The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Theatre personalities begin `satyagraha'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 06, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Theatre personalities begin `satyagraha'

Staff Reporter

Decentralisation of national theatre is their main demand

A WAKE-UP CALL: Rastrakavi G.S.Shivarudrappa (centre) beating the drum to inaugurate `satyagraha' by theatre personalities in Bangalore on Friday. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

BANGALORE: Sore over the "injustice" meted out to regional language theatres by the Union Ministry of Culture, Kannada theatre professionals under the banner of the Abhivyakthi Abhiyaana launched an indefinite satyagraha demanding national theatre status to all regional language theatres here on Friday.

Rashtrakavi G.S. Shivarudrappa inaugurated the satyagraha by the symbolic beating of the drum.

Many personalities, including Prasanna, U.R. Ananthamurthy, C.R. Simha, and Siddalinga Pattanashetty participated in the inauguration.

Mr. Prasanna told The Hindu that the one nation-one theatre policy had even affected Hindi theatres in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.

Decentralisation of national theatre was the need of the hour as each language was capable of deciding its requirement.

Regretting that the National School of Drama was not living up to the expectations of theatre activists, Mr. Prasanna alleged that a majority of the graduates of the school were entering commercial cinema and television. He said the Government should collect fine from these industries, which were thriving at the cost of conventional theatre.

The demand of regional theatres, Mr. Prasanna said, was that the social utility of theatre must counter the invasion of entertainment by the globalised media. Theatre should become an integral part of education.

Mr. Prasanna said the Centre should evolve a national policy towards integrating theatre into education and implement the scheme in government schools to begin with.

Citing the example of Scandinavian countries where schools would be ineligible for government grants unless they had theatre education, Mr. Prasanna said a similar legislation should be enacted in the country. Although theatre training had been in place in India for over five decades, there was no avenue to make the graduates of theatre schools socially useful.

He said the Association of NSD Alumni would hold a protest in Delhi on Saturday. Four eminent theatre personalities would address the public every evening from 4 p.m. during the "satyagraha" in the precincts of Ravindra Kalakshetra. On Saturday, G.N. Ranganatha Rao, Shra. De. Parshwanath, `Makeup' Ramakrishna and C. Basavalingaiah would participate in the meeting presided over by `Mukhyamantri' Chandru.

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