Poulami Bose, Debesh Chatterjee, and other theatre workers cry foul as govt grants get discontinued

A number of eminent theatre workers in Bengal, Including Meghnad Bhattacharya, Debesh Chatterjee, and Arpita Ghosh, brought allegations of political discrimination against the central government after the cultural ministry discontinued their annual grant. 

The central government has been running a scheme, Guru-Shishya Parampara, for many years to give grants to theatre groups and directors. This year, the central government said that grants for some of the groups have been stopped due to several reasons. 

Meghnad Bhattacharya told the media, “We have been getting the grant for eighteen years. It stopped. The letters sent from the center show different reasons to different groups. Some groups are told that they have been self-dependent. Some are told that they are doing organisations and can do it themselves. I suspect that someone made a list. And the decisions of this kind of selective process may be based on political preference.” 

The grand also stopped for Poulomi Bose's group, Mukhomukhi. The veteran theatre worker told the media, “They say that we are self-reliant and sustainable. We had to rent a house for rehearsal. We used to get a grant for fifteen persons and gave the money to fifteen boys to maintain the group. We could provide at least something. There is no money in the theatre. Now we are in a big soup. That is a grave injustice.” 

Debesh Chatterjee said 'If the government thinks that they will suppress our voice by stopping grants, they are wrong.” 

However, actor and BJP supporter Rudranil Ghosh thinks otherwise. “Centre gives grants to nourish culture and theatre. You are opposing those who are giving grants for the sake of promoting your politics. This is funny. A group in Gobordanga got Rs 50 lakhs for building a theatre hall. It was later seen that the hall was used to rent for marriage ceremonies. Hence the grants are stopped. Grants of theatre groups of legendary theatre personalities like Rudraprasad Sengupta and Bibhash Chakraborty did not stop.”