Catchy Melodies and Clenched Fists. Performance as Politics in Maoist Cultural Programs (2010)
- Catchy Melodies and Clenched Fists. Performance as Politics in Maoist Cultural Programs. In The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal. Revolution in the Twenty-First Century (eds) M. Lawoti & A. Pahadi, 52-72. New York: Routledge.
Abstract: Catchy melodies, colourful dresses, traditional steps broken by classical mudras suddenly turning into clenched fists: cultural programs based on songs, dances and short dramas, have constituted the backbone of the cultural struggle initiated by CPN (Maoist), since the preparation of the people’s war in Nepal Less intimidating that assaults and bombing but not secondary in the party’s political struggle, cultural programs have gone unnoticed in the literature on the people’s war in Nepal, which has mainly focused on the causes, development and effects of the armed conflict.
Deeply rooted in the assumption that ‘every political revolution is also a cultural revolution’, performance-based cultural programs complement literary productions in the creation of a ‘revolutionary art’ that the party sets in opposition to mainstream ‘bourgeois art’. Cultural programs have therefore been widely employed for awareness raising, and the popularization of Maoist ideology, to spread a feeling of unity, of sharing and creating a communal destiny, to spur the audience into active participation and to entertain them during political meetings.
In this paper I aim to situate Maoist cultural programs in the wider context of oppositional performances in Nepal’. The personal narratives of some artists, drama scripts and song lyrics will provide the fil rouge to unveil the development, motivations and role of cultural programs in supporting the Maoist struggle to bring about social change.