IPTA : BHILAI DECLARATION

INDIAN PEOPLE’S THEATRE ASSOCIATION (IPTA)

XIII NATIONAL CONFERENCE

26 – 28 DECEMBER, 2011 : KAMLA PRASAD NAGAR, BHILAI

BHILAI DECLARATION

Representatives of people’s culture in all its manifestations from all over India, meeting at the 13^th National Conference of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), 26 – 28 December, 2011, at Bhilai with its rich historical associations manifest in the Bhilai Steel Plant, the first monument of an agenda mooted by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for building a democratic, socialist economy by strengthening the public sector, on one hand; and the rich convergence of traditional folk culture, tribal history and memory, and progressive creativity, best achieved in the militant experimentation of our late lamented fellow activist Habib Tanveer, on the other hand; share a common concern over the threat to the secular, humanist, composite culture that has been the cherished heritage of the IPTA, spelt by the assault on these values by a profit-hungry, mercilessly market-driven aggressive capitalism, operating through a State-capital-media nexus vaunting the slogan of the liberal reforms, riding roughshod over the rights and sustenance of the underprivileged; and reiterate their firm commitment to a culture dedicated to the empowerment of humanity in its quest for Socialism, equality, and social justice; and drawing on, repeating with greater vigor the declaration of the earlier conference, and developing on them, resolve

To work through continuous exchange and sharing and mobilization among constituents and fellow activists in other likeminded organizations and similarly engaged individuals, and through their concerted creative endeavour:

1.      To broaden the perception and vision of people and emancipate them from all fears and prejudices;

2.      To spread awareness of the operation of the capitalist forces and consumerist drivers aimed at weakening people’s resistance;

3.      To ensure communal harmony among all denominations, religious or otherwise;

4.      To contribute to and engage in the struggle of the working classes, the marginalized tribal communities, women suffering from gender discrimination and persecution, the underprivileged and dispossessed;

5.      To resist all forms of censorship imposed by the State or other reactionary bodies and uphold the freedom of creative expression;

6.      To encourage and support creative experimentation and rigorous training in both artistic and technical skills and appreciation, to enrich the artistic vocabulary and repertoire and make it accessible meaningful to people;

7.      To discover, disseminate, archive, critically examine and analyze, revive, restore, develop and promote the traditional and folk idioms in every region and community in the country;

8.      To seek ways and means to intervene in film and media scene ruled by regressive, commercial values in the form of dissemination of film packages representative of the values projected by the Soviet and Latin American cinema, the Indian New Wave of the 19060s-70s, and the great tradition of the progressive documentary cinema, and workshops allowing activists access to digital filmmaking with a purpose;

9.      To break down the artificial divides between the elite and the popular and improvise bridges between the two; exploring the possibility of a simplicity in idiom and expression for the representation of the more complex realty confronting the people today;

10.  To carry the scientific temper and the Marxist approach into the study and practice of the arts and their relation to society; consistently related to the historical process;

11.  To carry forward the great legacy of Progressive Cultural Movement founded in 1936 in the name of Progressive Writers’ Association;

12.  To examine, imbibe and disseminate the great works of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Kedarnath Agrawal, Shamsher Bahadur Singh, Majaz Lucknowavi, Nagarjun, Vamik Jaunpuri, Bhagavati Panigrahi, Vishnu Prabhakar, Aashapurna Devi, Vishnuprasad Rabha, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Shree Shree, Jyotirindra Moitra, Hemango Biswas, K. K. Hebbar, Ramvilas Sharma, Debabrata Biswas, Ashok Kumar, Upendra Nath Ashq, Gopal Singh Nepali, Bhubhaneshwar, Dr. Dwarikanath Kotnis, whose centenaries we are celebrating, and Rabindranath Tagore, whose 150^th birthday and the centenary of the national anthem that we owe to him are also being celebrated; and the values they embody;

13.  To critique, challenge and carry on a persistent struggle the inroads into the art and pressures that are being brought to bear upon culture by the forces of the new aggressive globalizing capitalism, endangering the survival of our most cherished human concerns and values;

14.  To improve the connections and coordination between the central office of the IPTA and all the units at every level through the development of an interactive website and blogging;

15.  To improvise, consolidate and pursue a comprehensive agenda towards achieving the maximum understanding, appreciation, and sharing of all the cultural expressions of the country by the people of India divided by economic, linguistic, territorial and cultural barriers; accomplishing in the process a cultural integration that can give the country a single voice in its assertion of the rights of the people and the undying hope of Socialism.

LONG LIVE PEOPLE’S CULTURE !