When he began his theatre activity is Punjab, IPTA was almost extinct. There was not very much theatre activity outside the confines of theatre departments with limited audience. He founded Amritsar Natak Kala Kendra in 1964 and introduced the best world drama to the audience in Amritsar in a sustained manner. Beginning in 1969, he began taking his theatre to the villages in Punjab. He believed that rural citizens of India were denied their share of culture of modern sensibility. A number of writers and theatre directors often declined to go to rural audiences because according to them rural people did not understand the language of theatre and therefore theatre was not for them. He challenged this wisdom and through his sustained work demonstrated that if theatre speaks to the lived experiences of people in the villages, they understand it, appreciate it, and own it.

He developed a new idiom of theatre

a theatre which was truly people’s theatre – the awami theatre. The people of Punjab and specially the rural people of Punjab fully took to owning his theatre. This theatre was not reliant on fancy auditoriums or perfect lighting. He developed a form where actors communicated with the audiences directly. Since the early 1970s, he performed in the villages of Punjab on an average, at least 150 nights in a year. Thousands of women, men and children came to see his plays, raised funds for the performance and invited him to their villages. They often traveled for miles on tractor trolleys, bicycles, bullock carts and on foot to see the plays. His biggest contribution to Punjabi theatre is to create audience for theatre in Punjab.

He insisted that marginalised rural people are systematically, practically and ideologically excluded from experiencing art and theatre. For him theatre and social change were deeply connected. He believed that they must not be cast as mutually exclusive and for him a theatre that is truly embedded in people’s everyday existential experience is theatre of relevance which he practiced. His mission was to change the world to make it a better place.

He authored close to 200 plays, published in seventeen books and 7 collected volumes. His theatre inspired scores of young women and men to what he called the theatre movement in Punjab. Today there are scores of rural theatre troupes actively doing theatre in Punjab. They have created several theatre complexes in villages with modern facilities where theatre activities happen on a regular basis. These groups are self sustaining because there is now audience and a culture of appreciation of rural theatre in Punjab.

His theatre and the new idiom helped to challenge the received notions of aesthetics and established assumptions about theatrical excellence that perpetuated rigid separation between theatre art and ordinary working people’s lives. His theatre included art practices which were embedded in ordinary people’s lives.

This is not to say that his theatre is dismissive of classical forms. He only questioned the aesthetic codes designed to perpetuate the hegemony of the powerful. He believed in meaningful collaboration between professionals and rural theatre artists and activists. He encouraged these partnerships and the result is broadening and democratization of theatre practices where people-centred theatre artists and activists bear on more mainstream theatre practice. This has attracted a new generation of artists as well as audience in Punjab.

In 1981, in association with fellow comrades, he founded Punjab Lok Sabhayachar Manch (People’s platform for culture), a forum where artistes, writes, and activists contributed to a unique rural theatre discourse about intersections between politics, culture and social justice and the stage. At present scores groups are part of this umbrella organisation.

We can say with confidence that his efforts of the last four decades have made a difference. This difference is not only in terms of inspiring scores of young men and women to adopt theatre as a profession, or in creating a critical audience for theatre, but also inspire the belief in young men and women that socially meaningful theatre is sustainable and has its rewards. His best reward of doing theatre and realizing its impact was the reach of his theatre during the troubled days of Punjab. In the early 1980s he knew that his medium, style and credibility was powerful enough for him to give a secular and rational version of the ‘Punjab crisis’ to the people. With this version many ordinary people of Punjab identified and were willing to engage. Some of the prominent plays that performed this role in the early 1980s were Baba Bolda hai, Ek Kursi Ek Morcha Ate Hawa Vich Latakde Log, and Chandigarh Puara Di Jarr. During the period of Punjab crisis, his voice of reason and a vision of society based not on religions but on social justice reverberated in Punjab – Hindu raajna Khalistan, raj kare mazdoor kisaan.

He has been duly rewarded for his efforts in terms of immense love, affection and regard that he received over the years from the people of Punjab. The genre of theatre that he pioneered is recognised as a formidable form and has come to be called as the rural theatre of modern sensibility for which he was awarded the prestigious Sangeet Natak Academy award in 1993. He is also the recipient of the Kalidas Samman which was conferred on him in the year 2004. He was also given The Shiromani Natakar Award, Punjab Sahitya Academy Award and many other awards from Punjabi people in Punjab, United Kingdom, USA and Canada. However, the biggest recognition of his work came about in 2006 when Punjabi theatre groups, writers, poets, playwrights and artists came together to give him the Revolutionary Dedication Award for his lifetime contribution to the theatre movement. More than 30,000 people converged in Kussa village on this occasion to show their love and affection for the work that he had been doing in the field of rural theatre. There are fewer examples of such an appreciation of the work of a cultural worker. He also received ‘Punjabi of the year’ award in 2005.

He passed away on September 27, 2011. The day, 27th is marked in Punjab as Revolutionary Theatre Day since then.

people as a tool to understand their oppression and a weapon to fight it with. The themes he chose appealed to the intellect of the working people and the performance appealed to their emotions. In these challenging times, he said, the divide is clear, there is no place for middle-of- the-road art. It is only and only committed art where message emerges with extraordinary force to destroy the decadent old and recreate the revolutionary new.

This archive is a small effort with no claims to bring all revolutionary cultural material under one platform in one go. We hope that we will grow through the collective efforts of all those who believe in archiving, learning from history and seriously debating the role of revolutionary culture for social change. We would like this open access platform to be available to the students and others to understand, write and develop radical culture in Punjab. The aim is to see these records used, developed and reconstructed.

At the moment the collection is compiled mostly of records readily available with the family but we hope to receive more materials which will pave way for intellectual development, providing new views on culture and ideology and whole new ways of thinking and how we approach the role of radical culture.