Hindi Drama

Abstract Chapter 3 inquires into the history of Hindi drama and discusses major tendencies and schools. It also looks at the plurality of cultural traditions, identities, and influences that have shaped the playwrights’ worldviews throughout the centuries. Thus, we can identify influences from Western dramaturgy, from classical Urdu drama, from the Parsi theatre, from indigenous sources, such as the nauṭaṅkī-play, as well as classical Sanskrit drama. While the diversity and plurality of the dramatic and theatrical traditions should not be overlooked, Hindi theatre has come to be seen as a sort of a national theatre because of the status of Hindi as the national language of India, as most plays written in regional languages are staged in Hindi before they are staged in the original language. Therefore, in this chapter, Hindi theatre has been discussed as representative of developments in Indian theatre..