Building critical citizenship through community theatre? : case of theatre group Natya Chetana

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Abstract

Democratic training is often lacking in India. Instead of democratic means people internalise the joint functioning of "class-race-state" power and the brutality and terror of it; those at the margins are reassured of their own marginality (e.g. Spivak 2008). Natya Chetana is an Orissan theatre group performing to both rural and urban audiences about the problem of ordinary people. Based on the belief that people are capable to assess their situation and think for themselves, Natya Chetana intends to create awareness by "disturbing the minds of the audiences"; giving food for thought, not any ready-made solutions or action models. Much of the group's work can be seen as efforts to cultivate critical citizenship. The paper, related to my on-going PhD work (ethnography) on Natya Chetana's theatre as social work, discusses Natya Chetana's work from the perspectives of citizenship and marginality from the angles suggested by Pandey (2006) and Spivak (2008).