Dear You, 

As I write this on 25 February 2020, sitting in Tilburg, just one day after Donald Trump was welcomed in India with an overwhelming attendance of one hundred thousand supporters of current Modi-Shah government in an obscene event of power & pomp called ‘Namastey Trump’; my city of New Delhi is burning with state-orchestrated communal riots. The grotesque violence and government inaction, is eerily similar to the 2002 Godhara riots incited by the same Hindutva-agenda-led duo Modi-Shah against the  Indian Muslims.

In the past six years, through systemic fabrication & mass distribution of lies and fear, the nation has built a generation of young Hindu men and boys who ‘believe’ that the country is rightfully theirs. The 'Others’ in this situation can’t be limited as Indian Muslims, but also minorities like the Dalits (lower-caste Hindus), Adivasis (tribals), marginalised Scheduled Caste/Tribes, and other minority religions who face constant terror. This tribal nationalism cocktail-ed with a sinister mix of deep-seated patriarchy and resurgence of orthodox Hindu morality - is deeply effecting the agency of Indian women and reinforcing diktats on their behaviour and position in the society.

As the right-wing governments sweep democracies across the world, one can observe that the progress painstakingly made by feminists and activists for decades on the grassroots level is getting wiped out.

In this larger picture, the agency of the female performer is being and will be constantly scrutinised, threatened and reframed. In the coming years, will the performing body - its voice, politics & aesthetics - be forced to play morally appropriate roles? Would it be pushed to become cultural mascots propagating nationalistic valour? Would the performing body strive again for homogeneity and virtuosity, negating the embodied knowledge?

Who are the future custodians of the arts?
Who Me?
Yes you.
Couldn’t be.
Then who…..

Yours faithfully, Me