Indian People’s Theatre Association

Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) was an association of leftist theatre-artists under the Left parties. Its goal was to bring cultural awakening among the people of India. It is the cultural wing of the Communist Party of India and also CPI(M).

Some of the initial members of the groups were Prithviraj Kapoor, Bijon Bhattacharya, Balraj Sahni, Ritwik Ghatak, Utpal Dutt, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Salil Chowdhury, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Jyotirindra Moitra, Niranjan Singh Maan, S. Tera Singh Chan, Jagdish Faryadi, Khalili Faryadi, Rajendra Raghuvanshi Safdar Mir, Hasan Premani, etc. The group was formed in 1942, in the background of the Second World War, with Bengal famine of 1943 and starvation deaths in India on the one hand and repression by the colonial masters in the wake of the Quit India Movement and the aggression by the fascist powers on the Soviet Union on the other. All India People's Theatre Conference was held in Mumbai in 1943 where the group presented its idea and objective of representing the crisis of the time through the medium of theatre and to help people understand their rights and duties. This conference led to the formation of committees of IPTA across India. The movement hit not only theatres, but also cinema and music in Indian languages.Now it is the cultural wing of Communist Party of India (CPI) AND CPI(M).

The most important of the dramas were Nabanna (Harvest). Nabanna is a folk-cultural festival of Bengal to celebrate the harvest. This Bengali drama, written by Bijon Bhattacharya and directed by Sombhu Mitra, portrayed the evils of the Bengal famine of 1943 and the alleged indifference of the British rulers, as also of the richer strata of Indian society towards the plight of the millions dying from the famine.

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