KOLKATA: The decision to drop
theatre artist Koushik Kar
from performing in
Saurav Palodhi
’s adaptation of Utpal Dutt’s ‘
Ghum Nei
’ after the actor joined BJP has left the cultural world divided. While many have supported this decision, some said the move smacked of intolerance.
According to Palodhi, Kar’s current political affiliation is reason enough for dropping him. In 2019, Kar was invited by Palodhi’s group, Ichheymoto, to play a character in ‘Ghum Nei’.
“While adapting Dutt’s play, Koushik and I had created his character and named him Akhlaq. The name had a reference to the 2015 Dadri case where a mob had attacked the home of Md Akhlaq, killing him on suspicion of eating beef. Allowing someone to play Akhlaq after joining BJP will be attacking the soul of the play,” said Palodhi. He has no qualms if he is called ‘intolerant’ because of his stand.
“‘Ghum Nei’ has no space for someone who has joined Fascist forces. For us, theatre is first about revolution and then art. Koushik is a brilliant actor and I’ll want to work with him in plays that have no ideological connect,” he added.
Kar, however, refuses to take any credit for writing the character of Akhlaq.
“Saurav is hiding his folly by making such statements. Few Leftists are trying to control theatre. They have no grassroots connect. Dropping me or barring me from staging a play is only exposing the insecurity of elites who don’t even understand the essence of communism,” Kar said. He added that the entire episode exposes the “myopia of theatre professionals” and “Left-Wing Fascism”.
“A professional actor’s ideology has nothing to do with his stage characters. Instead of sharing his concern with me in private, Sourav put up a post, saying ‘chol phot’ and disrespectfully just asked me to get lost. This is Left-Wing Fascism,” Kar added.
While director-actor Debesh Chattopadhyay has lent his support to Palodhi on Facebook, director Kamaleswar Mukherjee hasn’t agreed to insist that his “casting never depends on the individual’s political colour”.
Supporting Palodhi, actor Riddhi Sen described this as an “individual’s choice”.
“Theatre requires a certain philosophy. So, it’s absolutely fine if the person expelling him had felt that his ideology is not going with the group.”
On being asked how different is this from a situation where Sen is dropped from a film/play because of his political views, Sen said, “I’ll stick to what I said because he reflected too many contradictory views which openly proves him to be very unreliable. If a group feels that his views are not suiting the group’s philosophy, that group can very well drop him.”
Actor-turned BJP leader
Kanchana Moitra doesn’t buy this logic.
“This is sheer intolerance. When I joined BJP, a director had openly said that I would not be offered certain kind of roles in future. Such actions can’t be defended in a democratic country,” Moitra said.
Actor Rudranil Ghosh too condemned this saying it only exposes the “hypocrisy” and “fascism” of Left-leaning theatre workers.
“Frustration has robbed them off their sleep. So it’s ‘ghum nei’ for them. What kind of Left politics is it that insists that one can’t do theatre without doing CPIM?”
Recently, there was talk about someone in Nandikar joining BJP. Initially, her 86-year-old father, Rudraprasad Sengupta, was taken aback.
“Later at a discussion, he said that our members can have political differences but that should not interfere with our art. If some group stages political plays based on a certain belief, I can’t say how they will look at this issue,” said actor
Sohini Sengupta, adding that Nandikar will never drop a person because of his political belief.
“Irrespective of Koushik Kar’s political affiliation, he is a very strong actor on stage,” she added.
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