Anti-Bush India Social Forum turns to culture

New Delhi, Nov 11: United States President George W Bush, MNCs and WTO may have become the punching bag for its speakers, but tribal dancers and theatre activists at the India Social Forum (ISF) are making it sure there is also focus on female foeticide, communal violence and AIDS.

Street theatre and folk dances have sprung up at the noisy venue of the social forum which is seeking an alternative world to the market-driven globe.

Performers of the Sarthak Theatre Group from Jaipur kept a motley crowd of onlookers immersed in their angry outburst against communal riots in a country born out of a million deaths during the partition.

Sarthak's 'Hathiyare' was one of the street plays performed at the 'Stage Safdar', one of the two venues for street theatre, named after theatre activist Safdar Hashmi who was brutally murdered during a performance in Sahibabad near the national capital.

Jasul Theatre Group from Tamil Nadu made their audience take notice of the acute water shortage across the country where women still carry the weight of water on their backs.

''There are a variety of subjects dealt with by the street theatre groups,'' says Shehla Hashmi, coordinator of street theatre at ISF and sister of Safdar Hashmi.

There was huge enthusiasm from street theatre groups from around the country when ISF sought online entries. ''We received 43 entries online from places like Orissa, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Nagaland,'' says Hashmi.

ISF has named its second street theatre venue after Panu Lal, the legendary Indian People's Theatre Association activist.

''I may not be able to understand the language the actors speak, but I am getting the message,'' said Rajiv Ranjan, a mass communication student from Patna visiting the event.

Don Bosco school students with their faces painted in white staged a play seeking visitors' attention on the killing of unborn girls in their mothers' wombs.

Tribal dancers from Jharkhand wearing feather caps performed the 'Karam Dhun' to highlight their disappearing traditional culture in the face of foreign and domestic industrial giants making a beeline to ''steal'' the mineral-rich state's precious natural resources.

''A lot of MNCs are coming to Jharkhand to set up factories which are stealing our resources,'' said Ainul Ansari, a volunteer of the Jharkhand Social Forum, an umbrella organisation of tribal activists.

ISF had opened on Thursday with speakers criticising the US President for his Iraq war and the WTO for treating farmers in the Third World unfairly.

UNI

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