Poetics, Plays, and Performances
The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre

This book addresses the political and aesthetic concerns of modern Indian theatre, tracing its genealogies, and looking in particular at its appropriation of 'folk' theatre, as it sought to constitute itself anew after independence. Vasudha Dalmia delves into the past, to the plays of Bharatendu Harishchandra in 1870s Banaras, and to Jayshankar Prasad and Mohan Rakesh, landmark figures in the history of modern Indian drama. Dalmia then focuses on the intense urban interaction with folk theatre forms, their politicization in the 1940s and later again in the 1970s. With an overall focus on the politics of modern Indian theatre, particularly the action and reaction inspired by official policy-making in the capital of the nation as well as its international representation, the book will be of interest to theatre students, critics, cultural historians, scholars of South Asian theatre, as well as general readers.

Acknowledgements o List of Photographs o Introduction o IN SEARCH OF A NATIONAL THEATRE 'The National Drama of the Hindus': Harishchandra of Banaras and the 'Classical' Traditions in Late-Nineteenth-Century India. Twentieth-Century Projections of the Past: Jayshankar Prasad and the New Subjectivity. Neither Half nor Whole: Mohan Rakesh and the Modernist Quest o THE NATION AND ITS 'FOLK'. Folk Theatre and the Search for an Indigeneous Idiom: Brecht in India. Brecht in Hindi: The Poetics of Response Classical Sanskrit Poetics and Drama. 'To Be More Brechtian is to be More Indian': On the Theatre of Habib Tanvir o WHAT IS INDIAN? Encountering the Other, Accosting the Self. 'I am a Hindu': Assertions and Queries o Index

Vasudha Dalmia is Professor of Hindi and Modern South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley.