Salil Chowdhury on the IPTA Movement

Following conversation with Salil Chowdhury took place in his Himgiri Apartment in Bombay, in the evening on October 26, 1978.

He was wearing a shirt and a "Lungi" (Sarong). He seemed to be in a good mood. He reminisced about his association with the IPTA (Indian Peoples Theatre Association), and his memories of that experience were gradually coming to life. The fact that he was not able to associate himself with the IPTA to the end saddened him, and it was apparent in his tone. We captured our conversation on tape. This transcript is based on that interview.

K.B: Dramas that dealt with political protest in any pre-Independence, colonized nation – were most often supported and disseminated by the elite or the middle class of that nation, and the characters of those plays almost always were deliberately nationalistic. Besides, the appeal of those plays resided in their ability to arouse strong emotional response among the audience, rather than targeting the audiences' intellect.There were deliberate attempts to agitate the minds of the audiences. What is your opinion on this?

S.C: Yes, there were attempts to agitate. Think of the plays of even earlier times, such as "Neel Darpan" ("The Blue Mirror" – a 19 th century play by Bengali playwright Dinabandhu Mitra, expressing strong sentiments against the exploitations and tortures of local cultivators by the British indigo planters – tr.). It was a tremendously agitating drama. This kind of work continued till early 1940s. But later the Bengal famine of 1943, in which 5 million people died, shook us all up including the intellectuals, writers and artists of the city. And this particular event started a movement that was not exactly nationalistic in character. People from all strata of the society got involved in the movement -- Peasant, laborers, and people of the middle class, students and intellectuals alike. And Bijan-da (Bijan Bhattacharya, Bengali playwright and actor, one of the leaders of the IPTA movement) wrote a play called, "Nabanna" ("The New Harvest") during that time. The tone of this play was far from nationalistic. In this play, he exposed the corruption and exploitation by the black-marketers, the hoarders, and the landowners of Bengal. The Peasant played main roles in this drama, they were the heroes and actors. Now this play, ‘Nabanna', a new kind of a play, set the foundation of a fresh new cultural movement. And since then we composed many songs for IPTA. We took our plays to the villages and we performed in train stations. The villagers and the peasants took part in our plays, they also wrote and performed in their own plays and composed songs. So, it would be wrong to identify this new movement that had begun at that time as nationalistic. This movement tried to bring a revolutionary change in the awareness of the common people, and it tried to involve common people through such activities as the ‘People's Theatre'. It spread like wild fire all parts of our country. There isn't another example of a cultural movement of such magnitude in India's history, I think. Compared to it, the Bengal Renaissance movement of the 19 th century involved only the middle-class intellectuals.

K.B: From among the Peasant and cultivators of Bengal, who do you remember who joined the IPTA movement as artists?

S.C: I don't remember the names of many of them, but I do remember the famous "Tarja" singer, Gurudas. Gurudas was the son of a farmer. Later he became an industrial worker. Then there was Dasharath Lal, a laborer, working for the Tram (the trolley) company in Calcutta. Dasharath wrote some good songs during that period. There were many others like them. For instance, there was Moghai Ojha, son of a farmer of Assam. He played "Dhol" (Indian drum) in our troupe. Then there was Anna Bhao Sathe from Maharashtra, son of a farmer. He wrote a number of "Tamasha" and "Laboni" at that time. [Note: need to find out info on Tamasha and Laboni]. Omar Sheik and Gawankar joined him. They all came from farming and working classes. Omar Sheik and Gawankar were slightly better off, but Anna Bhao himself was a slum-dwelling labourer and son of a labourer. And he wrote some of the finest poems, Labonis and Tamashas. You will notice that many such artists came out of the farming communities of different parts of India and joined the IPTA movement. These phenomena continued well after the Independence. But gradually we found that the movement lost its momentum. The groups started breaking up. Some still lament the fact that IPTA did not last. Personally I think that the movement did not die, instead it gave birth to multiple similar dramatic and musical groups, which followed the ideals IPTA was based on – art for the people and by the people. Those new cultural organizations sprang up all over India. After this happened, there was no need to have another organization called IPTA. This was one reason. Secondly, gradually visible cracks in the leftist political movements in India and abroad brought tremendous hopelessness among our intellectuals. We saw that China and Russia were bickering; Yugoslavia separated itself from the politics of Eastern Europe, and the politics in Vietnam took a different shape. We also saw that the Communist parties in France and Italy were going their own ways and proposing quite different things. These events created enormous confusion and frustration among our intellectuals and spawned several communist parties of various flavors, such as, CPI (Communist Party of India), CPI (M – Marxist), Naxalite (Leninist-Maoist), parties among other, and had great impact on our progressive cultural movements. Now, this confusion and hopelessness among the leftist intellectuals and artists helped abstraction in art rise again and champion art for art's sake. Gradually vulgarity became quite commonplace on the public stage, such as, cabaret dances were introduced in the public theatre, even in Jatras (folk theatres). This kind of onslaught on progressive cultural movement began because the united left cultural movement broke up. These days we are observing a new spark. Many artists of today are consciously thinking about ways to start a united leftist cultural movement. I have discussed this possibility with many of them. But I believe that we cannot bring back the old IPTA any longer. We cannot think of singing songs or staging dramas of that scale that we attained during those days. The biggest reason why we cannot do what we did thirty to thirty five years ago is that the climate of mass media of communication has changed radically during all these years. During those years not more than ten to twelve movies used to be made in a year, so we could stage our plays to rival the cinema of that time. In those days movies were the vehicles of clean story telling. Stories mostly from the works of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, and from Indian Classics were made into movies. Except a few, most of those stories were never a threat to our cultural revolutionary movement, so our radical plays could easily compete with the movies during those years. But the number of movies has gone up from ten a year to six hundred a year in last thirty years! And most of these movies are made in Hindi. Hindi language movies take the lion's share in Indian film industry. There are about three hundred movies made in Hindi in a year. There are also regional movies, made in the various regional languages of India. Most of these movies are out-and-out commercial. These movies are cheap and vulgar and other than making money there's no reason for them to be made. To that end, some of the producers of these movies wouldn't even hesitate to strip their mothers! This is the attitude prevailing in the movie industry of India. What effect a small play could possibly have on the masses in a cultural climate where millions of people in India are subjected to the vulgar cultural onslaught continued by the producers of commercial movies? How could we fight against such a climate?

However, this does not imply that the theatre movement should be abandoned. I am not saying that we must not accept the new ideas from the international theatre movements, that we should not experiment with the new forms of theatre, or that we should not continue to stage plays that are socially conscious. All I am saying is that we will not be able to fight against the onslaught dealt on our masses by this decadent culture. If we need to fight them, then we have to beat them in their own game. We have to fight them through the common mass media such as TV, newspapers, and magazines. If needed, we have to create a counter culture in order to fight this decadent culture. It should be a parallel movement. We don't have millions of rupees unlike them. But we can do it in a scaled down version. We can make films in 16mm, we can also make them in "Super 8" format, and show those films in the villages and the rural areas of India. We can try to involve our writers, artists, technicians and the graduates of the Pune Film Institute in making such films.

Although I do not mind the fact that the government of West Bengal has recently spent 10 million rupees to build a laboratory for processing and developing color films. My question is will it help this laboratory to boost the quality of Bengali movies, which has gone down remarkably in the recent times? I believe this laboratory will help spawn even worse kind of Bengali movies. Therefore, I believe that the government of West Bengal should first find out ways to sponsor good films. I agree with the fact that we could as well make colour movies in Bengali language that could compete with the colour movies made in Hindi. But to me it is more important to fight this decadent cultural climate with something positive and progressive than fighting colour movies with colour movies. It does not matter whether we make movies in black and white, or in colour. If we can make good movies in black and white, people will see them, and there surely will be an impact of those movies on them. Unfortunately we cannot do that yet. I wish we could instead start a people's cinema movement with the millions of rupees that were spent to build the colour laboratory. We need a movement of people's cinema today, not people's theatre, which could allow us to reach millions of people. I think we could have done something positive, if it had occurred to our government, or to our intellectuals who are the cultural advisors to the govt. I don't know if it will happen or not.

K.B: When IPTA became such a powerful organization in the 1940's, how much impact did it have?

S.C: It had a tremendous impact. The reason being as the content changed, the form changed as well. Form of our plays had to change along with the change in their content. So we saw that the forms of songs had changed, so had the forms of the theatre. Poster dramas were staged which could communicate directly with the people. IPTA drew a lot of writers and artists in its organization. In fact 80% of the greatest cultural icons of India are the product of IPTA movement. For example, there wouldn't be a Salil Chowdhury if it weren't for the IPTA. I am a product of that movement. This movement gave birth to many artists like myself of whom some are still alive and some are not. IPTA movement spawned and nurtured artists and actors of the stature of Balraj Sahani, Shambhu Mitra, and Utpal Dutt; filmmakers like Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen; singers like Omar Sheik of Maharashtra. This movement shaped them all. Even in south India, in Andhra and Kerala, the top writers and filmmakers of those regions participated in this movement. So, we can see that there was an impact.

K.B: Now, the IPTA movement attracted mainly the elite class, the intellectuals. But what about the people for whom this movement was meant for, the lower class, dispossessed people? How much awareness IPTA was able to instill among those people?

S.C: It's difficult to gauge this issue now, how much we were successful doing that. But if you look at what reception our artists got among them, you would get some idea. It was quite a lot. For example when our troupe went to Kakdweep, in Sundarbans, to stage a play, there we met a farmer who used to act in Mukunda Das's folk plays ("Jatras"). In his lifetime he was awarded about a hundred medals in recognition for his acting talents. He gave us one of his medals in appreciation of our play. I have never received a greater honor in my life. The medal fetched us about four thousand rupees from an auction we held among the Peasant. I later regretted selling the medal. I had to do it for the benefits of the Peasant of that region. This was just an example of what kind of impact we had over the ordinary people. They realized that our songs and plays were truly meant for them. We had that kind of experience quite a few times. But then what happened? Our groups started splitting up as a result of growing hopelessness in our political lives as well as in the Left Front politics. People involved in the Left politics were targeted and heavily tortured by the police during the Congress rule, and also by the landowners. The Party failed to provide leadership during the crisis period. The United Front, which included other left leaning parties, started to show cracks. All those events generated widespread disappointment among us. But these days I am getting more hopeful.

K.B: Was IPTA directly a cultural wing of the leftists?

S.C: It was clearly led by the Communist Party.

K.B: Did the Communist Party lead all units of IPTA in India?

S.C: Yes, all units. Everything was under the leadership of the Communist Party. It was one undivided communist party at the time. P.C. Joshi, who was the General Secretary of the party, led this movement.

K.B: Were those who joined IPTA all communists?

S.C: No. That's what I am trying to say, that although the IPTA leadership consisted of the communists, its goal was to bring all progressive, left leaning writers and artists together on to single platform. Therefore IPTA was not made of the communists although the Communist Party gave the leadership. But there were many artists and singers in IPTA who didn't bother about politics. Sometimes a great actor would join the group, such as an actor like Manoranjan Bhattacharyya, whom we called "Maharshi". He didn't believe in politics in any direct way, but he still joined the IPTA movement. I can recall hundred such names that joined this movement without having any political affiliations to the communist party.

K.B: Did those people join knowing fully that it was an organization led by the leftists?

S.C: Yes, certainly.

K.B: Did it create an ideological conflict as a result?

S.C: Yes it did at times. Let me talk about my own situation. When the communist party began moving towards the ultra-left wing of the party led by Ranadive in a period marked by ultra leftist propensities, it created a split among the intellectuals in IPTA. I was against the split. I was told that unless the ‘Party Cell' approved my songs I would not be allowed to sing them publicly. I refused saying that it was unacceptable, first, because the issuers of such orders did not understand music. Secondly, it is patently wrong to think that just being a worker or a farmer or a student or a member of the communist party bestows one with the understanding and judgement regarding which songs I should be singing or composing. It was hard to believe that even a song like "G(n)aayer B(n)adhu" ["A Village Woman"] could be banned by the IPTA !

It bothered the IPTA leadership that the protagonist of the song [written by Salil Chowdhury himself], the village woman died without putting up a fight. She at least could have fought with some red chili powder against her tormentors! Somehow the theme of the song bred hopelessness instead of the promise of a revolution, they thought.

I have had such ideological conflicts, in fact quite a lot of them at times. But such conflicts arose mostly during the ultra left period. Then there were other cultural organizations, such as the one led by the Congress Party, and called "Sahitya Sangha" ['‘The Literary Group"]. Those groups tried to counteract against the IPTA movement in their own ways, but eventually failed. Such were the goings on.

K.B: Would you then say that IPTA broke up because its political base was not too strong?

S.C: No. As I said earlier, that the divisions in the international communist movement had an indirect effect on our cultural movement. Along with it came lack of direction and uncertainty, that we were not getting anywhere. Of course we felt disappointed that the movement did not last.

K.B: Were there any personal conflicts, besides other reasons?

S.C: There were some, at times personal and political conflicts overlapped on each other. Then there were purely personal conflicts. For example if I were perceived to have gained some fame, there would be other artists who would lament the fact that they were not as famous.

K.B: It's rather regrettable about our generation when we think that although so many talented people got together [in IPTA], but at the end the whole thing turned into a petty affair.

S.C: It was bound to happen for they belonged to the petty bourgeois class. I personally believe that our leadership was responsible for the break up. We sought conscious political and cultural leadership from our leaders. But the Communist Party never succeeded in providing a cultural leadership in a meaningful way.

That is a fact. They were always rather disdainful towards the so-called cultured and talented individuals. They would only need us when they wanted to get people attend their open-air meetings. We would keep singing songs until the leaders decided that there were enough people to listen to their speeches. So we were almost used as a tool of the party, in most occasions. The leadership of the communist party never had any understanding of what cultural movement actually meant. Interestingly, they wouldn't deny this fact either. In a way they gave us a carte blanche, as if it was up to us to perform our songs and dramas, but they couldn't be bothered. Such was their attitude, as if politics and culture were two mutually exclusive and inherently antagonistic activities. This kind of belief was quite prevalent then. And I find the same belief even today.

K.B: On the one hand the leaders would give you a free reign to what you are performing, on the other hand there was this coercion, that they wouldn't allow a song to be performed publicly unless it carried a certain sentiments approved by the party. Don't you think this two kind of attitudes were contradictory?

S.C: This happened in a particular period. Immediately after that period I left IPTA, and came to Bombay in 1953. My coming to Bombay and joining the film industry had an adverse reaction among some so-called progressive individuals. They thought of anyone joining the movie industry as a sign of loosening of morals. These beliefs are still there. These people still do not understand what an immensely powerful medium of communication film is, which has the ability to move the audiences unlike any other medium. But they still think of us as untouchables. Because we are making money in the movie industry, we have composed songs for the movies. Therefore we have lowered ourselves in their eyes. But those who never got the opportunity to make it big, are the ones who started such a notion. Even today those people are holding on to their ‘holier than thou' attitude. However, they do not have any contribution worth a penny either in culture or in politics.

K.B: Can we then say that those who joined the IPTA at the time were divided in two camps? While people in one camp came with a progressive political outlook, the other came just to exploit the platform for their own self-interests?

S.C: No. I don't think this is the right way to describe the situation. I don't agree that some people used IPTA platform for their own benefits, although that may have happened towards the end. But initially there was a tremendous upsurge along with the right kind of leadership. It took place after the Bengal Famine was over, and mostly the politically conscious artists were the ones who gave leadership to this upsurge. Most of those artists belonged to the Communist Party. Through their leadership they brought many like-minded people on to the platform. That is a fact. It was not like as if we tried to use a cultural platform for the political purpose. It was so spontaneous.

K.B: Would you say that the plays and the songs written and performed at the time were about anti-exploitation?

S.C: Yes they were. They were about anti-exploiters, anti-British, for independence, etc. It covered a whole range of things.

K.B: But what about the rational analysis of class structure, the basic premise of Communism? Was that reflected in those plays and songs?

S.C: There were quite a few plays along that line. "Nabanna" is a glaring example where the class structure of the contemporary society was described in full. Starting with the farming class to the middlemen to the landowners and finally to the upper class elite of the city, the play delineated all these classes quite effectively.

K.B: That may be true, but we have seen that such attempts to describe the class structure end up in some kind of black-and-white simplistic description of the society. Do you think such attempts can really be effective in any way? What is the long-term effect of such a movement that was a source of momentary emotional agitation?

S.C: That needs to be seen. Critics will judge the effect of our movement. When an art form has served its purpose then what lasts after the need is gone depends on the basic quality of that art form that was used to agitate the people. What dramatic value ‘Nabanna' has retained today after it has served its purpose, or how effective Bijan Bhattacharya is in the art of writing plays, that needs to be judged by you people, the critics. But it has served a tremendous purpose and it did the job. But to see it analytically whether it did certain things right or not, that's beside the point.

K.B: Did you travel a lot in the rural areas taking the play?

S.C: A lot. Bijan-da wrote another play, called "Jabanbandi" ["The Testimony"]. I was not part of the dramatic group. Although I had written quite a few plays myself. One of those plays, titled, "Janantike" ["Thinking Aloud"] became quite popular. Then I wrote another play, called, "Ei Maati-te" [On This Earth"]. I wrote them all for the IPTA. Unfortunately all those plays are lost now. The manuscripts of those plays are all lost, and I do not have the copies either. Once I adapted the play "The Rising of the Moon", and called it "Arunodayer Pathe" ["Way to the Rising Sun"]. This one got published and hence survived. No other manuscripts of the plays written during those years are with me.

During those years I was in the underground, almost for four years I roamed among the Peasants. I could not publish my plays at that time for no publisher would dare to publish them. And most of those plays were banned anyway. So the dramatic groups had to use the manuscripts to stage those plays. I have no idea where those manuscripts are after I came back from the underground. There is a possibility someone might still have the copies of those manuscripts. If you write in the newspapers requesting the return of those old manuscripts of plays by Salil Chowdhury, you might get back some of them.

K.B: Were those plays legally banned when they were banned?

S.C: Yes. Police would arrive at the scene and start beating us up. They were merciless, did not care whether a play was banned or not.

K.B: Do you recall a play where this happened?

S.C: There were many such plays. Once something funny happened in one such play. There was a character of a policeman in one of those plays. While we were performing the play, the real policeman entered in place of the character. One of our actors, Kali Banerjee, he used to act in our plays at the time, not knowing that it was a real policeman, said, ‘Not now, go away, this is not the time of your scene, your scene comes later!'

K.B: Where did it happen?

S.C: In Calcutta. I don't exactly remember the name of the theatre. Anyway, that policeman then started beating up people. We finally realized that that was a real policeman! He dispersed the show. This kind of stuff happened a lot. There were times when the police suddenly appeared in the middle of our performances and started beating us up.

K.B: Did this kind of repression start to happen from the very beginning of your career?

S.C: Yes, absolutely from the beginning. Even after Independence, during the Congress regime, there was tremendous repression.

K.B: Were you involved in active politics before you joined the IPTA?

S.C: I was involved in the Peasant movement.

K.B: Since when?

S.C: I joined the Peasant movement in 1945 or 46. I used to live in the villages then.

K.B: Were you a student then?

S.C: Yes I was a student at that time. Although I took part in Students movement as well, I was more involved in the Peasant movement as I lived in the villages. I used to live in Sonarpur area, in South 24 Parganas. I worked from the very beginning of the formation of "Krishak Samiti" (Peasant Committee).

K.B: Was there any influence of your family in all this, or did you do it on your own?

S.C: No, when I was a student, I got involved in active politics. And of course as the Peasant movement was going on in the villages, naturally I got involved there as well. And the songs that I composed during those years, the songs I composed on the ‘Tebhaga movement', such as, “Hei saamaalo dhaan ho, kaaste taa daao shaan ho” (Hey brother, protect your paddy, sharpen your sickle and keep it ready…), those were written during that period, during the Peasant movement. People still sing those songs. Then during the release movement of Freedom fighters who were imprisoned for years, when the trial was going on for the prisoners of looting the armory in Chattagram, I wrote a song, "O Judge, the people have been awakened who will come to judge your decision" during that time. At that time, there was hardly a political occasion that didn't warrant new composition of songs! I composed songs practically on all the available political occasions. “Waves are rising, prisons are breaking”, and "It's strike today, the wheels stop running" – such songs were written during all India workers strike on July 29, 1946. During the communal riot, I composed songs such as, "O my fellow citizens" and "Come, brothers of my heart", etc. But there were other composers as well who composed songs during that period, composers such as Hemanga Biswas, Binoy Roy, Haripada Kushari, wrote some songs. Jyotirindra Moitro ("Batuk-da") had already written "Song of New Life" ("Naba Jibaner Gaan"). So there was quite a stir.

K.B: So then you joined IPTA right away?

S.C: I joined IPTA directly from Peasant movement.

K.B: Which year?

S.C: Probably in 1945, after Bengal Famine, when I was still a student. I joined a group of students going to Assam to raise funds for the famine victims. But I hadn't started composing yet, I played flute at the time. So I went with the troupe as a flute player. I started writing songs describing the problems faced by the Peasant movement in 24 Parganas in West Bengal. By that time the IPTA had already formed in Calcutta. Batuk-da had already written "Naba Jibaner Gaan", and Bijon-da had written a play "Nabanna" ("The New Harvest"). But I still hadn't joined the IPTA; I was still very much involved with the Peasant movement. Then one day we staged a play with our troupe at the IPTA. Some of the key members of IPTA, such as Binoy-da, Niranjan Sen, attended the program. They told me that IPTA was my true place, not the Peasant movement, for I was basically an artist. Then I joined the IPTA.

K.B: That means IPTA put a lot of emphasis on art?

S.C: No, they didn't put emphasis on the art that is only for art's sake, but on the art that communicates powerfully, the art that is committed to reality. There was an emphasis on the content, on the contemporary issues. It's not that through art we can change a society for the better, but art has been created by the attempt to change society. Is there any other meaning of art?

K.B: But Balwant Gargi has commented in a book that too much emphasis on the content alienated the audience, that when the artists realized such emphasis they simply didn't care about the art of technique any more. And Gargi argued that it was the chief cause that led to the breaking up of IPTA.

S.C: I do not agree with this line of reasoning. I do not agree at all. For I still get requests from young people to sing those earlier compositions whenever I go to Calcutta to perform. Songs I mentioned earlier, such as "Bicharpoti" (O Judge…), and "Dheu uthchhe" (Waves are rising…), etc. They want to listen to all the songs composed 30 years ago during those turbulent years. If the people of this generation still care about those songs, then how could I say that those songs didn't succeed as an art? What does art mean to your writer? Is it "Art for Art's Sake" for him? To me, art is not an abstraction. I accept only that form which will allow me to express my statement most powerfully. If I succeed in that, I am an artist.

But then, it is also true that there has been a lot of sloganeering in the name of art. The Party creates a slogan, and someone writes a play based on it. The play dutifully reflects party's position on certain issues. There were certainly such cases. But nobody remembers those plays any more. Those plays died their natural death.

K.B: Is it possible that due to much more predominance of such work alienated the audience even further?

S.C: That is possible. But it happens all the time. How many good plays are there that we can you talk about these days? How many good songs are being written, what's the quality of literature these days? There's always a dearth of genuinely good writers or artists. There's only one Tagore. There were many contemporary writers during his time, but none as powerful as Tagore or Chatterjee (Sarat Chandra Chatterjee). It is a fact in every age. But does that stop anyone from writing novels? There are thousands of new novels coming out every year!

K.B: What were the ideals that the IPTA emphasized on?

S.C: Socialist revolution. And to awaken people, to make them aware of it, that was its ideal.

K.B: Was it just to make them aware, or –

S.C: Yes, to inspire them as well. To make them aware means to inspire them as well. When I say that these are your rights, and tell you that you are being deprived of your rights, then of course I'm trying to rouse you up to get your rights.

K.B: And in your experience, did you see those ideals being successfully implemented?

S.C: Certainly it has had tremendous impact on the society, a lot of things that are available today, were made possible by the contribution IPTA made. The IPTA cultural movement and the Peasant movement were mainly responsible for the rights that the peasants and workers enjoy today. The kinds of rights that a peasant couldn't enjoy even 20 years ago, they have got those rights these days, both the peasants and the workers, thanks to such movements.

K.B: Who financed those organizations that you were involved with?

S.C: People.

K.B: Did they donate money?

S.C: No, they did not donate. We used to sell cheap tickets to them. Suppose we staged a play among the peasants, they would take care of us, provide food, and raise money for us. There were some full timers in the Party, like myself. I used to get a salary of Rs. 30.00 per month from the Party. That was my earning.

K.B: What about those who were not a member of the Party?

S.C: Many of them were extremely dedicated. They would work for free. We did not face any problems with the food. The peasants would always make sure that we had something to eat. They always receive you and feed you whatever they have. It is a tradition that still exists.

We would also sell tickets for our shows at a cheap price, between 4 annas and 8 annas, and thus make some money for the organization. (annas = small coins)

K.B: Yet, there must be a nagging economic insecurity that you had to deal with?

S.C: Yes, everyone had to deal with it. There were many part-timers. They were either students or having some other profession. They came from relatively well-to-do families. They used to devote their free times for the movement. There were more part-timers than the full-timers. There were very few full-timers in the party.

K.B: So, did not the economic insecurity have an adverse effect on the IPTA movement?

S.C: Indeed, it had a terrible effect. Many of our boys had to starve for days, while working for the movement. Many of them died too. They died not only from starvation, but also from torture, imprisonment, and coercion, from being beaten up severely. But I would say that the economic insecurity could not dampen the spirits of the boys that much. Because I saw them perform in plays in the villages they traveled by foot, not having to eat anything for 2 or 3 days continuously. When people are inspired by an ideal, they do not mind those minor hardships that much. Most often I wouldn't even have 2 annas in my pocket. There would be warrants in my name. I had to walk a lot, but never thought that it was something painful. Actually we were too busy to think about personal comforts. Now we cannot think of ignoring personal comforts. Even I myself cannot think of it anymore.

K.B: What about the conflict that developed within Bengal IPTA during those years…?

S.C: I am not aware of what had happened later.

K.B: I am talking about 1946-47 periods.

S.C: No, there was no conflict at that time. Actually conflict started during the ultra-left period, from the time of Ranadive. The movement split into two camps, one that was veering toward ultra left, and the other that was opposing the extreme left group. A serious conflict developed between those two groups. And the party started to dictate as well during that time. There was no dictating before. That was a much more broad-based democratic cultural front. Next, the artists started to revolt, when party told them that they could not do anything without party's permission. That was the reason for its breakup.

K.B: But many within the Bombay chapter of IPTA believe that the Independence movement was the cementing factor among various groups in IPTA. After India was independent, the main cause was lost for the IPTA. Members of the IPTA realized that they no longer had an objective for continuing such a cultural movement. Therefore, they started to show frustration and a certain slackening of purpose.

S.C: I believe this reasoning is partly true, but not wholly. A large number of people in IPTA were politically conscious. They did not want to stop right after Independence; they wanted to take it further, aiming for a social revolution. That's why the peasant movement still exists even so many years after Independence. But they have splintered into many groups. Two groups became three. Now there are many such groups. But the artists who were for a social revolution, they could still continue to work. They are still very creative. However, artists whose only aim was to kick the British out of India, they suffered from a loss of purpose and motivation, and became confused and without a goal after Independence. Those were two very different groups of artists.

K.B: How did the reaction of the Indian Government differ towards the IPTA from pre-Independence period to the post-Independence period?

S.C: It remained same, more or less. Because our main thrust was against the capitalist class and the exploiters, the landowners. As the government predominantly sided with the capitalists and landowners, they didn't like our activities much. It was obvious.

K.B: Did they [who later formed the government in independent India] help IPTA by any means before the Independence?

S.C: Absolutely not.

K.B: Not with money or anything?

S.C: Nothing, not at all. In fact after Independence we became their bitter enemies. Even after Independence we had to face a lot of opposition and torture from the officials of Indian government. We were banned from entering the radio station building for a long time.

K.B: Because you all were communists?

S.C: That was not the only reason. Even they did not allow us to perform songs on the radio that talked about the plights of the peasants or the workers. It continued to happen even after Independence. I was allowed to enter a radio station long after I became a popular artiste. Even today, if I try to criticize the system any way through my compositions, the Censor will stop me. I cannot talk about revolution in my compositions due to the censors.

K.B: Did you have to suffer repressions and harassments at the hands of the police in post-Independence period as well?

S.C: Yes, that happened a lot. A lot.

K.B: Do you remember such incidents?

S.C: It's hard to pick a specific incident since there were so many. We were on tenterhooks all the time. We were in the underground at the time. Here's an example of such an incident. Once we gathered under the Monument [in Calcutta] and started to sing songs. We saw a list of banned songs pasted everywhere by the police. It specified songs, such as "Naker Bodole Norun" or one that Hemanga-da composed, “Mount batten Saheb”, or "Bichar Pati Tomar Bichar", etc. There were about 20 songs that they banned according to the list. About a hundred thousand to hundred and fifty thousand people had come to listen to those songs. The police were there as well. Our boys cordoned off the stage and assured us to continue, saying, "Salil-da, please continue singing your songs, we will not allow those bastards from stopping us!" And we sang those songs, defying the police.

K.B: Then what happened?

S.C: We sang defying them, and after it was over we went home. The police couldn't do much at that time, because there were so many people who came to listen, and only a handful of police. I guess the police would give up, and listen to those songs after they had done the "job" of pasting the list [of banned songs]!

K.B: Was there ever a personal attack on you?

S.C: I was fortunate that I was never arrested during that particular period of time. I was saved by the skin of my teeth three or four times. I remember one incident that occurred at the Mohammed Ali Park. We were singing at a students gathering. Suddenly the police arrived on the scene, cordoned us, and started to beat up people. The park was at an elevation from the street level at the time, you know. So, startled by the police people started to jump onto the street from the park. The police forcibly took away our harmonium. Many who jumped injured their ankles. And police arrested all those who were limping due to injured ankles. I jumped as well, and went straight to a student's hostel near the Medical College, through an alley. As soon as the students saw me, they took me inside the hostel, saying “Salil-da, hurry, come inside!” So I escaped very narrowly that day. The next day, all who were still limping due to fractured ankles were arrested.

K.B: Were they arrested after all?

S.C: Oh, yes. They were horribly beaten up after being arrested. The police took the arrested people to the Lalbazar Police Station, laid them on slabs of ice and severely beat them up. David Cohen, a fellow comrade, and I used to share a place near the Circular Road. It was an area where mostly Anglo-Indian prostitutes lived and worked. Somehow David managed a small room there in the prostitutes' quarters, thinking nobody would suspect that couple of communists could be hiding in such a place.

Once I went to Sonarpur, I was to participate in a program in the evening organized by the IPTA. We sang songs almost all night long there. In the morning I was returning back to my hiding place in Calcutta, when singer Krishna Bandopadhyay, who had a lot of affection for me, stopped me. She knew I was coming back and was waiting for me by the tram tracks. She asked me to get off the tram right away. She said, "There was a raid at your place last night, please don't go home now." Just the day before I had given shelter to a couple of comrades at my place who had escaped from a jail in Jalpaiguri. David Cohen was there too. There were also representatives from a newspaper waiting for me, whom I promised to give my writing. Police arrested them all, about eleven or twelve people from my place, and were waiting for my return. So I was lucky when someone warned me ahead of time about police waiting for me. I had had similar narrow escapes many times.

K.B: Do you remember the names of some of the plays that were banned or censored during those days?

S.C: There was no way to ban those plays because we did not publish them in printed format. Those plays remained as manuscripts. We changed the titles of the plays continuously to avoid them being banned by the police. For example, we had to change the title of a play from "Ei Maati-te"[On This Soil] to "Maatir Manush" [Man of the Soil]. After we had changed the title, we could then stage the play again. We had to do this on a regular basis, as all our plays were under scrutiny by the police.

K.B: What about the writers of those plays, do you remember some of their names?

S.C: All of us used to write plays those days. I wrote some of the plays, then Anil Ghosh wrote few. Bijon-da was a class by himself. He wrote a musical play based on the lives of snake charmers, titled "Jiyan-Konya". There were many others who also wrote. But as I was more involved with the musical group than the drama group, I do not know all the details of the latter. I only remember those I wrote. For example, I wrote a play called "Sanket"[Signal]. Karuna-di [actress Karuna Banerjee, who played the role of Apu's mother in the "Apu Trilogy" by Satyajit Ray] acted in it. Utpal Dutt [famous playwright and actor of stage and screen in Bengal] and Kali Banerjee [Bengali stage and screen actor] acted in the play as well. I lost the manuscript of that play.

K.B: Did they ban the play?

S.C: No, it was not banned, because it was based on middle class life. The story was about a young boy. So it was not political, at least not overtly.

K.B: Were your other plays censored too?

S.C: No, as I said before, we kept changing the titles of the plays. Take "Ei Maati-te", for example.

K.B: Did you write that play?

S.C: Yes, I wrote it. As usual the police told us that we could not stage the play. So I had to change the title to "Maatir Manush". Other than myself, Utpal [Dutt] was writing a lot of "Poster" plays those days. Ritwik [Ritwik Ghatak – well renowned Bengali filmmaker] also wrote and directed a lot of plays during those days. Digin-da [Banerjee] wrote a lot of plays along with the other writers at that time.

K.B: You and other people of your group had to travel a lot in the remote villages of Bengal. Tell me about the agonies and ecstasies, so to speak, of those days.

S.C: There was a lot of physical discomfort that we had to tolerate. We had to survive on little food; we had hardly any money in our pockets. But the experience that I had those days, that pretty much took care of all other discomforts. Artists from all over India joined conferences of IPTA. It was like a university for us. We got accustomed to various languages, cultures, music, songs, and plays from different parts ofIndia. We got to know each other, exchanged our thoughts and ideas. Later, that knowledge had helped me tremendously in my compositions and in my writings. Besides, my intimate knowledge of peasant life helped me write "Do Bigha Zamin" [Two Acres of Land] based on their lives. Also, whatever claim I can make on folk music, most of it I owe to my intimate understanding of the peasant life and from my involvement in the IPTA movement.

Niranjan Sen has written a history of the IPTA. It's being serialized in "Epic Theatre", a journal edited by Utpal Dutt. Shobha-di [Shobha Sen – famous stage actor and Utpal Dutt's wife] had asked me many times to write about those days. But my memories have faded to such an extent that I can't take up the project. Those who always remained in the city, they could keep track of all the events. But I spent at least four years in the underground; I had no contacts with anyone during that period. And we have become so isolated from each other. I would compose songs while in underground; teach the boys how to sing them, they would then go out to different parts of Bengal. I would stay back and do my own things, maybe perform for a different group. So I was not in a position to keep track of everything. I do not know much about whatever happened during those years.

K.B: Till which year were you in the underground?

S.C: Up to 1950. From 1946 to 1950, for those four years I was in the underground.

K.B: The IPTA brought about a change, a novelty in form and content in its songs of protest. Could you compare the differences between these songs and to those written in the earlier period? Didn't we already have a tradition of "Protest Songs" written in an earlier period than the IPTA's?

S.C: Of course we did. But the songs you are referring to were mostly nationalistic in nature. For example, think of those songs written during the Swadeshi period. Later, Nazrul [Kazi Nazrul Islam – Bengali dissident poet, lyricist and composer (1899– 1976)] brought about a strong tone of protest in his songs. "Kaara-r oi lauho kawpat..bhenge kar tukro dupaat" ("Tear down those iron gates of prison…" ) -- this was Nazrul's composition. Tagore [Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941), Nobel laureate Bengali poet and lyricist] himself composed a great many protest songs, although he did not make such an open call for revolution in his songs. There were other composers such as Atulprasad Sen and Dwijendralal Ray [Bengali poets, composers and lyricists, contemporaries to Tagore] who wrote quite a few songs imbued with nationalistic sentiments.

K.B: So, what kind of newness did IPTA songs introduce?

S.C: We tried to go a step further than the nationalistic sentiments, and approach what can be called a socialist revolution. Our goal was to build a society based on the participation and unity of all classes -- the farmers, the laborers, and the bourgeois middle-class intellectuals. We wanted to fight against all forms of exploitations. Those themes appeared in the songs written during post-1944 period. They had Marxist sensibilities in them. So, those songs were different from their predecessors. You will certainly find those sentiments in my own songs. What the critics call a new approach in my own compositions was an attempt to reach more people through my songs. Consider the form of my song "G(n)aayer Bodhu" [ A Village Woman], it had a narrative form, a form of storytelling. There were not many examples of such songs written in a narrative form. Or consider the rhythm of the song "Dheu Uthchhe, Kaara Tutchhe" ["Waves Crashing, Barriers Crumbling"], where one would not find the traditional movements of "Asthayee", "Antara" and "Sanchari" [traditional three movements in a song], that form was completely altered in that song. Or think of the composition of "Runner". It was a long poem by poet Sukanta Bhattacharya. There was neither a "Mukhra", nor "Antara" in the poem. As the song unfolded, it seemed as if one scene after another just glided by, like in a movie. The content of the poem called for such a drastic change in its compositional form, and it also called for new notes in its tune.

K.B: What about using folk music?

S.C: I did not compose too many songs using folk tunes, except a few like, "Hei Shamalo Dhaan Ho" ["Oh Brother, protect your paddy…"], or "O Moder Deshobashi Re" ["Oh my countrymen…"]. There's a hint of folk tunes in these songs, but I was attracted to, and I worked with mostly modern music. Those who worked with folk tunes, like Hemanga-da [Hemanga Biswas, singer, composer in the IPTA], it was their own primary sphere of work. So, compositions that came out of either of those streams ran in parallel.

It was not that the form changed only as a result of change in the content. I have tried to apply the technique of Harmony, a typical western musical technique, in my modern compositions, as it was never used before in Bengali compositions. Those were songs based on harmony. Now, people who do not understand harmony think of it just singing two or three separate tunes together. But that is not true. You can think of harmony as a garb of music. It says in Oxford Music Dictionary that harmony is the garment of melody. When you are playing a guitar or a piano or a harmonium by using chord, and you are also singing in tune along those chords, it creates harmony. Since its basis is harmony, you can achieve harmony even when just one person is singing the song. It was I who first started composing songs on harmonic basis. For example, songs like "O Alor Pathajatri" ["O, the Journeymen of Light…"], or "Dheu Uthchhe, Kaara Tutchhe"[ "Waves Crashing, Barriers Crumbling…"] have a harmonic basis. Songs that I composed on the harmonic basis are product of that period, which I have developed further in my modern compositions.

K.B: But, is it due to IPTA that there's a tradition of using folk culture these days?

S.C: No, certainly not. However, folk artists brought various traditional folk forms with them during those folk cultural gatherings organized by the IPTA. During that period we became aware of many folk forms we had in Bengali folk music. For example, that was when I first listened to the "Gambhira" form of Maldah district. Then we formed a group of Gambhira, and similarly later we also formed groups to perform "Bhaoaia", "Bhatiali", and "Beehu" of Assam; and then what Dashrath did, he came from Bihar, he formed a group to perform "Birha" of Bihar. We employed all these forms in our own musical performances. All those forms were already there in our country, but they were never used before to the extent IPTA made use of them.

K.B: That means you put revolutionary content in them…

S.C: Yes, that's how we utilized those forms. Hemangada composed his new song, "O Mountbatten Saheb, who got the custody of your baton?" using one of those folk forms. Such songs merged old folk forms with new contents.

K.B: Were you involved with the Central Troupe?

S.C: No, I was in Bengal when Central Troupe was formed in Bombay.

K.B: Can you tell me more about it? Was it a totally different organization from IPTA?

S.C: Yes, we started IPTA as a local organization, but in Bombay they created a central squad, where they brought talents from all over India. Those artists got to stay in camps organized by the squad, and there was a kitchen for them to cook for themselves. The squad was created with the idea of “Spirit of India” behind it. It was functioning as a central troupe, pulling resources from all over India. They all got together there. Binoyda was there, so was Priti (Bandopadhyay, from Bengal), Ravi Shankar was also involved with the organization. Shanti Bardhan took charge of the dance group. They all took part to make the organization work.

K.B: Do you keep in touch with the activities of IPTA these days?

S.C: No, I don't.

K.B: Then you can't tell me what is going on these days?

S.C: No, I can't tell you. They may be doing something sporadically here and there. But I don't think that they are doing anything effective, but there's some effort to start this movement anew, all over again.

K.B: Do you see major difference in the pre and post-Independence productions of IPTA? Or do you think that it was producing same kind of songs and plays during the period it was fully active?

S.C: It's difficult to answer this question in one sentence. I think their production varied in different parts of the country. And I'm not aware of anything beyond that, as I left Bengal after 1953. So, it's very difficult to comment on their activities after '53 as by then I isolated myself totally.

What I have attempted here in Bombay, is, in 1957 I started a choral movement. We are the first to start a group called, "Bombay Youth Choir" in India, where we tried to perform songs from different languages of India, and presented them boldly using western choral technique. It was a very successful attempt. As a result there are nearly 500 such choir groups in India today. I tried to experiment with mass singing technique, and I had singers like Ruma (Guha-Thakurta, famous Bengali singer and actress) in my group who later formed the Youth Choir of Calcutta. So we were able to lead a very successful cultural upsurge. However, it would be wrong to say that there was much political awareness or revolutionary thought in the songs of the choir. Our aim was to present our folk songs in a new form, a more powerful form, using western choral style, where the singers will be standing together on the stage and singing under the baton of a conductor – a strict disciplined form and technique was called for. That was our main goal. I saw in Russia, that when someone started singing, gradually twenty more singers joined him singing. We don't have such things here. So, the idea was that if more singers could join in singing "Ganasangeet", that would perhaps create a better appreciation of the form. For example, some of my compositions, such as, "Dhitang Dhitang Boley" could be used in a chorus very successfully. I tried to compose such songs; I tried to start a movement of choir singing. Unfortunately, the Bombay Youth Choir did not last long. Because I formed the choir with all the professional singers, they were background singers in Hindi movies. So whenever there was a conflict between recording engagements and choir singing, they had to choose recording. And so it was too much for me to keep it going all by myself. So the choir had to be dissolved eventually. But I don't regret it, because of my efforts there are now about 500 to 600 choir groups working in all over India. Even All India Radio is inviting the choir groups these days. So, the movement has been successful from that angle.

K.B: IPTA put emphasis on expressing dissent through songs. Do you think songs are a much more powerful medium than plays to this end?

S.C: It is much easier to do these things through songs. Because you can't usually stage a play with just one person, you need the involvement of at least 10-30 people to stage it. You also need to let them rehearse the play. After a lengthy preparation you can then present it. On the other hand, a good song has the ability to spontaneously involve the listener to sing along with the singer. Songs are thus a great vehicle for propaganda and mass communication.

K.B: Can songs be more effective in propaganda than plays?

S.C: Naturally, there's enough evidence for that. Our musical groups in IPTA had a longer lifespan than the theater groups. True, there are many more theater groups these days in Bengal. It's a matter of great hope, certainly. Unfortunately, the quality of the plays has been diminished. There have been great efforts, but it's still hard to find a good play.

K.B: Have you seen Bengali plays lately?

S.C: Yes. Not all, but I have seen quite a few. As I said before, there have been great efforts. But very few plays have been successful. Very few of the plays made a lasting impression on me. I believe we are passing through a formative period. Perhaps someday a great play will emerge through all this. Audiences are not satisfied with the plays these days. At the same time there's a great deal of optimism that good plays will be written and staged someday. Maybe that craving will be the catalyst in bringing out good plays.