The
setting up of Safdr Hashmi Memorial Trust (Sahmat) was a spontaneous and
organic response to the murder of a street theater activist, known for his
commitment to the democratic and secular principles that undergirded the
promise of Indian independence. Since it came in to being in 1989, Sahmat has
stood for preserving the very values that defined Safdar’s public work. And for
those of us, who’s path has ever crossed Delhi knows and looks forward to the
Safdar Hashmi Memorial Day on 1st January every year.
This
year, the Safdar Evening was themed around the 25th anniversary of the Babri
Masjid Demolition. The outpouring of grief and rage at Safdar’s death coincided
with a transformational shift in Indian politics, manifest most notably in the
rise of a seditious and pernicious Hindutva
ideology. In a matter of months, if not weeks, artists, actors, writers and
other cultural figures coalesced around an informal banner that Sahmat offered
and used their cultural expressions to proffer a critique of the ideology of
hate and discrimination. However, by 1992, the very idea of India as a
composite society was upended on its head when a swath of kar sevaks brought down the “disputed” structure of Babri Mosque in
Ayodhya with absolute impunity. The ensuing confusion and shock left little
room for a concerted effort. Despite that, Sahmat brought a delegation together
and sent representation to the then President of India while at the same time
mobilizing artists to produce a critical response to the demolition on the
streets of Delhi. An exhibition followed which travelled to Ayodhya, among
other places, in those troubled times.
The
story of the three exhibitions on display at the Vitthalbhai Patel House, where
Sahmat’s event has taken place for years, tells the story of India since that
day. “Hum Sab Ayodhya”- the exhibition organized close on the heels of the
demolition, was showcased on one end of the room. The exhibition closely
follows the history of Ayodhya and falsifies the myopic and wholly contrived
narrative of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, by bringing to surface the syncretic
traditions that made Ayodhya’s history and that of its surroundings. However,
in this age of love-jihad, beef lynchings and caste flare ups over works of
cinema, it was hard to anticipate the many other vicious forces that Babri
demolition would unleash. And this is the crucial difference that marked “Hum
Sab Ayodhya” from this year’s exhibition, “Beyond Dispute: Landscapes of
Dissent”. The latter explores the crevices that run [and divide] fault line-
like the indian society today. Beyond Dispute calls upon artists to reflect on
the myriad ways in which the same degree of violence has been unleashed in our
times whose moorings may seem different but contribute to the same environment
of insular and exclusionary politics. With almost 50 artists working through
different mediums, the new Sahmat exhibition unravels the politics of our times
in the most vivid and yet, poignant ways. It goes far beyond the question of
the Hindu-Muslim divide and brings to relief contestations around pedagogy and
education, culinary and sartorial choices, conflicts and separatist tendencies,
Dalit marginalization and mass displacement to name just few. It is apt to
return to the editorial title that the
Times of India carried out on the day after the demolition – The Republic
Besmirched. Collectively these 60- odd works make the point about how a
republic was lost, and a thrust for a new, undesirable one commenced on that
fateful day of 1992.
The
central panel of the exhibit also displayed an immense installation art with
three dome like structures looming above the works, suspended in air as a
constant specter.
The last
exhibit, Dharti ke Laal, was a result
of a call given by noted photographer Ram Rahman. In his call Rahman asked
young photographers to directly engage with the ongoing agrarian crisis and
represent the blazing fields in the portrait medium. 27 photographers
participated in this project to produce over 150 powerful portraits that were
mostly composed during the farmer’s maha padyatra to Delhi in November, 2017.
These images mounted in the montage format, collectively tell the story of one
of India’s most shameful act of denial where lakhs of farmers have been forced
to take their lives and many more millions have abandoned their hearth and homes,
to be thrown into further precarity. The images of widows sitting with the
picture of their dead husbands awaiting compensation or the images of the
sparse kitchens of the veritable food-producers collectively convey a message
of indignation and state complicity.
Releasing
the SAHMAT Gandhi Calendar for 2018, noted historian Mahmoud Mamdani remarked
that the task of our times is to bring the enemy into the realm of an
adversary. An adversary, he says, is one that can be engaged with an
intention of reforming and an enemy remains just that; a formless being upon
whom only the logic of crime and punishment applies. He was accompanied at the
calendar release with his partner and film maker, Mira Nair.
Sahmat programme commenced with screening Virender Saini’s 1993 movie “Ayodhya” the 40 minute film that was produced in 1993
itself underlines the plurality and harmony of the everyday lived life of the
ancient city of Ayodhya. The director was present on the occasion and the
cultural performances were interspersed with eyewitness accounts from 6th
December 1992. Suman Gupta a senior correspondent of Faizabad based paper Jan
Morcha was a key eyewitness of the events along with several other
journalists on the 6 th of December 1992. She along with another senior
journalist Ruchira Gupta narrated the horrifying incidents of that dreadful day
and how in a planned manner the Masjid was brought down by Kar Sevaks and the
scores of journalist were threatened, molested and have beaten up.
The day as usual had started with street theater
performances by Bigul, and Jatan Natya Kendra, Haryana, renditions of revolutionary poems as well as
five songs on Ram which the Jan Natya Manch- Kurukshetra performed to relay the
multiplicity of meanings that the god has for different classes and
communities. A group of young artists from Pune performed a short play “ Main
Safdar Hoon”.
The music programme began with the singing of young artist
Arman Ali Develvi and the evening ended with powerful performances by folk and
sufi artists, Madan Gopal Singh, Jasbir Jassi and Rabbi Shergill who regaled
the audience with the classic Sufi-poetry.
As has become a convention by now SAHMAT released two books
in Hindi. Do Sarfrosh Shayar (
Two Revolutionary Poets) by Wakar Siddiqui, is an account of the lives of famous
revolutionaries Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan who were hanged for being
involved in the Kakori Case. Their lives, family backgrounds and poetry is made
available in Hindustani for the first-time. The second book Azadi Ke Sattar
Saal ( Seventy Years of Indian Freedom ) edited by Rajendra Sharma contains
essays by Irfan Habib, Gopal Gandhi, Ashok Vajpeyi, Anil Sadgopal
( all organized by SAHMAT) as lectures marking 70 years of Indian
Independence). Also included in the book are articles by Prabhat Patnaik, Amar
Farooqui, Shubha, Subhash Gatade and Rajendra Sharma. The books were released
by poet Manmohan.