Legitimising Violence: A Reflection on Satish Alekar's The Terrorist(Atirekee, 1990)

 

The Terrorist originally Atirekee written in 1990 is a pathbreaking, sensitive, and thoughtful play that revolves around the family of Bapurao, Bhavna and Babu. The play reflects on the idea of power and forces us to reflect on the conspicuous idea of what power actually is, how power can be created and how power controls. As in the earlier plays, like The Dread Departure and Deluge, The Terrorist also asks questions and leaves it for the audience/reader to answer. These are the intentional gaps left by the playwright which provokes reaction and change. Whether the anticipated change is definite is impossible to be determined for Alekar’s expected change is not in the collective front but at the individual level. The attempt and the dramaturgy are commendable and highly respectable. The Terrorist is definitely a seminal text.

The play finds Bhavna crying one foggy morning as her husband Bapurao and Babu are supposed to have left the house. She is met by Manda and her husband who are taking a stroll in the morning, on a different route symbolizing their entry into a different thought- line as they get connected with Bhavna on this route and later find their twenty-year-old daughter, Malavika, lovingly called Malu, in a relationship with Babu. On further enquiry, it is known that Baburao’s dream of his son being successful has not been met with as Babu is a ‘good-for-nothing’ with little, or no future ahead. Baburao through his newspaper addiction comes to know that there are certain religious cabals in the North who are feared by all. Baburao is tired of the middle-class life and convinces himself of the idealistic dream of sacrificing his son to the North to do something for his land, for his nation and for his Housing society. That way he takes his son Babu to the North and gives him off to the warriors of the secret group to teach him ‘that fearlessness and confidence’ which will make his son Babu powerful and feared, and make him powerful subsequently, as the father of a terrorist.

This scene shifts immediately to the scene of social upliftment for Bapurao’s family. Bapurao’s social position is now exalted, the Boss waits for his tiffin, wants to see his daughter married to Babu and even Malu’s parents want to see their daughter married to Babu. Babu is now the feared. He has power and hence control. This power comes from his ability to weld a gun, to be fearless to kill a person, in short, a goonda. As a terrorist he is respected because we fear the gun. A man like Vastu or Tarang with intellectual or artistic abilities is powerless while the good-for-nothing Babu who is now a terrorist is respected. This raises two important understandings- in the social structure, there is no place for human values and honest life. Secondly, the society is clearly based on two prominent divisions- the powerful and the powerless; this power may not have any definite origin but is absolute. Here, Baburao in the garb of ideological fanaticism takes recourse to religious and political cabal to gain power through violence. Society is essentially feudalistic and corrupt.

However, it would be wrong to say that Alekar points or passes statement to guide the readers thinking, rather he leaves it on to the discretion of the observer to determine the change that he (here the observer) wants to be reflected. Babu gets an order from the North. To make this order successful, the entire family is supportive, including pregnant Malavika. The success of the order will keep the power of the family intact. Babu has been assigned the death of Mr Gadkari. Gadkari’s indifference and intelligence are an obstacle on the path of the fear that should continue to run in order that power remains with those who are powerful. Free thinking and secular thoughts do not divide the society into multiple factions of fanatics and hence are dangerous to those who believe in absolutism. Gadkari is shot. Babu’s first assignment is a success. Power corrupts. The good-for-nothing innocent Babu, loved by his mother, who unwillingly joined the North on the insistence of his father, to prove to him that at least he was an obedient boy, shoots a gun and kills a man, he becomes a terrorist in the truest sense. Meanwhile Malavika’s unborn child dies in the womb and Tarang aptly summarizes the whole crux of the play:

“…your unborn baby, Sahib, has turned his back against this sort of violence in the world. It has committed suicide…We will now have to chose the directions our lives should take more carefully.”

The contemporality of the play leaves all of us thinking. Do we need revolutionary change where only a set of people benefit or will reformation come through change at the individual level and thinking? In the struggle to understand the true meaning of what power is and how power is manipulated, why the poor of our land are the one to suffer- is it because they are powerless? Or due to governmental schemes to benefit the upper classes through tax exemptions and the lower classes through social security benefits in health, education, loans; are the middle -class the ones to be truly suffering with no power? Does education or knowledge give power or are these meaningless in front of violence or terrorism? Does society need a structural reorganization? Or will change come through individual effort even in this feudalistic structure? The play questions all these and more.

We may ask – Is this play a farce?

The Terrorist, is a farce, defining or highlighting what we should be prioritizing and what not. As Gadkari says, we are indulging the Bhasmasura, which will finally turn everything into ashes. Babu and Malavika as Gadkari says are the most lost. Malavika a promising dancer, in love with Babu whose ultimate hope becomes to see Babu succeed in his first assignment; we can clearly see the conflict between love and loyalty at the individual level and the collective level. Babu’s vision of hope “The confidence with which decisions are made during the day alters. Advancing shadows begin to trouble one” showed us the last flicker of hope and humanity in the beginning, only for us to see Babu in the later half as a thoughtless, emotionless, finally a’ good-for-nothing’. The play is a must-go-to for contemplative readers in 2026.