A poet stopped from reciting political poem

NT Correspondent

On Saturday evening, an artist who would like to remain anonymous uploaded a story on Instagram stating that they were stopped from reciting a poem at Lahe Lahe, Indiranagar due to its political nature.

“My mic was stopped midway through which is terribly disrespectful. A room full of pseudo- liberals stood there and no one said a word,” read the post (sic). “I never got the chance to speak about the actual issues, they unplugged my mic for speaking about unemployment and unity,” continued the post questioning Lahe Lahe about how art could be separated from politics and stating that the venue doesn’t provide a platform if someone wants to speak about anything important.

Speaking to News Trail, they said: "I first performed two poems that were about love. And everything was fine, then I started on my third poem when someone from the organisers came up to me and whispered in my ear that I can't perform this due to the venue's policy and unplugged the mic. I went back to my stall and was really disturbed by what happened so I put up a story on Insta. But everyone around me coerced me into taking it down. Then when I returned home in the evening and processed what had taken place, I chose to post about it again."

When contacted by News Trail, Mansee Shah Thard, who runs Lahe Lahe along with her husband Nikhil Thard, said: “For the last six years we have had a policy where we don’t entertain any poetry or artform that is political or religious in nature. We had communicated the same to the organisers of Meraz Mandali (the open mic organisers) as well.”

She stated that she wasn’t present at the venue but the organisers had vetted the poetry that was to be performed and the performer was only stopped when they went off script. But the artist denied it saying no such restrictions were communicated to them before the performance and they did not submit any material for inspection.

"On the Google Doc, when asked what I'd be performing, I just said poetry. So when they say they had approved two poems I don't know what they are talking about," said the artist. Mansee said Lahe Lahe does not want to entertain political or religious discussions. "We are apolitical here. I’m not saying it is not important but political debates and discussions are never constructive. It just creates venom, hatred and no one's opinion changes,” she said.

But it was not an isolated incident though and there have been other occurrences of censorship at Lahe Lahe. In February 2020, during the Anti-CAA protests the venue was host to ‘Protest Fest’ where some artists were asked to take down their artwork for being perceived anti-government and the spoken word open mic stopped at the request of the venue owners.

"I don't blame the organisers since they are also students and acted out of fear, since they haven't faced such a situation before. But the unfair policies of the venue need to be called out, especially since they claim to be inclusive and a safe space for artists. How do they expect art to be detached from politics?" said the artist.