Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) is the oldest association of theatre-artists in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. IPTA was formed in 1943 during the

British rule in India The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

, and promoted themes related to the

Indian freedom struggle The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic ...

. Its goal was to bring cultural awakening among the people of India.

Beginning

The Bangalore unit of IPTA was formed in 1941. IPTA was formed on 25 May 1943 at the National conference of theater artists held at the Marwari school,

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

in response to the need for theater artists to become part of the Indian freedom struggle. Its origins lay in the first Progressive Writer's Association Conference that was held in 1936, the establishment of the Youth Cultural Institute at Calcutta in 1940, and the setting up of the People's Theatre in Bangalore by Anil De' Silva in 1941. Its initial members consisted of various progressive cultural troupes, theatre groups and other progressive cultural activists. The name People's Theatre was suggested by the renowned scientist

Homi J. Bhabha Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FNI, FASc, FRS (30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist who is widely credited as the "father of the Indian nuclear programme". He was the founding director and professor of physics at the ...

who was in turn inspired by

Romain Rolland Romain Rolland (; 29 January 1866 – 30 December 1944) was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and Mysticism, mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary pro ...

's book on the concepts of People's Theatre. Its initial activities included street plays organized by Binoy Roy of the Bengal Cultural Squad to inform people of the 1942 manmade famine in Bengal. Their ski included a choir 'Bhookha Hai Bengal' created by Vamik Jaunpuri and other songs and plays. The squad included musician Prem Dhawan, drum player Dashrath Lal, singer Reva Roy and actress Usha Dutt. Motivated by this squad, several other cultural groups were formed including the Agra Cultural Squad. IPTA was subsequently formed to organize these local groups at the national level. Ideologically these groups were inspired by the left movement and the then General Secretary of the Communist Party of India, P.C. Joshi and the General Secrtetary of the Progressive Writers' Association Sajjad Zaheer.

Initial members

Some of the initial members of the group were

Prithviraj Kapoor Prithviraj Kapoor (born Prithvinath Kapoor; 3 November 1906 – 29 May 1972) was an Indian actor who is also considered to be one of the founding figures of Hindi cinema. He was associated with IPTA as one of its founding members and establish ...

Bijon Bhattacharya Bijon Bhattacharya (17 July 1906 – 19 January 1978) was an Indian actor from West Bengal associated with Bengali theatre and films. He was an eminent playwright and dramatist. Personal life Bhattacharya was born in 1906 at Faridpur (now in ...

, Balraj Sahni,

Ritwik Ghatak Ritwik Kumar Ghatak (; 4 November 19256 February 1976) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, actor and playwright. Widely considered as one of the greatest film makers of all time, his works remained largely underrated and ignored during hi ...

Utpal Dutt Utpal Dutt (; 29 March 1929 – 19 August 1993) was an Indian actor, director, and writer-playwright. He was primarily an actor in Bengali theatre, where he became a pioneering figure in Modern Indian theatre, when he founded the "Little The ...

Khwaja Ahmad Abbas Khwaja Ahmad Abbas (7 June 1914 – 1 June 1987) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, novelist, and journalist in Urdu, Hindi and English. He won four National Film Awards in India. Internationally, his films won the ( Golden Palm Gr ...

Salil Chowdhury Salil Chowdhury (19 November 1925 – 5 September 1995) was an Indian music director, songwriter, lyricist, writer and poet who predominantly composed for Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali, Hindi cinema, Hindi and Malayalam films, Malayalam films. ...

, Pandit

Ravi Shankar Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitar, sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known expert of Hin ...

, Jyotirindra Moitra, Niranjan Singh Maan, S. Tera Singh Chan, Jagdish Faryadi, Khalili Faryadi, Rajendra Raghuvanshi, Safdar Mir, Hasan Premani, Amiya Bose, Sudhin Dasgupta,

Annabhau Sathe Tukaram Bhaurao Sathe (1 August 1920 – 18 July 1969), popularly known as Anna Bhau Sathe (Marathi pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, �ɳːaːbʱaːu saːʈʰe, was an Indian folk poet, writer, and social worker from the state of Mahara ...

, Shahir Amar shaik etc. The group was formed in 1942, in the background of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, with

Bengal famine of 1943 The Bengal famine of 1943 was a famine in the Bengal province of British India (present-day Bangladesh, West Bengal and eastern India) during World War II. An estimated 800,000–3.8 million people died, in the Bengal region (present-day Ban ...

and starvation deaths in India on the one hand and repression by the colonial masters in the wake of the Quit India Movement and the aggression by the fascist powers on the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

on the other. An All India People's Theatre Conference was held in

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

in 1943 where the group presented its idea and objective of representing the crisis of the time through the medium of theatre and to help people understand their rights and duties. This conference led to the formation of committees of IPTA across India. The movement hit not only theatres, but also cinema and music in Indian languages. Now it is the cultural wing of the Communist Party of India (CPI). Muktibodh Rashtriya Natya Samaroh

Break up and legacy

IPTA Mumbai was another offshoot that has existed over the last six decades and continue to produce dramas till date. IPTA offshoots exist in other parts of India as well. Group theaters like '' Nandikar'', ''Spandan'' of Kolkata still produce their dramas often in the line of the IPTA movement, and recently there has been effort to start a similar movement inspired by the IPTA.

IPTA in West Bengal

At present IPTA West Bengal is a running organisation led by IPTA West Bengal State Committee. The Secretary is Sri Dibyendu Chattopadhyay, President Sri Hiranmoy Ghosal, Asst. Secretary Sri Ashis Deb and Abhijit Ghosh. There are many cultural personalities like mass singer Kankan Bhattacharjee, Shankar Mukherjee, Debidas Tarafder, Mandira Bhattacharya, Sangita Roy Chowdhuri, Shurti Narayan, Subhaprasad Nandi Mazumder, Santosh Karmakar, Ashim Bandyapadhyay, Supantha Basu, Firoj Ahmed, Soma Chanda, Srupratik, Sriparna Mitra, Swapna Banerjee, Manudhirity Kritaniya, Ashok Mukherjee, Biplab Roy, Anjan Chatterjee, Haimantika Roy, Kamal Ghosh, Kunal Dey, Rekha Hembram, Pradip Roy Chowdhury, Ambarish Roy, and many others. Dramatist: Piyus Sarkar, Tapan Hazra, Ashis Chatterjee, Manish Ghosh, Jayanta Chakraborty, Shyamal Bhattacharya, Paritosh Bhattacharya, Shibankar Chakraborty, Actor: Samudra Guha, Subhajit Dhar, Bolanath Mukherjee, Musumi Joarder, Rubi Gandhi, Bapi Dasgupta, Somya Bhowmik, Madhuja Ghoshal, Atanu Mandol, Abhijit Chatterjee, Sandhya Halder, Goutam Saha, Pinakpani Dasgupta, Sugata Banerjee and others. Dancer: Ashis Deb, Kakoli Deb, Dona, Iti, etc. Film Maker Manish Ghosh, Piyush Sarkar, Pradip Chakraborty, Ambarish Roy etc. There are 23 District Committees under this organisation and there are approximately 11,000 Artist members in this organization. IPTA W B has been reorganised in its 3rd conference held on 1967 at Kolkata Bagbazar reading room Library.

IPTA in Assam

The Assam chapter of IPTA, which worked for the development of humanity through culture, was formed in 1947. Hemango Biswas, the founder secretary of the chapter, worked with some of the prominent personalities of the state such as Jyotiprasad Agarwala,

Bishnu Prasad Rabha Bishnu Prasad Rabha (1909–1969) was an Indian cultural figure from Assam, known for his contributions in the fields of music, dance, painting, literature as well as political activism. As an advocate of people's cultural movement, he drew he ...

and Bhupen Hazarika among others. Bhupen Hazarika began close association with IPTA soon after returning from the United States in the 1950s. The golden period of IPTA, from 1952 to 1962, coincided with the golden days of Hazarika's musical career. It was during this period that he composed some of his immortal numbers, including Dola He Dola, Rongmon Macholoi Gol, Manuhe Manuhor Babe and others. Biswas and Hazarika jointly organized the third Assam conference of IPTA in 1955, when the likes of Balraj Sahni, Salil Chowdhury and Hemanta Mukherjee participated, among others. Some of the famous plays presented by IPTA were Sonali Dhanani, Seujia Kuhipaat, Tofaan, Navaprabhat, Sapasalor Seka etc. and many shadow plays like Poharaloi, Amar Jatra, 15 Augustor Ahban and Tirut Singh. In the 21st century, plays like Sadgati (Munshi Premchand), Dur Deshor Kotha, Kio (Phani Sarma), Arjun Tolir Dhumuha (Deb Kumar Saikia) and

An Inspector Calls ''An Inspector Calls'' is a modern morality play and drawing room play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in the Soviet Union in 1945 and at the New Theatre in London the following year. It is one of Priestley's ...

in 2019 directed by Prodyut Kumar Deka were staged in different parts of the State. The Assam chapter celebrated the birth centenary of its founder secretary Hemango Biswas in 2012. On the occasion of platinum jubilee of IPTA, the chapter organized a drama festival on 11–12 March 2019 at District Library, Guwahati. Two plays Laalchurni and Coffee Housot Apeksha (Laxmi Narayan Lal) respectively were staged during the two day event.

Notes

External links

* {{Indian Independence Movement Indian independence movement Theatre of India Theatrical organisations in India Culture of Kolkata Arts organizations established in 1941 Bengali theatre groups