Directed by Randhir Kumar, the eponymous play, staged at Bharat Rang Mahotsav, contextualises an age-old question. Ankita Jain reports
Scene I: A group of children playing on a ground refuses to cross the lakshman rekha (borderline) when invited to visit a Dalit locality. Asked for a reason, they reply: “We will get polluted.” Scene II: A Hindu scholar in Benares takes pride in saying, “Dalits can never be equal to us. They are destined to stay on the lower ladder.” Scene III: A Rajput farmer, who feels proud to be a caste Hindu, boasts, “No Dalit can sit on a chair in front of me. They have to sit on the ground, even if he or she occupies a high post.” Thus, begins the play Outcast, which was organised recently in the little Theatre Group as a part of the 19th Bharat Rang Mahotsav.
For those who claim that the country has successfully rid itself of untouchability, this play comes as a rude shock, a blow to their conscience. During the play, Raj Kumar, the protagonist, speaks volumes with his body language while Sunil, the supporting actor, shocks you with his loud wails. Among the rest of actors, Fyzal is a good impersonator; his lithe figure instantly transforms into a tree, a paddy stalk. Guru effortlessly improvises his lines to suit the audience while Badri is spontaneous when it comes to dialogues. And Sathya Raj can play anybody’s role off-the-cuff.
With shocking revelations, director Randhir Kumar expresses his anguish over the latent discrimination against the underprivileged. “I was stunned to see people confessing how they practise untouchability in full public glare. There is no iota of remorse. In fact, they feel it is their way of life and the Government has no authority to interfere with something that is natural and common.”
Outcast is an autobiography of Sharankumar limbale, a well-known Dalit activist, writer, editor and critic. As a first-person account of the struggle against poverty, deprivation, discrimination and violence, Outcast captures the dehumanising impact of caste oppression on Hindu society. In tracing the author’s gradual awakening to self-hood and maturity, the play provides an inside view of life in remote areas. The narrator is haunted by the question of his fractured identity, “Am I an upper caste or an untouchableIJ” This is Kumar’s second play on the caste issue. “I wanted to give this play a national colour because people who saw my earlier work came to me saying that the issue was prevalent everywhere. Hence, I decided that the play should leave no stone unturned.” Right from Banaras in the north to Tirunelveli in the south, eight states and four religions have been covered in this play. “It took me a while to give shape to this play. I travelled across the length and breadth of the country only to get enlightened that discrimination of underprivileged is definitely not a rural phenomenon. I heard and saw people living in urban areas as victims of this social menace,” he says.
Even in institutions like the Jawaharlal Nehru University, such practices are common. “In JNU, an upper caste boy has erected a partition just to avoid facing his roommate, a Dalit, in the early morning. Matrimonial columns in leading dailies continue to list castes under different heads. Marriages are the leading perpetuator of caste in this country. It may be hard to digest but it is the uncomfortable truth.”
Having undergone such disturbing phases, Kumar has made it clear in his play, which runs for 100 minutes, that unless the Dalits in this country are empowered, there is no meaning in tom-tomming the country’s development.