Book Reviews – Performing Arts in India: Performances of/and Violence, Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study

Guru Rao Bapat and Lata Singh, eds., Performing Arts in India: Performances of/and Violence, Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 2016, 242, pages, Rs. 300.

In a troubled time of ours when intolerance and bigotry of almost all sorts are looming large this book will help us understand ‘violence’ in performance spaces. In many cases, readers may have experienced that nothing remains at the level of mere ‘opposition’ nowadays. Everywhere, everything quickly assumes a character of violent animosity. From the social media to other public platforms, this kind of a development can be perceived to one’s consternation. The violence is not limited to all conceivable modes of brutality, but penetrating and assaulting the mind in a most direct and ostensible manner, without any ‘sober’ pretense. Democratic rights are easily construed as the right to name-calling, diatribes (in many cases, without proper knowledge of the subject violating all bounds of logicality), silencing and gaging. The recent political developments both in India and elsewhere have precipitated an intellectual volatility coupled with deliberate misrepresentation and misinformation. The readers may therefore find this book useful in order to understand many facets of violence in different kinds of performance spaces.