Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Protest Against KPAC Lalitha Visiting Dileep

KOCHI:
We the undersigned theatre directors from Kerala were shocked to hear that KPAC Lalitha, the chairperson of Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi has publically supported film actor Dileep by visiting him in jail who has been accused of master minding the abduction and rape of an actress in a moving car, a case which was compared to the horror of Nirbhaya rape case by the prosecution in the court.
We find this is an outrageous act of aggression, lack of graciousness and more importantly a senseless and cruel justification of violence against a young woman. We believe that the primary role of an artist is to make the society a better place to live, a humane, cultured and politically grounded civilised society. It’s so ironical that the chairperson of the topmost cultural institution of Kerala has decided to walk the opposite side of all such artistic concerns and by doing so she has insulted the entire performing art fraternity in Kerala. We strongly condemn such insensitive action by a person who is holding a respectful post in an institution that is funded by tax payer’s money.
We also oppose in the strongest terms the assumption that a person holding a public position has the right to express personal opinions in the support of an accused even if it’s in the case of such heinous crimes. We are in the opinion that the persons who hold such important positions in cultural institutions should be restrained from engaging into such apolitical and inconsiderate activities. We are saddened by the fact that the chairperson has decided to ignore the feeling of a young girl, the victim in this episode who is also an actress by profession like Mrs Lilitha which is what in fact made her qualified for the post of chairperson at KSNA. We would like to express our strongest objections to the controversial action taken by the KSNA chairperson KPAC Lilitha and we demand her resignation from the office immediately and if she doesn’t voluntarily to do so we request the state government to remove her and reinstate the lost credibility of KSNA urgently.
We also urge the Kerala government to revisit its cultural policy of filling up such important cultural institutional positions with individuals who has very little or no political or social understanding of the consequences of their actions they get
engaged in while in the office.
1. Abhilash Pillai – Associate Professor National School of Drama, Former Director ITFOK
2. Chandradasan- Theatre Director, Lokadharmi Theatre Group Kochi
3. Ramesh Varma- Faculty Shankaracharya University Theatre Department Kalady, Theatre Director & Actor
4. Narippatta Raju – Theatre Director & Actor, Kadambazhippuram, Palakkad.
5. Deepan Sivaraman- Associate Professor Ambedkar University, Former Director ITFOK
6. Jose Koshi- Theatre Director, Invisible Lighting Solutions, Lighting Designer
7. Jino Jose- Theatre Director, META National Theatre Award Winner
8. Samkutti Pattomkari- Theatre Director & Visual Artist Alappuzha
9. Sam George – Theatre Director Thiruvananthapuram
10. Rathnakaran – Theatre Director Kozhikode
11. Gopan Chidambaram- Faculty, Sankaracharya Sanskrit University Theatre Department, Theatre director & writer
12. Aliyar Ali- Theatre Director, Athletic Kayika Nataka vedi
13. KV Ganesh Kumar – Theatre Director Thrissur
14. Martin John Challissery – Theatre Director and performance artist Oorali