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Though ‘Indian independence and the end of Empire’ is now a (non-statutory) entry on the national curriculum, it’s certainly nothing I was taught at school. I get the impression from certain recent national conversations that many Brits are somewhat vague about this period in history, imagining, perhaps, that the Empire was wound down voluntarily.
Set in India in the latter decades of British rule, Tanika Gupta’s ‘Lions and Tigers’ is a fascinating and frustrating play. It is superb at conveying a convincing sense of a febrile India in which the pacifist Gandhi was racing against more violent revolutionaries to secure the nation’s independence.
But the play’s real-life revolutionary protagonist, Dinesh Gupta – the playwright’s great uncle – feels weirdly bland; a result, perhaps, of the use of the iconic but apolitical letters he sent to his sister from Alipore Jail as a primary source.
Two major events overshadow ‘Lions and Tigers’. The first is the Amritsar massacre of 1919, wherein British troops slaughtered hundreds of peaceful independence protesters, an atrocity that did little to endear the colonials to the people of India. The second was the Irish War of Independence – a symbol that British occupiers could be overthrown.
We meet Shubham Saraf’s Dinesh as an affable, somewhat eccentric teenager who commits minor acts of rebellion against the British – we see him and a couple of pals taking down a ‘no dogs, no Indians’ sign. But it’s only when he meets elderly ex-freedom fighter Bimala (Sudha Bhuchar) that he’s sent down a more violent path.
It’s a compelling story in itself, but the playwright complicates matters by weaving in the bigger political picture of the day as well. Independent India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru gets a bit of a look in, and Gandhi a whole chunk of the play. I’d say he was a bit of a distraction if it wasn’t such a compelling portrait from Esh Alladi – not a living saint, but an awkward, prickly obstructionist and shrewd operator.
He’s actually a much more interesting and complex character than Dinesh, who’s so laid back he’s practically comatose as he’s sentenced to death by hanging after assassinating a sadistic British officer. His family take Bimala to task, suggesting she had radicalised him, but that assertion hardly squares with the relaxed figure we see – it’s only in one, brief, powerful moment when he realises his actions have had consequences for his family that he even looks concerned about his fate.
Director Pooja Ghai makes deft use of the intimate Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, conjuring a world of claustrophobic cells, dusty imperial offices, and furtive night-time rebellions. But ultimately for all the valuable history and context Gupta crams into her play, it feels slightly lacking as a work of entertainment – ‘Lions and Tigers’ never quite roars as you sense it wants to.