Page 298 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

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Street theatre in MaharaShtra

Hema RaiRkaR

In June 1991 fifteen peasant women and two male animators from
among the rural cultural action groups Garīb Dongarī San˙ghatnā
(GDS) of the Village Community Development Association (VCDA)
in Pune district set up a study group on the issue of deserted women
under my direction. The participants were all social animators actually
involved in helping out deserted women, personally, at home in their
own families or at their in-laws’, and of course in court. This problem,
in magnitude and seriousness, goes beyond the personal and family
dimensions of each case considered. Being of a collective nature, it
had to be studied as a global socio-cultural fact. The VCDA decided
to constitute a specific research action study group for identifying the
collective attitudes, the social and cultural structures, and the system
of values that prompt and motivate this generalized practice. The final
intention was for the members of the group to be able to denounce them
with full knowledge of the facts, in adequate terms and forms.
With this in view, in order to have an impact on public opinion as
a whole, it appeared appropriate to give priority to the popular form
of street play in addition to other usual forms: personal exchanges,
circles for reflection and training, discussion in small groups in farm-
houses, village general meetings and personalized legal interventions.
Besides all these forms of communication, and to enhance their im-
pact, it was felt necessary to rely on a dramatic expression meant to
massively reach and address the people on the streets as a whole. The
study group, as a consequence, decided to present the result of its