Karnataka has a long tradition of street theatre and protest art, and singer and theatre-person M D Pallavi is among the brightest voices of the tradition active today.
Pallavi has been a part of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Bill demonstrations in Bengaluru over the past few weeks, articulating her concerns at public events and on national television.
At a Town Hall protest last week, she sang ‘Naavu Nodona’, a Kannada translation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s protest poem ‘Hum dekhenge’.
In an interview with Showtime, she says she has been following the citizenship row since the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was introduced in Assam, and has understood that it is ‘sinister’.
“I feel CAA is discriminatory, and CAA, NCR and the tweaked NPR put together are going to be hell for India, and it’s going to be terrible for poor Indians, especially poor Muslims,” she says.
She says she “read through every possible material there is to read about it, and listened to every possible view” before arriving at her decision to protest.
Unlike in Mumbai and Guwahati, not many artistes from mainstream cinema and art are protesting in Bengaluru, but Pallavi says she is not a lone figure. “Probably the number is fewer than in Guwahati. These are complex issues and everyone wants to be on the safe side,” she says.
Every artistic act, she muses, is an exercise in conscience-keeping. “Art is constantly questioning the status quo. I have questioned every government. I have questioned the Congress, the JD(S) and the BJP. I have been singing ‘Kurigalu Saar Kurigalu’ by K S Nisar Ahmed, which is political satire. The metaphor used in the song is that we are sheep and politicians are shepherds,” she says.
The question of artistes losing clout because of their political positions is being discussed in the wake of Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone’s visit to Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the subsequent poor performance of her movie ‘Chhappak’. Pallavi believes losing and gaining clout should not be the overriding consideration when it comes to questions that impact millions.
“CAA is too serious issue for me not to speak. It is a question of the citizenship of ourselves and our fellow citizens,” she says. She believes people who support an artiste will do it silently while people who reject the artiste will do it vocally. “An artiste has to bear the brunt if her political view does not match the political views of her listeners,” she says.
Pallavi says the response from friends, family and fans has been mixed. “There are people who say it is good that I am vocal. There are also those who express disappointment that I do not hold the same opinion as they do,” she says.
On ‘Hum dekhenge’
As for ‘Hum Dekhenge’, Faiz is a poet dear to her, and she had read him way before the poem became the rallying point at CAA protests. She believes many are misreading his poem as being Islamist when the truth is that he was anti-establishment and spoke out against tyranny. “I am a huge fan of Iqbal Bano’s rendition of the poem. People have never heard of Faiz and they are coming up with these absurd and funny reactions to the poem. People who know Faiz know what the poem means,” she says.