Theatre of the People

This biography pays fulsome tribute to Indian street theatre pioneer Safdar Hashmi, whose life was tragically cut short in 1989

- Devarsi Ghosh

וf you had heard of street theatre maverick Safdar Hashmi particularly because of his murder by goons with links to the Congress in 1989 when he was just 34, you are not alone. Naseeruddin Shah, in his foreword to Anjum Katyal's newly released book on Hashmi, says the same.

"I personally never had the courage (or the conviction) to participate," Shah writes of street theatre, which subsequent pages in Katyal's book describes to be as spiritually invigorating as it was fatally dangerous between the 1950s and 1980s, when street theatre activists and audience members risked torture or death for participating in agitprop plays in public view.