Renowned theatre personality Prasanna has sought a full-fledged and autonomous theatre institute status for the Bengaluru Centre of the National School of Drama (NSD).
In a letter to the Minister of Culture, Government of India, New Delhi, he said, “This unfortunate centre (Bengaluru NSD centre) is languishing ever since it was set up in 2007. NSD Bengaluru centre was set up as a result of a glorious movement led by Kannada theatre activists, for many years, prior to 2007.”
Theatre is a language and culture-specific medium and can be treated as such. But, the unfortunate policy of “One Nation - One School” for theatre training had led to a peculiar situation wherein a non-Hindi student was, and still is, forced to learn Hindi, in order to learn acting in her/his language, he observed.
“This flawed policy has only helped Bollywood in garnering talent from beyond the Hindi heartland for the Hindi cinema. This same policy, on the contrary, had a disastrous impact on the theatre movement in the rest of the country. Kannadigas were demanding from the Ministry that it correct the flaw and recognise that every language in the 8th schedule is a national language. And hence, every State Theatre is a National Theatre. And that, consequently, every State be provided with a full-fledged National School of Drama,” he demanded, in his letter.
Following his indefinite fast, lasting over five days, as part of the protest movement, a National School of Drama centre was consequently granted to Karnataka by the then Minister of Culture. Three acres of prime land in the city of Bengaluru was sanctioned for setting up the institute. People of Karnataka had celebrated. “Sadly, this decision was never implemented. What exists now in Bengaluru is just a Regional Centre of the Delhi School. There is no governing body, no separate budget allocation. The Delhi Centre periodically appoints a Head for the Regional Centre on an ad-hoc and temporary basis. This is an insult done to the language, the culture and the people of Karnataka,” he charged.
The theatre personality urged the Minister to take necessary and immediate action to correct the “anomaly”. If the Union Government persists with the same attitude, of foisting Delhi on to the people of Karnataka, Kannadigas will be left with no option but to reactivate the protest movement,” Mr. Prasanna cautioned.
