THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

A school play in Karnataka invites charges of sedition against the headmistress and mother of a student who mouthed a “derogatory” dialogue. Amid the politics of polarisation and allegations of the police flouting norms, a hush falls over a temple of learning.

- PRATHIMA NANDAKUMAR

Two burqa-clad women walk the dimly lit corridors of the district jail in Bidar, Karnataka, where they have languished since January 30 on charges of ‘sedi-tion’—a word they say they have heard for the first time.

The ordeal started on January 21, after some students staged a play on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act at Shaheen Urdu Primary School near Shahpur Gate. On January 26, the Bidar New Town police filed a first information report against the school head and management, and an individual Mohammad Yousuf Raheem (identified as a parent) under section 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace), 505 (public mischief) and 124A (sedition) of the Indian Penal Code. The FIR was based on a complaint by Neelesh Rakshyal, an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activist, who alleged that the school was “instilling hatred” about the country among its students by making the minors enact a play with “derogatory references” to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The school was also “spreading lies” about the CAA, the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register, he said, and creating unnecessary fear among Indian Muslims. Rakshyal had watched a video clip of the play that Raheem had posted on Facebook at 3pm on January 21.

What sparked the frenzy was a part in the play where a class six student, who played the role of an old woman, said that if someone asked her for the papers to prove her citizenship, she would “hit them with a chappal”.