Critical Meanderings: ‘Theatre’ in Colonial India

Abstract

An interesting observation has been made in the book Bilati Jatra Theke Swadeshi Thiyetar. The title of the book written in Bengali and edited and sub-edited by Subir Raychoudhury and Swapan Mazumdar, respectively, can be translated as Foreign Jatra to Swadeshi theatre. What is interesting is the idea of ‘bilati jatra’ or foreign ‘jatra’. ‘Jatra’ is a performative tradition mainly from Bengal and Orissa. The book begins with the mention of the fact that during the colonial period, theatre was often mentioned as ‘bilati jatra’. This observation opens up in front of us the question, where does the word ‘theatre’ stand semantically, and can we call ‘theatre’ ‘bilati jatra’? Now ‘jatra’ the word in Bengali means journey. As a noun, a ‘jatra’ is the journey of devotees who are believers of a certain cult. The devotees make a journey from one place to another in a processional march and then return to the place of origin following the idol or the deity. These processional marches are said to have had their origins in the Vedic society. During that period, after a yajna or ritual sacrifice, the festivities of the ritual bath took place, which often involved processions that included dancing, singing, chanting and other performative acts. Jatra eventually got associated with fairs and festivities apart from the religious links that it already had. These performer-devotees initiated acting in jatra or jatrabhinoy or jatra-acting. Jatrabhinoy involved mainly singing, with a few dialogues here and there in praise of the worshipped deity. Jatrabhinoy was also known as gitinat or natgiti, which literally would mean ‘singing-acting’ or ‘acting-singing’. This could also involve dancing at times. It has often been argued that theatre in Bengal evolved from jatrabhinoy. On the other hand, it has been argued that theatre influenced jatra, as a result of which the amount of dialogue involved in a jatra performance increased. However the analogy between theatre and jatra draws attention to the etymology of the word ‘theatre’ which came to be used in Bengali and other Indian languages from its usage in English. The word ‘theatre’ in English is derived from the Greek word ‘theatron’ which basically signifies a space for the spectators or an auditorium. In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, when interest in the drama and theatre of India was at a high, after the discovery of Shakuntala by the orientalists, there was much discussion about the existence of auditoriums in India, like those the Greeks had founded. The claim of the existence of theatre in India was also reinforced by archaeological discoveries of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The Archaeological Survey of India report of 1903–1904 by a certain Dr. Bloch claimed the discovery of a small amphitheatre at Ramgarh Hill in the area of Laxmanpur on the Bengal Nagpur Railway line. Dr. Bloch writes:

…the small amphitheatre in front of the cave with its hemispherical rows of rock-cut seats rising in terraces above each other and with the pathways between them arranged somewhat like concentric circles and radiants, bearing a somewhat similar resemblance to the plan of a Greek theatre cannot, I think be overlooked. And it will likewise be admitted that the shape of a Greek theatre in an Indian building that served similar purposes has a strong bearing upon the question of the Greek influence on the Indian drama.

That the very existence of theatre in India might have been influenced by Greek theatre became one of the speculative factors. However, the performance of jatra does not involve a theatron or the physical space of the theatre, as one would understand in the Greek sense. It rather could be performed on makeshift ramps usually open on all sides. So the jatra/theatre analogy here seems a little misfitting given that if quintessentially theatre is to involve the physical space of an auditorium, jatra and theatre have different formats. However, the Natyasastra does mention the playhouses. The playhouse of the mortals were said to be only 32 yards long and 16 yards broad, much smaller in scale than the Greek theatre. There have been speculations about the use of the temple courtyard or the temple space, which was called the Natmandir (natya-mandira) for performances during this period. M. Christopher Byrski mentions that the theatre hall of the classical Sanskrit theatre of Kerala, which is also called Kuttampalam, has many affinities to a temple. Performances in the temple space, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, around the time when the colonial settlers were building theatre auditoriums, were very common. One of the earliest theatres that came into existence in India under the patronage of the British was the ‘Calcutta Theatre’ that was built in the 1750s. It was located in the Lal Bazar region of the present-day Kolkata. The Chowringhee Theatre in Calcutta soon followed. A theatre house was built in Bombay in 1776 for the English population, and subsequently several others came up. That the theatre in these newly developing urban spaces was ‘foreign’ given that the very nature of theatre performances involving an auditorium was distinct from already existing performances like that of the jatra was hence evident.