Art Attack. Review on Ghashiram Kotwal

I’m a thief You’re a thief Our only hope is The mercy of the police Your theft Is their bribe If their mercy ends We end So we bend” - Vijay Tendulkar “Ghashiram Kotwal” Vijay Tendulkar’s Ghashiram Kotwal is a play, where the focus is not people, but politics. Writing about the current political situation realistically would have been making the issue too specific, thus leaving no space for interpretation. Hence, Tendulkar turned to history to create his controversial Kotwal, and made ingenious use of folk art to launch an attack on negative societal elements. The play was first performed on 16 December 1972. It won several awards in 1972-73 at the Maharashtra State Drama Competition. After 19 brilliant performances, it was banned. It was seen as a distortion of history, aimed at insulting the Brahmin community.

The Shiv Sena, led by Pramod Navalkar agitated against the play. Hardcore feminists also managed to find fault with it. The play is not about Nana Phadnavis, the late 18th century Marathi Machiavelli who was the Peshwa’s Chancellor in Pune, the royal deputy’s deputy. It is about a deputy who ‘no longer owed his position so much to solid popular or military backing, as to the diplomatic address with which he could play one party off against another’. Tendulkar has used a well know story involving historical figures to comment on the creation of monsters for temporary gain, leading to inequity, brutality, and ultimate destruction. Using Nana and Ghashiram, Tendulkar weaves a political allegory, and critiques the current political scenario. Folk art is the very soul of this play. It belongs to the Sangeet Natak genre of Marathi folk theatre. Ingredients borrowed from folk theatre include the Tamasha, Lavani (love ballads), Abhanga and Kirtan (devotional songs). Tendulkar’s critics call Ghashiram a subversion of folk art to malign Brahmins. Tendulkar refutes the same by saying that, “the decadence of the class in power was incidental”.

Nana depicts all those who are in power, and thus can exploit. The Abhanga, becomes a metaphor for the oppressor, who uses piety as a façade. The play thus, is not an exposé of Brahmin corruption and pretensions, but an exposé of the supposedly innocuous practices used by politicians to consolidate power. Unfortunately, this power structure has been ignored by many. Some feminist groups feel that women have been denigrated, (conveniently forgetting the psychological androgyny that Tendulkar’s work usually shows) and reduced to commodities to be used by men for pleasure, and at times to tilt the power scales. Ghashiram literally trades his daughter Lalita Gauri in order to become the Kotwal of Pune city. Females and debauchery go hand in hand in this play, and there is no redeeming factor. The playwright has definitely not fallen prey to the “Bharatmata syndrome”, and we see no sword wielding Jhansi ki Rani. This has found disfavour with many. Others beg to differ, and say that the marked absence of a female protagonist is suggestive of a patriarchal society that always suppresses women. Feminists also allege that the lavani has been used to abuse the female. Traditionally, the lavani has been associated with prostitution to some extent. But, in Ghashiram, the lavani is prostitution. Consequently, Tendulkar has been accused of degrading the art form. That the lavani is supposed to serve as a hyperbole, has not been taken into consideration by this particular faction. In Ghashiram Kotwal, Tendulkar has made unconventional use of folk art, not to antagonize or sensationalize; but to enlighten, and sensitize!