Independent India is 60 years old and the National School of Drama, one of the institutions created during the initial fervour of the country’s independence, is celebrating its Golden Jubilee. A product of the Nehruvian era, this small institute has contributed richly to the kaleidoscope of Indian theatre on a national level. With all its pitfalls, it has helped to generate a wave of amateur theatre all over the country. The fact that its efforts have largely remained at the level of good and bad amateur theatre and it has failed abysmally in professionalising theatre at the national level, is due not so much to the weaknesses within the institution but to policies pursued by the government. It would be more appropriate to say, in fact, that there does not exist a cultural policy.

What was the need to create three national academies covering all arts? And then why create regional academies in almost all states? Where on earth did a poor and developing nation find the resources to build 27 theatres covering almost all its states, as happened in India in the Tagore centenary year 47 years ago?

Clearly, there was a vision that moved the hearts and minds of a culture-sensitive administration under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru. But that initial vision has dissipated and waned. Academies entrusted with the noble responsibility of nurturing India’s rich heritage — still alive in its regional cultures and languages — have become little babudoms, centres of small intrigue and petty politics, indications of a monumental failure of character rather than repositories of Indian culture.

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