Manjul Bhardwaj’s play ‘Lok –Shastra Savitri’ – is a process of self & collective interrogation leading to emancipation! – Dr Putul Sathe
I choose to call this dialogue as Savitri and Me. I also acknowledge my thanks to Kusum Tripathi well known feminist & writer for introducing me to the play. So when I was told by Kusum that a play titled ‘Lok –Shastra Savitri’ was to be performed at Gadkari in Thane, on March 6, 2022, I eagerly looked forward to the experience of watching the play. I did not pay close attention to the title of the play and presumed that this play would add to my existing repertoire on anti-caste readings. However, once inside the auditorium, when the Director initiated the dialogue, a dialogue which would continue even after I left the auditorium. The introductory remarks challenged the concept of a well made play and professional theatre and thus broke the fourth wall. The stage was “ the minds of the audience” and the minds of the audience was the patriarchal society marked by gender inequality. The stage for the Savitribai Phule was caste-ridden colonial society and the Phules, the first anti-caste intellectuals challenged Brahminical patriarchy. The broad sweeping vision of Phules has been invoked in the play and the epithet ‘Lok Shastra’ resonated with Phule’s rejection of the Divine Truth or the revealed truth. The play invokes and celebrates the critical oppositional consciousness and therefore ‘Shastra’, was now the philosophy of Humanism and was to be produced by ‘Lok’, the common human being- Savitri.
The play therefore initiates a dialogue with the audience to create a new vocabulary to understand the legacy of Savitribai Phule, the anti-caste feminist. The play does not indulge in deification of Savitribai Phule and therefore what unfolds before the audience is a dialogue in liberatory politics. The task is daunting and three women characters are the working class woman, the urban middle class professional woman and the actress, who defies any class and caste identification. It is interesting that none of the characters have any name and therefore are representative of certain gender role embedded in certain social, cultural and economic location. The working class woman and the urban middle class professional woman portray the manner in which patriarchy collides with class to create a particular gender regime. Here we come across certain stereotyping which is disturbing. Alcoholism is not confined to working class only, nor is domestic violence. The exploitative relationship between the two women has been camouflaged by how gender based subordination is maintained today. The character of the actress is above gender politics and point to a culture of androgyny, where masculinity and femininity have to be dismantled as oppressive structures. However gender ideology is redefined by globalization and growing fundamentalism. What would Savitri say to Natasha Narwal or the women protesting at Shaheen Bagh?
Manjul’s Theatre of Relevance has defined theatre as the site of liberatory politics. Gender inequality is part of larger canvas and therefore the process of interrogation is the beginning of emancipation.
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