Crime and Prejudice

Two plays bring to the fore speculations on justice,being branded as terror suspects and the pointless dialogue of secularism

On Monday evening,the stage of Sri Ram Centre became a nightmarish reminder. The foyers were splashed with images and text,of Gujarat in the bloody riots of 2002. A python,similar to the Lion Dances in China,appeared at intervals,its evil hiss reverberating as it slithered past the audience in the dark. In a video,a Muslim child spoke of women being stripped and men being killed.He refused to believe his interviewer is a Hindu. Youre a good person. You must be a Muslim, he said.

Theatre person Bapi Boses production Seventeenth July,based on 2002 Gujarat violence and its aftermath,was anything but a comfortable watch. Concluding the Bhartendu Natya Utsav,the plainspeak in the play is not the first thing that hits you.

The play is the Hindi version of West Bengals minister for higher education,Bratya Basus original play by the same name in Bengali. It was first staged last year in December to mark 10 years of the Gujarat riots.

In the play,in the Erol district of Panchmahal,Gujarat,Asif Mirza and his friends allegedly raped two Hindu women. The witnesses were Hindus. A case was filed and a prolonged trial ensued. It was clear from the beginning that the men had been unfairly framed. When Rakesh Chatterjee,a lawyer from Kolkata,defends the men,he is befuddled by the politically motivated public prosecutor and a uninterested judge,and a seemingly comical trial scene becomes an exasperating reality of a pointless pursuit of justice. Known for his usual experimental stage design shenanigans,Boses Seventeenth July stage is grim and straight-forward. One felt a maddening helplessness,just like the lawyer,as the system ultimately failed the people.

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Gujarat