No cuts for first show of Dalit-based Marathi play

No cuts for first show of Dalit-based Marathi play
Censor Board members to first see Jai Bhim Jai Bharat’s performance, before taking the scissors to it.

Marathi play Jai Bhim Jai Bharat — which the Censor Board had said could only be shown after certain cuts — will be staged without the dictated changes at least for its first showing on Sunday.

Arun Nalawade, president of the Board, told Mumbai Mirror that he and other Board members will watch the production live to see how viewers react, before deciding what to censor.

The play, written by Janardhan Jadhav, throws the spotlight on atrocities against Dalits. It will debut at Kalyan’s Acharya Atre Natya Rangmandir tomorrow.

This paper had reported on Wednesday that the Board gave the play a temporary certificate for one screening with 10 cuts. These included deletion of the words ‘Hindutvawadi’, ‘Bahmanshahi’ (Brahmanism) and ‘Gandu Bagicha’ (a collection of poems by award-winning Dalit poet Namdeo Dhasal). Replacement of ‘Ramabai Nagar’, the Mumbai locality where Dalits had died in a police firing in 1997, with ‘Mirabai Nagar’, and ‘Khairlanji’ with ‘Wairlanji’ were also part of the changes.

Board member Ashok Samel had told Mirror the cuts were necessary as these words could create casteist tension. Jadhav had appealed against the censoring.

Nalawade said that seeing a performance before finalising the cuts is not normal practice, but he was giving the playwright some liberty. “I have been in theatre for the last 30 years. I would like, as far as possible, for artistes to get full opportunity to express themselves. Newer and newer experiments are being made in theatre; we should be open to them. Let us see how the audience reacts,” he said.

Play coordinator Subodh More saw the development as a positive indicator. He hoped that once the Board members watched the play, they would agree “it reinforces Constitutional values, and does not create caste tensions”.

“We hope we get a final certificate from the Board without any cuts,” More said.