Safdar Hashmi Biography 
Safdar Hashmi is regarded as a prominent voice of political theatre in India, mostly associated wioth street plays. Apart from being a noted playwright, stage actor and director, he was also known as lyricist, and theorist with communist ideologies. He was brutally injured when he was performing a street play, Halla Bol in Jhandapur, Ghaziabad on 1 January 1989. He died the following day at the age of just 34. Rajkumar Santoshi’s 2008 movie Halla Bol, starring Ajay Devgan and Vidya Balan was inspired from his life. He was a founding member of Jana Natya Manch, also known as Janam in 1973.
Hashmi was born on 12 April 1954 in Delhi. His childhood days were spent in Aligarh and Delhi. He completed graduation and also took Masters in English literature. Whiel studing PG at Delhi University he got associated with cultural events and thus joint IPTA. He was also associated with the student wing of the CPI (M). After studies he got associated with IPTA as a stage artist. But gradually he got out of IPTA and got attached to Communist Party, which resulted in the formation of Jana Natya Manch, with a group of members from IPTA.
He got popular with his street plays with strongly criticized the social evils as well as Indian politics, throughout 1970’s. ‘Kursi, Kursi, Kursi’ was one such play staged when PM Indira Gandhi was accused of rigging the elections. Hashmi worked as a lecturer in English literature at various colleges during Emergency Period. After Emergency period he returned to political activism and continued with his street plays, documentary films and also one television serial. Janam gave about 4,000 performances of 24 street plays till the death of Hashmi.
For a brief period, he worked as a journalist in the early 1980’s. While performing a street play, Halla Bol on the New Year day of 1989 during Ghaziabad municipal elections, his Janam troupe was attacked by political hoodlums of the Indian National Congress and Hashmi left brutally injured. Hashmi died the following day. His wife Moloyshree Hashmi completed the stage play two days after his death. 14 years later, Ghaziabad court convicted ten people for his murder.
Published: N/A
Updated: June 02, 2014
