By Anand Mathew

Varanasi: Puwari Kala is a non-descript village, 14 km away from Varanasi city in Uttar Pradesh state. Most men in the village go to the city for work. It’s the women who manage the affairs of the village during the day.

In an interaction with two people who came for a social auditing of the village, the women narrated that in their village and in their own personal and social life, major changes have occurred due to the intervention of Jan Vikas Samiti (JVS), an organization working for social change founded by the Indian Missionary Society, a Catholic religious congregation of men.

JVS animator Jadavati, who has worked with the organization since its inception 25 years ago, and Sr Prabha of Our Lady of Providence, the supervisor, narrated that they had found it a real challenge to mobilize the women, as it was very difficult to bring them out of their houses as the women were suspicious about the whole concept.

Then a street play by Prerna Kala Manch (PKM, Art Forum for Inspiration) namely ‘Phans Gaya Badalu Chakkar Me’ (Badalu is caught in a trap) enlightened and inspired the women, wherein they realized how they too were getting exploited at the hands of the money lenders because of their illiteracy. They realized how important it is for them to get educated and also to come together to overcome the exploitation of the upper caste and patriarchal minded exploiters.

This led to a drastic change among women’s thinking and they readily agreed to attend literacy classes and also to form Self Help Groups. Thereafter, through a series of plays on various social issues together with the follow up by JVS, PKM played a major role in conscientizing and awakening the women on various issues which have been impacting their day to day lives and social status.

Prerna Kala Manch, the theatrical wing of Vishwa Jyoti Communications (VJC, Light of the World), the media and social communication centre of the Indian Missionary Society has been reaching out to thousands of villages all over India for the past 25 years through its street plays and stage dramas.

VJC/PKM has been also carrying out various sociocultuRal and spiritual movements through its theatre outreach programs. Jan Vikas Samiti has been part of the Campaign for Rights and Duties of VJC and PKM. The latter had been promoting Self Help Groups in the area of operation and there have been street plays and discussions on the issues of right to food, corruption in the Public Distribution System etc.

The Impact Study Group, on its visit to Puwarikala asked the women of the village, found out that alcoholism has been fully wiped out from Puwarikala because of the impact of the play ‘Maiku’ performed by PKM in the village repeatedly. It’s not that the men went through a conversion, but the women got organized and threatened the men folk that they would not be served food if they come home drinking.

Responding to a question on whether women come to see the street plays in the presence of men, one of the women responded “Jab Aage badhe ke hoi to tab Sasur aur Jeth ke ka lajaail jaye. Lajayil jae, to ghar me hi rahal jae. Itte dino to lajai lajai ke chal gail, to kono bhuddhi nahi mil pail” (When we have to move forward then why to shy away from father-in-law and brother-in-law. If we feel shy then we will remain at home only. For these many years we have kept shying away and so haven’t been able to get any wisdom and knowledge).

The confidence with which women spoke, clearly indicated that they are no more the same women who remained within the four walls of their house being oppressed and fearful.

With this confidence, they have been successfully able to fight the corruption in the Public Distribution System. Almost four years ago inspired by the street play ‘Tamaasha’, a 40 minute entertaining yet challenging play on corruption performed by PKM in their village, the women raised up the issue of poor supply of ration.

They went to the Pradhan (Village Head) and complained that there are almost 300 families in their hamlet whereas only 100 families are receiving the ration and almost 200 did not receive. When there was no response at the village head’s level they went on to the Kotedar (Supplier of the Public Distribution System) with a match stick and insisted that he should ensure that everybody gets ration or else they would burn the ration shop. He had to succumb to the pressure created by the women.

Now till date, they are getting the ration on time. The women have now started taking up the issues by preparing and performing street plays on their own. As part of the International Women’s Day, the women performed three plays in Puwarikala and one was on Alcoholism. The plays were liked by the villagers for their artistic quality, humour and message. On the question how they learnt this art, Kalavati, a 42-year-old woman responded: “for the past 20 years I have been watching the youth of PKM coming to the village and performing dramas in our village. We learnt this art by watching their plays, We women sat together and put our heads together, practiced many times and thus emerged these plays.”

As in Puwarikala, Prerna Kala Manch has made social transformation in the lives of people in thousands of villages all over North India. PKM was founded by Fr. Anil Dev IMS, the then founder-director of Vishwa Jyoti Communictions in 1993 in the premises of Matri Dham Ashram, Varanasi.

Its first play, Kaun Hai ZImmedar (Who is responsible?) was directed by Motilal Gupta, a well accomplished script writer and dramatist of Varanasi, in the Christmas day in 1993 in the town hall premises of Varanasi. In May 1994 Fr. Anand Mathew was entrusted the responsibility of this amateur theatre troupe. The latter an actor cum script writer who had undergone a short training in theatre and communications, he made PKM a professional group and trained the team with many more street plays.

Gradually the team also started performing stage plays and later puppet plays. The team won many regional and national awards for best theatre performance, direction, best actor and best character awards. Until 31 March 2018, the team has given 8468 performances of 56 street plays, 42 stage dramas and 2 puppet plays.

As per the register of PKM, meticulously maintained by the artistes under the supervision of Fr. Anand, so far 4 million people (40,03450 to be precise) have watched these plays in in Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Himachal, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu-Kashmir, Rajasthan, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Maharasthra, Kerala and in almost every district of Uttar Pradesh.

To celebrate this unique achievement, during PKM’s silver jubilee year, Vishwa Jyoti Communications organized a three day celebration from 6th to 8th April 2018. A seminar was organized on 6th April on “The Power of Theatre in Social Harmony”. In the same evening, a cultural fest was organized at Dr Rajendra Prasad Ghat on the bank of river Ganga in central location of Varanasi city.

All the 132 artistes who have been part of the PKM, some time or other, were invited to the function. Some of them have succeeded in moving into film and Television industry in Mumbai, a few others are part of six teams of street play troupes in Varanasi. 40 of the artistes including men, women and child artistes attended the programs along with a large number of cultural and social activists, civil society and religious organizations of Varanasi and administrative and political leaders of Varanasi.

VJC honored six people who have made extra ordinary contribution towards the cause of the poor and nation building through art, film, journalism, social service, communal harmony and environment. The honor consisted of a specially designed memento, a citation and a special Varanasi gamccha. Bishop Eugene Joseph of Varanasi and Father Stanley Kozhichira, the National President of SIGNIS India, along with Swami Dr. Varishthanand ji Maharaj of the Ramkrishna Mission Hospital handed over the memento and other gifts to the awardees.

During this function, a beautiful play ‘Godan’ based on the well known novel written by Munshi Premchand was performed by the artistes of Prerna Kala Manch, for the large audience gathered at the ghat. The play centred around the theme of cow, powerfully communicated a message against brahminic hegemony and atrocities in the name of cow protection.

On April 7. Vipul Rikhi, a renowned Sufi singer sang the couplets written by Saint Kabir, the medieval Bhakti poet of Varanasi. The poems communicated the message of social harmony, unity of religious communities, reconciliation, love, forgiveness and devotion. The three day celebrations were concluded with an inter-religious prayer for peace in the hall of Vishwa Jyoti Communications. People from different walks of life belonging to Hindu, Muslim, Christian and neo–Buddhist communities participated in the prayer meeting.

Vishwa Jyoti Communications has an expert panel of trainers who have so far conducted 592 training programs in dramatics, group communication skills, media education, culture and language, socio-cultural and spiritual animation, Panchayati Raj (Local Self Governance), environmental communication etc. all over India.

The 220 street play trainings conducted in different states of India, and also in Madagascar and Srilanka have given birth to hundreds of street play troupes. North East did not have a tradition of street theatre. But today as a result of the trainings given by Vishwa Jyoti in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal, there are many street plays being performed by social activists, and youth.

Prerna Kala Manch has spearheaded many social movements in Varanasi and around. Its movement for protection of water led to a series of protests against Coca cola and Pepsi which have been exploiting ground water for the production of soft drinks. The protests, street plays, songs and rallies conducted by PKM, have forced one each bottling plant of Coca cola and Pepsi in Ballia and Jaupur districts be be shut down. The company in Mehdiganj in Varanasi has reduced its production as the consumption went drastically down due to the campaign of PKM. Police atrocities, arrests and imprisonment of Fr. Anand and the PKM artistes have been part of this movement.

A major contribution of PKM during the w5 years has been the promotion of communal harmony, pluralism and unity in diversity of cultures. PKM’s stage plays and street plays on communal harmony have been strong weapons to fight cultural uniformity and animosity. The two month-long sadbhavana yatras (pilgrimages of good will) from Varanasi to Kurukshetra in 2005 and from Varanasi to Jharkhand and Bihar in 2006 were opportunities to interact with lakhs of people on the issues of composite culture and communal harmony and unity.

From August 15, 2015, to 3Jan 30, 2016, the team carried out a five and month long ‘pilgrimage’ called ‘Tyagarchana Shanti Yatra’ (Peace Pilgrimage for an Oblation of Sacrifice) in 45 districts of Uttar Pradesh, giving the message of a hunger-free India through street plays and stage dramas. The team along with Swami Sachidanand Bharathi also known as Air Dorce Baba appealed to the people of UP in 200 locations to make small sacrifices for feeding the poor and hungry children.

Thousands of school children and people on the streets were asked to contribute to a common fund in their locality to feed the poor children. At the end of the long campaign, a new program of Khushhal Bachpan ‘Happy Childhood’ was launched in different parts of U.P. where the poor children are being given food regularly by the [people of the area.

Prerna Kala Manch has been also performing Christian and Biblical stage plays which are very popular. The passion Play performed every year during the liturgy of the Good Friday in Matri Dham Ashram in Varanasi is watched by many thousands of devotees of Jesus who are not baptized Christians. They come from far and wide.

In 2016 Lenten season, 24 artistes of Prerna Kala Manch, from Hindu and Muslim communities, and all Hindi speaking, performed Sneha Bali, the passion play in Malyalam language in 14 churches of Kerala. The audience were wonderstruck by the perfect lips synchronization and highly artistic performance by artistes in a language unfamiliar to them.

With its multiple programs of street plays, stage dramas, puppet plays, songs, trainings, PKM continues to reach out to Puwarikala and hundreds of backward villages of North India, paving way for a socio-cultural and spiritual transformation of love, forgiveness, friendship, harmony peace and development of the marginalized.