The street theatre group had a task to finish. Three days earlier, the troupe’s leader had been fatally assaulted in an industrial area on the outskirts of Delhi. On January 4, 1989, the actors went back to the place — to finish the play that had been so violently interrupted.

A municipal election was around the corner and goons supporting a Congress-backed candidate wanted to pass through an area in Sahibabad where the CPI(M) too was in the fray. Unwilling to wait for the play to finish, the mob attacked the artistes with iron rods. The assault led to the death of 34-year-old Safdar Hashmi, actor and the director of the street theatre group, Jana Natya Manch (Janam).

His wife, Moloyashree, another active member of Janam, and the other artistes went back to the spot three days later and, this time, in front of an audience that stretched for miles, finished the play on workers’ rights.

“Seeing so much public support convinced us that we had to go back and finish what we had started. That single act gave us all the strength we needed to carry on,” says Moloyashree.

It has been 30 years since Hashmi’s death. The assault will be recalled on January 1 by Janam, as well as the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (Sahmat), a platform for artistes and academics, set up by his sister Shabnam soon after his death. But the occasion will also be marked with introspection. What would Hashmi have said about the year just gone by?

“We live in darker times today,” says actor and theatre director MK Raina, a long-time friend of Hashmi’s. Attempts are still being made to stifle dissent and questioning voices, Raina believes. According to a report, at least 50 people were arrested across India for their posts on social media in the last two years. The last few years have seen the stifling of dissent, including the fatal attacks on activists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi, and journalist Gauri Lankesh. “Look at our universities and institutions being weakened. Look at our dramas, films and books getting censored and banned. This should be a red alert,” says Raina.

Not just the freedom of expression, Moloyashree believes, there is a threat to economic freedom and workers’ rights, too. Halla Bol , Hashmi’s last play that he watched his troupe perform at Sahibabad, addressed issues of minimum wages, labour struggles and unions. There have been other changes, too. Moloyashree adds that in the hundreds of plays Janam has performed, it is only in the past two years that the audience has been coming up to the actors to say: “You are saying anti-national things”.

On January 1, Janam will ring in Hashmi’s death anniversary — as it has done every year — by performing plays and songs and hosting a public lecture at the labours’ colony in Sahibabad. Sahmat carries Hashmi’s work forward in two areas: Freedom of expression and communal harmony. The trust publishes books, organises photography and other exhibitions, musical performances, theatre, seminars and talks.

“Safdar taught us to resist,” says Rajendra Prasad, who has been with Sahmat since its inception in 1989. On January 1, it will hold a cultural festival in New Delhi. A number of Hashmi’s associates will perform at the day-long event, and a film on the theatre activist, directed by television personality Shashi Kumar, will be screened.

Several years after Hashmi’s death, filmmaker Anand Patwardhan wrote a poem about him:

Safdar (12 April 1954 - 2 January 1989)

so you missed the demolition of the Babri Masjid

and the violence and hate that followed

you missed Ramabai and other dalit massacres

you missed your nation’s love for the atom bomb

in 2002 you missed the Gujarat pogrom

and in neighbouring Pakistan you missed

the creation of the Taliban and here

this year you missed the coronation of killers

we who survived you missed none of these

we missed you.

But if Patwardhan is in despair, Raina underlines hope. “The tradition of questioning and enquiry is still alive in this country. We belong to it,” he says.

Theatre groups are more “careful” today than before about the plays they stage, he says. But, at the same time, there is vibrant theatre to be seen on Delhi University’s college campuses. Raina describes college plays as hard-hitting and fearless. “In the youth, there is hope,” he says. Safdar Hashmi lives on.

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