| The YouTube channel for India’s Ministry of Culture has some 1400 videos. It covers music, sport, as well as parliamentary proceedings and interviews. One is a documentary on the Kashmiri street theatre, Bhand Pather. |
| It opens on a black screen and fuzzy text reading “INDIA presents” followed by a montage of Kashmir’s natural beauty to the soundtrack of a traditional ‘santoor’. Snow-capped mountains, manicured gardens and handicrafts flicker on the screen as the ‘Switzerland of India’ is showcased . Over the next ten minutes, the touristic image of Kashmir is replaced by everyday life and the scenes switch to dead end streets and forest clearings. The public open areas are taken over by all male troupes of actors and musicians as they stage one of the subcontinent’s oldest forms of theatre. |
| The contrast is deliberate. Bhand Pather is a public theatre for the masses. It does not segregate or ticket its audiences but co-opts public spaces into becoming temporary stages. The captions are more striking, speaking to the importance of Bhand Pather as an art form that questions authority. Today, its presence is waning for a number of reasons but it remains a deeply rooted form of Kashmiri identity for a population that has frequently found itself at the behest of authority. |
Theatre for all
| For centuries, Kashmir has developed a rich canon of folklore and cultural arts, a history that has led to it being dubbed a ‘high school’ for scholars during ancient periods. Since then, many of these arts such as Bhand Pather have flourished and formed a key part of the region’s identity. Its roots can be traced back to the 6th century when it was performed under Islamic Sultanate. Over the years, Bhand Pather adopted a more secular approach and became a tool for providing public service announcements. Troupes went on to gain significant popularity due to their depictions of folklore and Kashmiri struggles. |
| Its small repertoire includes stories of local tribes, class politics and life under imperial rule. A common thread through these stories is of the historical struggle of Kashmiri people against authorities big and small. Nomadic in nature, troupes moved through towns and villages using satire and comedy to create a publicly accessible form of social commentary. Unlike conventional theatre, Bhand Pather takes place in public open spaces. Actors improvise and climb trees, scale houses, and run along the road as crowds watch from windows and terraces. It embeds itself within its immediate surroundings and creates a hyper local and relatable form of theatre. Originating in an era of no digital communication, it served as a messenger, giving voice to public opinion from town to town. |
| While the number of performing troupes has dwindled, perhaps a larger contributing factor is that Kashmir is one of the most militarised regions in the world. |
Street smarts
| The statue of a suited man, blinded by a flag and marching off his plinth, appeared in London at the end of April and a Banksy became the city’s newest attraction. It was deemed appropriate enough to keep and was quickly fenced off as crowds gathered to catch a glimpse. Artists such as Banksy have readily used public spaces to voice social commentary. Street art has the ability to catch attention and reach people directly. It is both open to all yet unexpected. It flips the narrative of roads being utilitarian ‘people corridors’ and turns them into momentary showcases. No matter the weather or time of day, it makes you question the necessity of its location: “why was the traditional setting not good enough?”. |
| When we think of ‘theatre’, we have come to expect formality. A journey from street to seat is heavily curated with patrons passing through layers of security checks, front of house and refreshment areas from which point they separate out into stalls based on the ticket prices that they could afford. This is what street theatre rebukes. Democratic in nature, it is a tool for talking about collective issues that affect every member of society. Stages are substituted with roads and squares and the barriers between the performers and the audience vanishes. It projects its messages onto places that the audience uses on a daily basis and merges fantasy with reality. Costumes, when used, are simple and props are improvised and homemade. The outcome is a societal mirror which can be held up and used to comment on pressing social issues. |
| Cut from a similar cloth to Bhand Pather is Guerrilla Theatre. The theatre of dissent, it uses public spaces and streets as channels to challenge oppressive systems. Coined in 1966 at the height of the Vietnam war, its namesake was the fragmented warfronts that defined the conflict and caused the United States’ ultimate withdrawal. Guerrilla warfare is informal and often improvised. Instead of organised battalions and traditional advances, it uses ‘hit and run’ tactics designed to disorient the enemy and wear them down. Its irregularity has been used by resistance fighters against conventionally powerful occupying forces throughout history, often to great effect. Beyond its military effectiveness, guerrilla warfare symbolises the power of grassroots movements in the face of larger powers. These characteristics were used in Guerrilla Theatre to create short, publicly visible enactments to spread messages of anti war solidarity during the wartime protest movements. Bhand Pather uses many of the same tactics but is never as visually confrontational. Developed through years of persecution and surveillance, it relies on the subtleties of its humor to convey discontent. It captures one of street performance’s necessities, imagination. It invites viewers to ‘fill in the blanks’ and project their own thoughts onto the stage and connect with the performance on a far more personal level. The lack of stage setting or lighting are not shortcomings, but instruments that allow street performance to talk about collective topics. |
A perfect storm
| Today, Bhand Pather performances are more likely to be found on YouTube channels than on Kashmiri streets. Since the removal of Kashmir’s ‘special status’ and regional autonomy in 2019, the Indian government has invested heavily in tourism infrastructure and the urbanisation of Kashmir. As farmland and rural green space is lost under the wave of development, so are popular sites for Bhand Pather. Performed on a ‘pay what you can’ basis, the theatre relied on crowds and gatherings to generate an income. With the rise of short form video, a 24 hour news cycle and a variety of media offerings, the theatre’s sustainability has been dramatically undermined. While the number of performing troupes has dwindled, perhaps a larger contributing factor is that Kashmir is one of the most militarised regions in the world. The entirety of Kashmir is claimed by India, however, the north west is administered by Pakistan and the east by China. Upon India and Pakistan’s independence from British rule in 1947, Kashmir’s Hindu ruler opted for his Muslim majority state to accede to India, a move that developed into considerable tension between the two nations including major wars. Since the 1980s, the Kashmir valley has seen a blight of cross-border insurgency and in response, a prolonged occupation by the Indian army to retain the territory. This occupation has often infiltrated into the lives of civilians with many being the subject of curfews, brutality and in some cases, murder. To sustain a military presence of such magnitude, the army has retrofitted the urban environment with extensive military infrastructure such as checkpoints and cantonments. To put the military presence in context, the number of US troops in Afghanistan peaked at just over 100,000 in the early 2010s. Kashmir has over half a million. Performers have described their fear of being harassed or beaten by both soldiers and insurgents if the theatre was ever critical of either. Bans on public gatherings and security patrols have cast shadows over the possibility of holding satirical street theatre and Kashmir is at risk of one of its oldest art forms being erased. Bhand Pather has relied on being passed down through generations, with skills being taught through family lineages. As more Kashmiri youth grow up in uncertain and conflict ridden times, this seems less likely. Playwrights and cultural foundations have both funded the theatre and attempted to revive it but its longevity still appears to be in question as the fundamental ingredients of democratic open space and free speech are gradually lost. The slow decline of Bhand Pather is a loss not just to Kashmiri society but to the world of street performance that dares to challenge systems and give voice to the everyday person. Bhand Pather has survived many empires but the world of media conglomerates may just be the biggest hurdle yet. There is an odd irony to a theatre form being lost under the actions of a government yet being memorialised on the same institution’s Youtube channel but if India is to make good of this inheritance, Bhand Pather needs to survive beyond the screen. |