmony that existed in the state when he was growing up. It was only in Delhi that he was first asked about his caste. He writes, “Communalism and terrorism have nothing to do with religion, but religion is used as a mask and exploited for a dangerous idea of India”.

Delhi was a site for new cultural experiences. “When you come from a small town like Srinagar to Delhi, your eyes start opening,” he comments. Just as his love for Kashmir, and his nostalgia for the way it was is apparent in the book, so is his love and nostalgia for the cultural space that Delhi once offered. He writes of the flourishing cultural and theatre scene of Delhi starting from the 1970s, to later decades when he worked with actors like Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin Shah, and Om Puri, as well as directors like Ebrahim Alkazi, George Michael, and Girish Karnad. However, he notes that now the situation is very different.

Asked about the theatre scene in Delhi today, he replies bluntly, “It has gone down. Hindi theatre was the lead in Delhi. It was performed in Hindi here first, and then it was done in the other languages across the country. It was in a prime position with talented directors and leading theatre groups doing cutting-edge work then. It was very competitive but there was also a lot of camaraderie.” One reason for the decline is that Delhi’s infrastructure is now expensive, he says, with Kamani auditorium costing over rupees one lakh a day and other theatres costing close to Rs 60-80,000 a day.

This downward shift was a gradual one, starting with fewer theatre critics and even fewer drama columns in newspapers. “There is an element of killing culture. Over the years, the state has moved into the cultural space, and the real cultural space which is experimental and has new ideas is getting encroached upon,” he says. Previously ticketed cultural events in music and dance are now mostly free, as they are sponsored by corporations. “Theatre is the only thing that does not get that. Theatre is questions. Theatre is debate. It is talking about the status quo. It has become corporate oriented. Artists have lost their nerve, or they do not understand the present times, or they have compromised.”

Even during the ’70s when the cultural scene was prolific, there was political disquiet. During the Emergency, the book details how Raina’s adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle was banned by the government of Punjab, despite, or perhaps because of its great success. He describes his bewilderment, and how he went to Punjab’s principal secretary, NN Vohra, the future governor of J&K, for an explanation. Vohra was supposed to arrest him, but instead told him to leave Chandigarh. Vohra had told him, “I’ve seen your play and enjoyed it. It is an important theatrical production. But unfortunately, your own well-known theatre friends, just out of jealousy, have complained to the chief minister about your play.” This experience made Raina realise how people with ill-intentions could take advantage of the Emergency.

However, one of the first events that really shook Raina was the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. Raina volunteered in the camps, helping displaced Sikhs. This was his first real experience with communal rage. The reader also feels Raina’s disbelief and horror at the apathy of many citizens and the government in allowing the riots to happen; yet the book also includes instances of their compassion when he describes how others came forward to help.

Before I Forget also chronicles the Pandit’s exodus from Kashmir in 1990. Raina’s mother had taken ill and died as she did not receive proper medical attention during that time. His father never recovered from having to leave his home. With time Raina could look back at events objectively—he saw it as the tragedy of many families, not just his. He saw many people locking up their homes and leaving forever. But there were always, he records, instances of compassion and interdependence between all communities. In those moments he had received help from other religious communities, and witnessed many acts of kindness. The situation in Kashmir is more complicated, in his view, than the popular picture of a deeply polarised society; he reiterates most people have no idea of Kashmir’s reality.

Raina went back to Kashmir in the early 2000s, to help set up theatre work camps, and continues to go there a few times every year. He received a heartening response from the locals, for his work with the Bhand Pather community of Kashmir. The Bhands are a community of folk theatre artists, who go from village to village, enacting the lives of Sufi sages, as well as other historical or fictional figures. This tradition was dying in Kashmir, as the local militants had banned it. When Raina approached the players, they had not performed in 10 years. After he explained his idea to them, they started to cry. They had been roughed up by the police and terrorists alike. Raina helped them revive their own traditional folk performances, through training programmes over six years. It resulted in thousands of people coming to watch the final performances. One of his biggest successes was an adaptation of King Lear, (Badshah Lear).

His account of his visits to Kashmir two decades ago is harrowing. He was repeatedly threatened, pelted with stones, stopped, and beaten up by the local militants who had deemed the theatre camps as ‘un-Islamic’. He was present when the tourist centre in Srinagar was blown up in 2005. He describes it matter-of-factly in the book. Raina’s ability to keep cool and collected helped him through these times. Asked why he kept risking his life, he replies, “It is something inside of me. I was never tense when I was beaten up. I was never rattled when the bullets came through the window. I just kept thinking how do I get out of this?”

Raina has become so thoroughly integrated with the local communities there in the Valley that all threats have ceased. “The village has now come together. I’ve become someone that the village comes to settle their disputes. Unless the community is with you, theatre has no meaning.” Before I Forget is a look back at the past of a country which has its traumatic and redemptive moments. It is the unembellished story of someone who believes in making a difference without seeking credit.

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