Theatre-maker Zuleikha Chaudhari: 'I don't want to be silenced'
© Gie Goris
© Gie Goris
There is a connection between the new government in India and a cancelled theatre performance in Brussels: the invisible Muslim. Gie Goris spoke to theatre-maker Zuleikha Chaudhari about artistic risks and everyday majority thinking.
Translation of this article is provided by kompreno, using a combination of machine translation and human correction. More articles from MO* are included in kompreno‘s curation of the finest analysis, opinion & reporting — from all across Europe, translated into your language.
India's mother of all elections produced a surprising result in early June: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP lost 63 seats and needs other parties to stay in power.
Zuleikha Chaudhari has a hard head when I ask her in mid-June how she reads this election result. 'It is far too early to know whether the BJP's electoral beating and the formation of a coalition government will lead to democratic restoration,' she says.
Will there be a different handling of the opposition? More room for criticism and dissident voices? Chaudhari fears so. 'The BJP is certainly under more pressure, but there is a good chance that polarisation as well as repression will escalate further, at least in the short term.' Among other things, she refers to the fact that writer Arundhati Roy is being prosecuted under the draconian anti-terrorism law, for statements she made about Kashmir in 2010. 'Visible critics will be targeted even more harshly,' she fears.
In Delhi, Chaudhari heads the Alkazi Theatre Archives, an archive of modern Indian theatre, which is part of the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts. The archive explores what theatre - the text, the production, the programming, the reception - tells about the times in which it was produced. In addition, her own work focuses on the relationship between law and performance, between court and theatre.
'I perform court cases,' she says. 'Because theatre and court share a lot of characteristics. They are both performances in which the non-existent becomes conceivable and in which that is shaped for the future.'
The image of "the Other"
It was a MO* colleague who signalled to me that this spring's Kunstenfestivaldesarts was programming a performance that might interest me: The Muslim Vanishes, by Indian theatre-maker Zuleikha Chaudhari, based on a text by Saeed Naqvi.
Only: the performance had been cancelled. It looked like staged play, a political performance: first putting a play on the poster that is about the disappearing Muslim, and then making that play itself disappear. That all this happened amid India's highly mediatised national elections made it extra intriguing.
The Muslim Vanishes is the third part of a trilogy Chaudhari is working on. The trilogy seeks to understand how Muslims in India were made "the Other", strangers in their own country.
The first part of the trilogy deals with the trial conducted by the British East India Company in 1858 against Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last emperor of the Moguls in India (an Islamic dynasty of Central Asian origin that controlled large parts of India between 1526 and 1858, ed.).
The second part starts from a people's tribunal that took place in Kashmir, between 2009 and 2012. Since independence, both India and Pakistan have claimed the Himalayan region. Both countries control part of the original territory, as does China. An armed insurgency against the Indian state has been raging in Indian Kashmir since 1980.
Each time, one question is central: who decides whether you are sovereign or subject? What counts as evidence, as testimony? What language and arguments does the court deem admissible? What do law and justice entail?
Saeed Naqvi's play also contains a (fictional) court hearing, but starts from the "news" that all Muslims from India disappear unannounced and unnoticed, along with their history and heritage. In her version, Chaudhari wants to replace the fictional court case with real lawyers using evidence from contemporary court cases that reveal the progressive removal of Muslims from public life in India.
'I choose real court cases because the disappearance of Muslims from public life is not fictional either, but real. Slower, partly unnoticed, but real,' she said in mid-May, during a long conversation in Brussels.
Een still uit de voorstelling The Muslim Vanishes van theatermaakster Zuleikha Chaudhari.
© Zuleikha Chaudhari
Naqvi's text was published and discussed in India. So what is stopping you from trying out the performance in Brussels?
Zuleikha Chaudhari: Elections mean that even the smallest frictions can have major consequences. Both actors, lawyers and other stakeholders felt that they would run a risk by putting this performance on stage now. There are many examples in the past of performances being disrupted or people being arrested. So it was a strategic decision on the advice of lawyers.
Naqvi's text is challenging and provocative. It is told from the point of view of two TV news anchors who are both Hindu nationalists. The only Muslim voices in the piece are historical figures who testify about the possible reasons why Muslims felt the need to disappear and reflect on whether they will return.
In a way that imagination is itself problematic, because why would Muslims themselves want to disappear? Why would they all want to go to Kashmir, as the text suggests? I do not believe that anyone voluntarily gives up his belonging to a group or community, his history or home.
Why don't we start from the opposite assumption, which is that wiping out Muslims is actually impossible? In my view, we need to move away from the quietly dominant narrative that Muslims are obviously "the Other", invaders and even traitors. The key question for me is whether the Muslim disappears or is removed - legally, culturally, historically, politically and, of course, literally.
The worst part, by the way, is that the desire to erase Muslims is no longer just something of extreme Hindu nationalists in power. Hindu nationalist majority thinking has become part of the beliefs of a lot of people. The "Muslim" now counts as someone to be feared by "good citizens" of India. The image of the Muslim as "the Other" is widely shared.
In Modi's India, the challenged "Other" is not only the Muslim, but also the left-wing activist, the insurgent, the unwanted dissident, the critical journalist.
Zuleikha Chaudhari: "The Other" is indeed broader than the Muslim. It is a concept that includes anyone critical of the ideology, practice or policies of the current government or of the Indian state.
On 1 July 2024, a new "decolonised" penal code came into force in India (the Bharatiya Nyay Samhita). Home Minister Amit Shah said about it at the 2023 parliamentary discussion: 'We are a free country. No one will end up behind bars for criticising an individual. But no one should speak out against the nation. I believe whoever speaks out against the fatherland belongs in jail.'
Naqvi's text tries to clarify how and with what arguments minorities and dissidents are made "the Other" and how a "majority" is produced from diverse and sometimes opposing groups and interests.
As a matter of fact, the whole process not only ensures that the clashing interests within the "Hindu community" become invisible. It equally ensures that diversity within the "Muslim community" is hidden from view.
Hindutva (the political ideology that wants to make India a Hindu state, ed.) creates identities that disintegrate into clear we-side oppositions. This is miraculous in itself, as Hindu nationalist ideology is itself supreme caste and northern. Hindoetva, in other words, itself relates to a minority. Especially if you also add class and gender, because Hindoetva is distinctly patriarchal.
Saeed Naqvi's text also addresses this when it raises the question of whether or not elections should be organised in the new state - without Muslims. Whether the Hindu vote can still be united without the Others, or whether the low-caste majority will now reject the supreme-caste political elite.
Indian Muslims seem to be responding to increasing repression mainly by trying to stay under the radar. For those who are noticed must fear the consequences.
Zuleikha Chaudhari: That is true, but again: repression does not only apply to Muslims. The key question today is: do you want to provoke a direct confrontation or do you look for new and indirect ways to question, challenge and redefine power? Do you want to risk being silenced? Or do you want to keep telling your own story?
In other words, are creative arts and free speech a risk?
Zuleikha Chaudhari: Yes, but that does not mean silence. At best, theatre and other art forms help us connect or question ourselves with history. Theatre can help develop moral knowledge and unruly memory because it challenges officially recognised memory as constructed by the state. That is why it is a risk.
You say it is necessary to carefully navigate the current context. But that context seems to leave less and less room for free and contrarian voices.
Zuleikha Chaudhari: That is true, and not only in India. That is precisely why it is important to preserve as much as possible of what we have acquired: enough space to be ourselves, enough freedom to share our ideas, enough institutions to support individuals.
That sounds sensible, but surely the question at some point is: can it be a little more? When does navigating become a mere form of individual survival, and when is it necessary to turn to organised resistance?
Zuleikha Chaudhari: It is not a choice between the former or the latter. They merge into each other. I believe, like many people, that institutional critique does matter. We really also need to work on creating and building networks, and work on decentralisation and self-reliance, especially in terms of funding.
The practice of theatre is ultimately about showing who you are, what you confess to, what your view of the world is. Everyone speaks or works from their own point of view. The question is whether we dare to question that position? Are we willing to pay the price for it?
The fact that this is no longer a battle between Modi and his Hindu nationalists on the one hand and minorities, critical media, civil society and creative artists on the other complicates the balancing act. Today, it is a battle between me and my neighbours. That makes it extra complicated to talk about "organised resistance", especially for those who make artistic work.
Een deel van de cast van de voorstelling The Muslim Vanishes van theatermaakster Zuleikha Chaudhari.
© Zuleikha Chaudhari
A few weeks after the election results were announced, I call Zuleikha Chaudhari again. She is in New York at the time, but obviously follows closely what is happening in India.
When Prime Minister Modi presented his new government of more than 70 ministers in early June, it turned out that not a single Muslim was present - a first for independent India. Apparently, the Muslim has literally disappeared, or rather been excluded?
Zuleikha Chaudhari: The facts speak for themselves. Shortly after the elections, government bulldozers demolished 11 houses of Muslim families in Andhra Pradesh while the anonymous complaint about their involvement in illegal beef trade was still pending. In early June, a mob in Gujarat lynched a young Muslim after a cricket match. Another Muslim was lynched in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, on suspicion of theft. Two Muslims were killed in Chhattisgarh for transporting meat. And a BJP politician threatened to commit genocide against Muslims in Delhi.
The intention was to pick up the thread of the trilogy. Will it succeed? Or does the risk remain too great?
Zuleikha Chaudhari: In any case, I will continue with my work, because the discussion on citizenship, minority rights and Hinduism remains important and urgent - more than ever. But I will continue to do so in a cautious and measured manner. This whole project is a testimony. Those who testify take a stand. And that is what I want to do, which is why I will continue with this project.
With creative imagination, we continue to find new ways to resist community thinking and polarisation. This is an important contribution of artists to society. It is at the same time necessary for artistic freedom itself. But since there is a chance that Hindu nationalists may become even more intolerant in the coming times, we should not allow ourselves to be provoked. Strategic choices are also vital for artists.
Translation of this article is provided by kompreno, using a combination of machine translation and human correction. More articles from MO* are included in kompreno‘s curation of the finest analysis, opinion & reporting — from all across Europe, translated into your language.