Social Reform in the Plays of Mohan Rakesh

This article considers the dramaturgical methods of Mohan Rakesh (1925–72), a pioneer of reformist playwriting in post-independence India. Critics often consider Rakesh an experimentalist in Indian dramatic realism but fail to emphasize a key source of his experimentation: the friction of thought that open-ended and unresolved conflicts evoke in his readers and audiences. Against claims of Rakesh’s quietism toward social issues, we argue that his portrayal of what he calls the “surrounding reality” reflects contemporary social ills that push his audience toward self-reflection. This article first contextualizes Rakesh within the Nayi Kahani [New Story] movement that began in the 1940s and flourished in the subsequent two decades as well as theatrical traditions in Hindi during the pre-independence era. A close reading of his three most celebrated plays, Ashadh Ka Ek Din [ One Day in the Season of Rain] (1958), Lahron Ke Rajhans [ The Royal Swans of the Waves] (1963), and Adhe Adhure [ Incomplete Halves] (1969), establish that Rakesh focuses his reformist agenda on issues such as unequal power dynamics, miscommunication, and alienation. He offers no solution to the conflicts in his plays, nor does he dramatize an idealistic vision of society like his contemporaries Upendranath Ashk (1910–96) and Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Shrivastava (1912/14–57). By realistically depicting the intricacies of human relationships, he drives his readers and audiences toward contemplation and reform.