Page 188 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

Memory and Social Protest 163

I was amazed to discover that in the whole Bhojpur Rohtas, another
region of Bihar, many similar events of caste tensions and land strug-
gles had not only taken place, but had expressed themselves to a great
extent in the form of social memories perpetuating a number of social
conflicts. Another such event took place in Khutahan Bazar in the Tarari
police station of Bhojpur. While the drama played during the festival
of Dussehra, a derogatory song was sung by the sutradhar (leader of
the chorus); this provoked the elite class of the region, leading to caste
conflict and class tension in this qasba(town). Many people’s theatre
groups are active in this area. These, in a way are types of cultural ex-
pression of Naxalite politics that has emerged during the last decade.
The banning of the performance of such plays by these groups and
their arrests has not succeeded in stopping it, although the political
party to which these groups are affiliated, once underground, now
participates in parliamentary politics. In fact, these theatre groups
have been imprinting upon the people’s psychic memories which were
meant to cause inconvenience for the established local power. Thus,
power (both local and state) have tried to prevent it, and in retaliation
the people have organized many processions and political actions to
strengthen their resistance and raise people’s consciousness against
the ruling power. Thus, such dramas performed by such theatre groups
as ‘Reshma and Chuharmal’ are flowing in people’s memories in an
autonomous form for centuries.
Many clashes have occurred, for instance, at Mahendra Bigaha
(1996) and Phoolari (1988) in Aurangabad district of Bihar, prompted
by this social memory. Usually people from lower castes are involved
in the natyamandali (theatre group) and nautanki companies. As a re-
sult, consciously or unconsciously, they select dramas of such content
and context that somehow assault feudal castes and their values. The
paradoxical ambivalence is that they usually have to perform their
programmes in the ceremonies of higher castes. They earn their
livelihood through performing only for those who are opposed to the
content of their plays. They entertain those very against whom their
consciousness is nurturing feelings of resistance. At some places,
when they play their dramas with no due consideration for the social
structure of the villages, they face difficulties. They are able to conclude
their overnight programmes properly wherever the population is not
dominated by the high-caste, while at places where feudal castes are
in dominance they have to counter physical threats.