Dr. Dani Karmakar
- Gauri Lankesh and Girish Karnad(2017-18)
Several years ago, some prominent people and social workers from Maharashtra and Karnataka were coming up against extremely Hindutva. In 2016, Hindu fundamentalists plotted to kill them. Created a ‘Hit List’. The names of the 34 people in the list were found. Where the first name emerged was Girish Karnad and the second name was journalist and social worker Gauri Lankesh. Gauri Lankesh was shot dead in front of her house on 5th September, 2017. In 2018, after the assassination of Gauri Lankesh, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) presented such information in July.
Following the assassination of Gauri Lankesh, police security was provided by state government to the some prominent people. The security of Girish Karnad was also extended.
At the time of the death anniversary of Gauri Lankesh, the sick Girish Karnad was sitting in the first row by hanging ‘Me too Urban naxal’ placard. On the stage, he protested against the arrest of intellectuals as ‘Urban Naxal’. The case was registered against him. He was supporting Naxalites, on the charge.
- Babri Mosque and Girish Karnad(1992)
Girish Karnad had raised voice against religious extremists. He wrote about the social and political degradation. He did not remain silent after the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh on 6 December 1992. In this context, the play “Taledanda”(1990), which was written two years ago, became relevant. The literary meaning of the drama is the death by beheading. Girish Karnad himself translated it into English. And in 1992, under the guidance of Ebrahim Alkazi, the National School of Drama Repertory of New Delhi performed the play ‘Rakta Kalyan’ in Hindi translation of Ram Gopal Bajaj. The play was translated into Bengali by poet Shankha Ghosh. The drama was written in the context of religious reform movements in Karnataka in the twelfth century.
- Lok Sabha Election and Girish Karnad(2019)
In the political movement, he appeared to be coming forward in the year 2019, even as a citizen of civil society. Just before the Lok Sabha elections in April, the 200 scientists, 100 film directors, 250 writers and 600 dramatists who had applied for ‘not to vote to hatred politics’, one of the names was Girish Karnad. Among the other people who were involved in this movement were film actors Nasiruddin Shah, Amal Palekar, Kankana Sen Sharma, Ratna Pathak, Lilat Dubey, historian Romila Thapar, literary Nabanita Dev Sen, Nayantara Sehgal, and dramatist Mahesh Dattani.
- V S Naipaul and Girish Karnad(2012)
On October 31st, the Mumbai Literary Festival, Tata Literature Live! Festival, gave a special award, Lifetime Achievement Award, to Nobel laureate V S Naipal at National Center for the Performing Arts. On 2 November, Girish Karnad criticized the honor given to V S Naipal on that festival, and called him anti-Islamic. He said, “Naipaul has no idea of how Muslims contributed to Indian history.” He said that in any of his texts the literary did not talk about India’s music. For this reason, he said, “Given that music defines our daily existence … you find it in the streets, in the restaurants and so on … you can expect an exploration of India to comment on that … Now Mr. Naipaul has written three books on India .If you read them, you find that not even one of them contains any reference to music. He has gone through the whole world without responding to Indian music. I think that only means that he is tone deaf.” That day Girish Karnad was presented the topics on his discussion about his theater life.
- Rabindranath Tagore and Girish Karnad(2012)
There was a storm of controversy in the speech of Girish Karnad, with the play of Rabindranath Tagore. He said, “Tagore is a great poet but a mediocre and second-rate playwright.” This remarked about the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s drama after the controversial remarks about Nobel laureate V S Naipal (November 2, Friday), just before the week of November 2012 made stir. And as a reason to comment on this, he said, “He produced his plays but those were never produced by his contemporaries. The Contemporary Bengali Theater never accepted them.” He also said, “I think they did one or two plays. His poetry succeeded but not his other plays.” Rabindranath Tagore while was writing the dramas, Girish Chandra Ghosh was in the Bengali professional theater. Rabindranath Tagore did not go into this majesty of professional platform and planned an independent Indian theater. Outside of the professional stage, independent unique theatre was invented in Jorasanko Thakurbari and Santiniketan. He commented, “The poorer people in their plays are really cardboard characters. They have no passion and anguish at all … their plays did not have any effect. For example, Bengali theater personality Girish Ghosh and others were not influenced by him.” Girish Karnad remarked Tagore’s drama as the second class of the dramatics of his time. He said, “Because he is second rated, what else should one call him?” In the last 50 years, India has produced many playwrights like Badal Sarcar, Mohan Rakhesh and Vijay Tendulkar, who are Tagore than the better.”