On 25 July 2000 an attempt was made to arrest Bal Thackeray, the 73-year-old leader of the fundamentalist Hindu Party, Shiv Sena. Action was brought against the charismatic leader, who chose dictators like Adolf Hitler as model, for his part in the race riots in 1992/1993, which cost the lives of thousands of people. People in Bombay stayed inside that day out of fear; the followers of the Shiv Sena had after all announced that the city would be brought to a standstill and "the streets would flow with blood" if their leader was arrested. Later in the day came the relieving news that he had been released again almost immediately: the charge, after seven years, had lapsed. This judgement took into account the tension and fear prevailing in Bombay at the time.
During her residency at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, the Indian artist Nalini Malani worked with the Japanese Butoh dancer Harada Nobuo on the video installation/stage play 'Hamletmachine'. It consists of four video projections, one of which is projected on a layer of salt on the ground, a reference to Gandhi's salt march. Starting from the body parts, a symbol of the different Indian casts, the installation represents how the stupidity of rightwing Hindu fanaticism leads to the breakdown of society. The rhythm of the images is slowly built up to a pulsing highpoint with the burning of the slum Behrampad, where Hindus and Muslims once lived peacefully side by side. One of the women who survived screams out angrily in Hindu: "We are brothers and sisters. How long will you keep up this hostility? Tell me why are bent on destroying this country. I want an answer!" Because of its political views this video installation cannot be shown in India in the National Galleries of Modern Art in Bombay, New Delhi or Calcutta, and private galleries have to take into account possible mistreatment and broken windows (as happened in the Eros cinema in Bombay when the film 'Fire' was shown in 1999) In Japan Nalini Malani wrote the following about this production: 'Hamletmachine' is an adaptation from Shakespeare's Hamlet, by the German writer Heiner Mueller. The character of Hamlet is very pertinent to the Indian political climate today. We are on the brink of a fanatical era and the party that is being voted in, in each of the elections [which have come in quick succession], are Hindu fundamentalists. Thankfully this party, the BJP, is still unable to procure an all out majority. So we still have a coalition government at the Centre. However, at each successive election the Hindu fundamentalists win a few more seats. It is the upper strata of urban Indian society that is becoming more and more close to this fundamentalist ideology, as they benefit from kowtowing to them. There is even a section of the intellectual community that is wavering; artists, writers, poets and theatre persons who are on the edge but could soon veer to the right. India is Hamlet; never quite knowing which way to go to, how to decide, and therefore making wrong decisions. To quote Heiner Mueller, "'Hamletmachine' may be read as a pamphlet against the delusions of innocence". In the case of India "the delusions of innocence" applies to the decision to make the underground nuclear tests, in May 1998. And then to call nuclear weapons a 'deterence'.
Mamhai, Manbai, Mayambu, Mombaim, Mombayn, Mumbai, Boabaim, Boavida, Bombahia, Bombaiin, Bombayim, Bombeye, BoonBay, Bombay, Bambai, Slumbay. This is my city with more than 16 million citizens. The various names that it has been given denote its history. In the preceding decade there has been consistent endeavour by the Hindu Fundamentalists, to wipe out the memory of this history. Almost as if to say, by changing the name to its vernacular form, Mumbai, the historical effects will be erased from the minds of the citizens. In a sense this falls in line with the rightist method of making false universalisms that exclude the existence of groups that don't quite fit this ideology. One of the aims of fascism is to try to make invisible all that falls outside of their idea of the exclusive group. The exclusion of groups in our society has been a major problem for thousands of years, because of the caste system. The position of the woman within this system is less then none. The Indian dream of becoming a democratic country was realized with the independence of the country from England in 1947. But before the Republic of India could start there was already a partition and Pakistan was carved out to become an Islamic country. The blood bath that followed is affecting us even today. These fundamental problems form a constant threat for the development of a more socialistic India and are used by others for the benefit of their own exploitative goals. The riots that were witnessed in Bombay in January 1993 especially pointed this out. In a large slum colony called Behrampada live a lage number of Muslim families. The Hindu families are in a minority here. After the 6 December ground shaking riots in Bombay, after the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, came another spate of violence that took the slum colony by storm. The mafia wanted this prized piece of land cleared away, so they created a situation of terror, whereby one community (Hindus) would attack the other (Muslim) or vice versa. Fire was put into the slum by petrol bombs and it destroyed huge parts of the dwellings. But worse, the trust, built up over decades, of living together by different cultures was burnt away in one night. The problem of fascism exists not only in my part of the world, or in Europe. It exists in Japan as well. I have seen the Uyoku (right wing) in Tokyo and Fukuoka making loud bombastic demonstrations, with coloms of black vans and an overload of Japanese flags, aggresively shouting and driving up and down the boulevards on Sundays. Even the swastika appears as graffiti on bridges and walls."
– Johan Pijnappel |
Camera: Hiroake Kanemitsu Seiji Ishikawa,Shiro Nozaki, Nalini Malani
Editing: Nalini Malani, Toshiya Kuroiwa
Dance: Nobuo Harada
Voice: Nandini Bedi
Production: Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Max Müller Bhavan Bombay
Nalini Malani, 1946, Karachi (India)
Lives and works in Bombay (India)
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