Hero sans a cape

Maharaj Krishna Raina, a veteran theatre practitioner, uses culture to drive socio-political change, shunning hero worship in India.

“Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.” Maharaj Krishna Raina prefers to practise what German playwright Bertolt Brecht famously said in a country that loves to indulge in hero worship.

Over the years, the veteran theatre practitioner has covered his conviction with a gentle smile and used culture as a catalyst for socio-political change in sensitive parts of the country. Be it Punjab, Kashmir, or the North East, Raina says his mantra has always been, “Hero nahin banana hai.” His  art always does the talking.

During the pandemic, the septuagenarian got time to pause and look back at his  career;  the result is an immensely readable account. Titled Before I Forget (published by Penguin Classics), the memoir traces the historical events that shaped Raina and informed his art.

The theft of the holy relic from the Hazratbal shrine in his hometown Srinagar in 1963, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, the brutal murder of the cultural activist and close friend Safdar Hashmi in 1989, the Kashmiri Pandits’ exodus, the fallout of the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, and the ethnic tension in the North East — the memoir reads like a layered script where it is impossible to take sides, and only lessons can be drawn. No wonder his friend, director Sudhir Mishra is contemplating conjuring up a film script out of Raina’s rich memory.

An actor-auteur-activist who stood his ground in turbulent circumstances, at times life-threatening, Raina has pen-painted some life-aletring moments. Like in his plays, in real life too, Raina avoids cliches and finds humour and hope in the dark. Taking a line from his famous play on the Oppenheimer trial, much before Christopher Nolan woke up to the relevance of the physicist, Raina says he doesn’t like to follow the ideas of others.

In Safdar’s case, he questioned the forces of disruption, with his friends, including actor Shabana Azmi, at the opening ceremony of the International Film Festival of India in Delhi.

A few years later, after the demolition of Babri mosque, Raina was again at the forefront, coining the slogan: Ab koi nara na hoga, bas desh bachana hoga (Now there will be no sloganeering, it will only be about saving the nation) and questioned Atal Bihari Vajpayee.