Kanyadaam: Statements on various issues

A considerable amount of attention is being paid at the present time to the problems of domestic violence and domestic abuse.  The campaign against these social atrocities has intensified partly because of what appears to have been a noticeable increase in crimes against women.  These have included a sudden rash of murders, attempted murders, murder suicides and other violent attacks against females carried out by husbands, boyfriends and ex-partners.

Among these incidents are several cases in which the final fatal assaults or infliction of serious bodily harm descended after a history of spousal abuse or what the newspapers habitually describe as “stormy relationships.” Very often the attacks occur when the female decides to leave the home or put an end to the affair.  But the problems multiply because of the even greater number of cases in which the abuse continues and worsens because the injured partners either refuse or are virtually prevented from reporting the offence or ending the ties with abusive partners.

What is more, the histories are littered with cases where the victims leave after being subjected to abuse only to return because of their “love” for their batterers or some sense of self-flagellation.  There are many other reasons why they do this.  Often it is because of financial dependence or sometimes in order to keep the family “together”(!) or “for the sake of the children.”  Frequently their abusers come begging with passionate pleas and promises; they are persuaded to return only to end up seriously battered or killed.  Many are the cases in court in which the victims shed tears of forgiveness and plead ardently for the release of those who have brutalised them.

For these reasons the various schemes of public awareness have multiplied and are sustained by both public and non-governmental agencies.  Their efforts are more earnest because they well recognise the complexities of the problems and the fact that lack of knowledge and awareness, misplaced loyalties, tradition, custom, cultural factors and old wives tales conspire to resist cure.  Individuals, families, the general public and even the police need to be educated.

The latest assault against the perpetuation of domestic abuse was a dramatic presentation by the Indian Arrival Committee.  The production was aimed at families who acquiesce in the atrocity and at a population in need of sensitisation.  The plays staged by the IAC have normally been selected to support their mission of “promoting Indian culture,” but in this case they have added to this by espousing a universal cause.  It is an Indian play focusing on a very Indian family but with the full understanding that the issues raised, while directly arising out of the specific Indian setting, transcend the Indian family and concern the whole world community.

Kanyadaan by Vijay Tendulkar, directed by Neaz Subhan, studies a case of spousal abuse and interrogates many of the issues mentioned above concerning this domestic problem and reasons why victims and their relatives allow it to continue.  The play deals with a wife who begins by ignoring or explaining away obvious signals that her fiancé would be a wife-beater, marries him in spite of her observations, leaves him when he assaults her, but returns when he comes pleading.  She then sticks by him amid sustained brutalisation, allows him to exploit her, refuses the help of her family and even exiles herself from them.

But the play’s treatment further complicates a complex issue, doing more than highlighting a social ill, as theatre is wont to do.  It dramatises a house divided against itself, a vivid case of gender politics, national politics, ideology and tradition.  Among the interesting things about the drama is the window through which it looks at this case of a drunken husband who wilfully and openly exploits and batters his wife.  The window looks out from a house of the politics of India, the “profoundly humanist standpoint” of a socialist ideology, and more than it is a story of a politician’s daughter who falls victim to domestic violence, it is the tragedy of her father.

These interlocking issues are played out in Vijay Tendulkar’s Kanyadaan.  Tendulkar was an Indian playwright who was over 80 when he died in 2008, but the play goes back a few years, quite likely before domestic abuse began to receive the heightened public attention being given to it now.  Internal evidence may place it during one of the times when the Congress Party of Nehru and his daughter Indira was in power, very popular and courting socialism.

Nath Devalikar, a Congress member of Parliament, (Mahadeo Shivraj) teaches his family the socialist principles of human equality, human worth and acceptance of the proletariat and the unprivileged.  His daughter Jyoti (Dimple Mendonca), who grew up listening to his speeches very closely, absorbed the ideology so well that she marries Arun Athavale (Rajan Tiwari), who is an Untouchable, against the better judgement and warnings of her mother Seva (Wanita Huburn) and brother Jayaprakash (Aditya Persaud).  Their objection is not only a middle class discomfort because Arun belongs to the Dalit, a caste so low that its members are “untouchable,” but because the moment they meet him, they observe his violent barbaric tendencies.

The play was very neatly and effectively done with fairly thorough direction from Neaz Subhan.  One of the production’s strengths is the clarity of its expression and realism.  Dimple Mendonca gave a complete performance of a girl who changed as the play progressed.  At the beginning she was vivacious and confident, intent on having her way, then becoming drained, physically diminished under the pressure of abuse and finally bitter, unfriendly and withdrawn.  Mendonca went through those phases convincingly, sometimes with a suggestion of self-sacrificial martyrdom.

Arun was an interesting study as portrayed by Rajan Tiwari, coming over as a cynical character.  Obviously talented as a poet and writer, he seemed intent on paying back the middle class through contempt for their fine sensitivities and conventional expectations, and through his callous treatment of their daughter.  Tiwari’s best moment was his subtle, arrogant, sneering attitude while trying to persuade Nath that he had no choice but to speak in praise at the launch of a book Arun had written.  It was a case of the despised Untouchable playing the role of the savage, low caste beast that the Brahmins expect him to be, yet using superior and ironic art to sneer at them.

Aditya Persaud was not burdened with a demanding role and had little to do according to the plot.  He played consistently as an antagonist to Arun and supporter of his mother, while proving himself capable of handling subtleties where necessary.

As his mother Seva, Wanita Huburn’s performance was self-assured and spirited.  At times she reached levels that seemed too forceful and achieved too much aggression.  Yet, it is to be recognized that while she played the conventional wife in a patriarchal society, she offered to the audience an alternative to the wifely role in dramatic contrast to the submissive attitude adopted by her daughter.  Besides, she operated in a household governed by the principle of democracy advanced by her husband.  So Huburn was plausible, exhibiting an understanding of the role and its context.

Those same political principles honoured with great pride by her husband, Nath, proved to be his undoing.  He insisted on living them at home but could never have guessed what ironic repercussions they would have on his family.  Mahadeo Shivraj took on that role of the play’s tragic hero, performing it with strength.  He has grown considerably in stature as an actor since taking it up professionally in the USA and has accumulated a wealth of experience in stage, film and television in what has been a demanding career.  He returned to Guyana specifically for the role of Nath in Kanyadaam.

Shivraj managed a range of emotions in a performance over which he was decidedly in command.  He played intensely in the passionate moments though some of his rages, while carefully studied, were a bit exaggerated.  Yet they were not entirely out of place given the frustration and the anger directed inwards because of the plight of his daughter.  What tended to arise at times of his fury was the fact that he never confronted his son-in-law about the cruelty to Jyoti.  Shivraj nevertheless communicated Nath’s struggle and his breakdown at the end when Jyoti accused him with bitter irony.  His techniques were effective in his interpretation of the role.

Kanyadaan thus managed to make a number of statements on all those various issues, commenting on the politics of India and the honesty of belief in one of its politicians.  It commented on the Indian family, class, and the issues regarding attitudes to the caste known as Dalit (Untouchables), while exposing some problems of domestic abuse.