Paper short abstract:

The paper will attempt to understand why the performance of Gaddar and Jana Natya Mandali of Andhra Pradesh made thousands of people to join the movement and participate in armed struggle, a phenomenon which does not see a parallel in the history of theatre and cultural movements across the world?

Paper long abstract:

Gaddar is a legendary poet, singer and performer from Andhra Pradesh and founder of the JNM. In the history of contemporary and modern Indian theatre and performance no other political artist has achieved that status in India. Gaddar has been associated with the Jana Natya Mandali(JNM), which is often called as the cultural vanguard of the Indian revolution. Gaddar along with JNM played a significant role in reviving the Naxalite/Maoist movement in Andhra Pradesh region and several other parts of India after the backlash of the movements in 70s.

One of the major questions paper ask is why the performance of Gaddar and JNM made thousands of people to join the movement and participate in armed struggle, a phenomenon which does not see a parallel in the history of theatre and cultural movements across the world? Is it simply because Gaddar and JNM are guided by a revolutionary politics? Or is it simply because Gaddar and JNM use popular folk performance in their theatrical performances? The paper argues that JNM under the leadership of Gaddar has developed a new aesthetic approach to address the question of art and culture. In the name of Gaddar, I would like to call this approach as JNM's Gaddarian approach. Gaddarian approach is a revolutionary aesthetic approach to engage with theatre, culture and performance. The paper argues that Gaddarian approach has been successful to resolve several questions, concerns and contradiction of political theatres in India and elsewhere in the world.