Resistance and Street Theatre:

Democratizing the Space and Spatializing the Democracy

Authors

  • Rahul Kamble

Keywords:

Resistance, Street theatre, Representation, Accountability

Abstract

The present paper explores how the practice of street theatre by staging resistance not only exercises the right to resist but strengthens the democratic values and institutions. India’s independence and the acceptance of democracy were the results of simultaneous resistance against colonial power and the undemocratic, hierarchical, caste-class-ridden social structure. However, it didn’t end the phase of resistance. Values, such as resistance to injustice, anarchy, dominance and assertion of newly gained rights make democracy meaningful. Over the years the natures, aims, means, and modes of such values also change. Occasionally, it appears that the resistance has become unethical, technical, and ritualistic. Such developments however undermine the genuine and concerned articulations of resistance. The need is to strengthen the ethical, pragmatic, and representative deliverability of resistance. Thirst (2005), a street play by Telugu playwright Vinodini, stresses how street theatre could demonstrate resistance as a right and ethical duty. It puts rigours to show that resistance is not incidental, haphazard, and episodic but a sustained activity to achieve a durable goal of a democratic society as against the immediately bargained temporary goals. It argues constructively for distributive justice and decentralization in an organized, focused, and principled manner.

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Author Biography

Rahul Kamble

Rahul Kamble has been working as Assistant Professor in The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad (India) since 2010. He has 4 years of teaching experience at PG and 10 years at UG level. He has done his Ph D on “Identity and Self-worth in Plays written by Indian Women Playwrights”. The Post Graduate courses he offers in the University are as follows: 1) Childhood: Memory, Reality, and Future; 2) Imagining Colored America;  3) American Short Stories; 4) African American Women’s Writing; 5) Theatre: The Aesthetic and Activism; 6) Childhood: Cultures, Representations, and Invasions; 7) Narratives of Conflict; 8) Indian Women’s Plays. His areas of research interest includeChildhood Studies, Women’s Theatre in India, World Theatre, African American Women’s Writing, American Short Stories, Narratives of Conflict.

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Published

2021-10-27

How to Cite

Kamble, R. (2021). Resistance and Street Theatre:: Democratizing the Space and Spatializing the Democracy. Sanglap: Journal of Literary and Cultural Inquiry, 1(2), 71–89. Retrieved from https://sanglap-journal.in/index.php/sanglap/article/view/34