An energetic era of feminist street theatre in India: 1979 onwards. Stunning, audacious plays vividly portray abuse, murder and everyday sexism, raise profound questions, disrupting the normative. Public performance embodies resistance, shattering the mould of docile, invisible women. Rhythms of tambourines, drums, songs fill the air, stories are enacted, insights communicated, challenging entrenched patriarchies, evoking audience response, sparking change.

A remarkable repertoire of plays unfolded across geographical and social contexts: Om Swaha, Ehsaas, Mulgi Zali Ho, Intezaar, Teri Meri Kahani, Hum Awaz Uthayeinge and hundreds more. Weaving social critique with intimate felt experience, they exposed dowry killings, sati, bigotry, sexual violence, overwork, discrimination and exploitation within families, workplaces, society and state—and showed rebellion brewing. This was a theatre of rage, pain, protest, in sync with the autonomous women’s movement of the time.

Perceptive, outspoken women emerged out of a morass of ascribed roles to carve their own identities, remake the world. Protagonists broke many silences, told precious stories, offered alternative imaginaries. Fiction merged with documentary, searing content with rich aesthetics. Pithy dialogues articulated complex ideas in familiar idioms, heralding increasingly nuanced discourse around gender, citizenship and dissent, influencing media, academia, law and policy.

Incorporating oral histories, auto-ethnography, scripts, visuals, archival material, meticulous research and multi-layered analysis, Deepti Priya Mehrotra’s carefully crafted study is an invaluable resource for understanding feminist street theatre, oppositional politics and counter-cultures in modern India.

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Deepti Priya Mehrotra is a political scientist with trans-disciplinary interests. She has engaged with street theatre and the women’s movement since the late 1970s. Writing in English and Hindi, her books include Gulab Bai: the Queen of Nautanki Theatre, Home Truths: Stories of Single Mothers, Burning Bright: Irom Sharmila and the Struggle for Peace in Manipur, Her Stories: Thinkers, Workers, Rebels, Queens, Bharatiya Mahila Andolan: Kal Aaj aur Kal and Jaggi Devi: Svatantrata ki Raah Par. Deepti has taught political science, sociology, gender studies and media studies, variously at Delhi University, TISS-Mumbai, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra, Ambedkar University, Delhi and the Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi. Currently, she is working on a photo archive of the autonomous women’s movement, teaching a course in educational philosophy, and collaborating with social organisations in activist, research and advisory roles. In her dissentful heart, she continues to dream of acting and singing, loudly in order to shatter the sorry scheme of things and remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.

Two prominent protests in Manipur by women in recent years, one an individual one and the other a collective one, have brought to national attention the brutalities committed by the armed forces on ordinary citizens under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.
This essay highlights what those protests mean for peace in Manipur, and how women have played a critical role in exposing the impunity with which human rights are violated under the exceptional circumstances created by the AFSPA. It also questions the unethical nature of militarization and the patriarchal nature of the State.
Broadly containing two segments, it gives a background to Irom Sharmila’s protests and her reasons for choosing hunger strike as her method of protest. The discourse of conscience and Satyagraha that Sharmila evokes is brought out through interviews. This is followed by an analysis of the 2004 public disrobing by the Meira Paibis, in protest against the rape and murder of a young woman by the personnel of the Assam Rifles.
The essay shows the inversions brought about by both protests via a comparison between Irom Sharmila’s prolonged hunger strike against an exceptionally violent law, and the Indian Army Rape Us protests by the Meira Paibis. Both challenge the division between the public and the private, holding the state publicly accountable for atrocities committed in private. Food and clothing, one a biological necessity and the other an important social norm, are given up by the protestors. According to Mehrotra, this shows the power of the human body generally, and the female body particularly, to formulate and transmit subversive messages. She finds that underlying the protests is a common thread of rebuilding Manipur out of all the chaos.