anyway. There have only been rare occasions in the world Communist movement when such aberrations have taken place; especially at the time of left-wing deviations, such things take place, as happened during the Gang-of-Four regime in China. The Communist Party of India passed through a left-wing deviation stage in 1948-49. At that time the Party did make mistakes on the cultural front, it did try to force people to do things... of this I am not directly aware, I have been told so by other comrades whom I have no reason to disbelieve. I have written extensively about it in my book Towards a Revolutionary Theatre. But I firmly believe that Party discipline is a good thing for all artists—for writers, for actors, for everyone. Especially because our writers and our artists come from the petty bourgeois class which is completely cut off from life. Their only connection with life is the Party, can be the Party, if they come to it honestly. MB '. It was after you came in contact with the IPTA, I think; that the name of your group was changed to People's Little Theatre. Now would you tell us what you understand \>y the concept 'people's theatre' ? UD : I think you are very sadly misinformed about many things. The Little Theatre Group' was renamed 'People's Little Theatre' only in 1969. And my brief association with the IPTA was in 1951 ..It had nothing to do with the renaming of the 'Little Theatre Group' into 'People's Little Theatre'. There are other reasons—reasons which are connected with court cases—why the name had to be changed. These rumours that spread about my association with the IPTA! My association with the IPTA was brief, exciting no doubt, but very brief, and I do not consider myself an IPTA product at all. MB : Nonetheless, my basic question remains, the one about 'people's theatre'. How do you see it, I mean, how do you respond to the idea ? UD : Again this expression, 'respond to the idea'! Long before the IPTA in India was born people had written about the people's theatre movement all over the world. There is Erwin Piscator, in Germany and his famous book. The Political Theatre. Bertolt Brecht had already written. Mao tse Tung had spoken in Yenan : the Yenan Forum lectures on art and literature. All these had already been written, apart from Lenin on culture, apart from Marx and Engels themselves. They had already shown the way. One did not have to find out from the IPTA. But we must all admit that the Communist Party was the only force at the time which took the theatre to the people, which inspired the theatre to goto the people. Before it happened in India, it had already happened in Germany after the First World War. The Communist Party of Germany watched Piscator's plays at the Yolks Biihue (People's Stage) in Berlin, and with sympathy. But when Piscator claimed that this theatre was propaganda, the Party asked him straight, 'Why don't you call it propaganda then, why do you call it theatre ?' Of course, Piscator was very angry, he has written angrily about the Party in that part of the book; but I think the Party was absolutely right. If you call your theatre 'theatre' it has other norms to satisfy, not only propaganda. It must be propaganda, but it must 28 July-September 1984