SAFDAR HASHMI (1954-1989)
There are still ways to produce art and social commentary without having to be routed through the media monopolised by Big Business.
On 1 January 1999, theatre activist Safdar Hashmi will have been dead ten years. Time flies when the struggles are intense and what time there is, is spent less on grieving than on continuing the battle for which Safdar gave his life.
Since Safdar's death, the Indian political scene has been wracked by two watershed events, the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the nuclear tests in 1998. When the 16th-century mosque was torn down in 1992, it shattered a withered domestic compact on mutual respect for peoples. And when the Indian government conducted its second batch of nuclear tests, it significantly transformed India's foreign policy position, notably in terms of its principled stand in favour of the peaceful co-existence of nations. Both events came at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the political party of the Hindu Right.