Theatre as resistance: Maraa Collective is empowering Dalit women to rewrite their stories
In rural Madhya Pradesh, survivors of sexual and caste-based violence are taking control of their narratives through Freeda Theatre, an intergenerational collective of Dalit women playwrights and performers.
Trigger warning: This story narrates first-person accounts of sexual violence and rape.
In her classic and unflinchingly honest prose in ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ (1969), poet-activist Maya Angelou writes, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
In 2018, Angarika Guha and Anushi Agarwal confronted this reckoning after listening to almost a hundred women across rural India recount their experiences of sexual and gender-based violence. Their research for a play under the Bengaluru-based media and arts collective, Maraa, soon took an unprecedented toll. As the testimonies piled up, so did their own vicarious trauma—the quiet, insidious burden of bearing witness to another’s suffering over a prolonged period.
With help from theatre practitioner Anish Victor, Guha and Agarwal processed this experience by creating a play called ‘Chu kar dekho’ (Touch and See)—based on the stories of women they had spoken to and shaped by their experiences of listening and responding to their suffering.
The play made them realise something deeper: if theatre could help make sense of their experience as witness bearers, could it also offer their narrators the choice to reclaim their narratives—not merely as victims, but as storytellers and performers?
This question sowed the seeds for one of Maraa’s most transformative projects: Freeda Theatre, an intergenerational collective of five Dalit women and survivors of caste and gender-based violence from Madhya Pradesh. The legal system had failed them; their perpetrators walked scot-free, their cases never lodged, and their families had abandoned them.
For the first few months, there was no script or rehearsals. The focus was simply on healing—not in a structured way but through processes that made sense to these women, rooted in their own beliefs, bodies, and rituals. Slowly, they began to explore movement, memory, and emotion through theatre.
A collective resonance
Mamta Solanki is one of the members of Maraa Collective.
After being subject to unimaginable violence, Solanki was forced into silence. Abandoned by her husband, she struggled to make a living as a cook, when one day, under the pretence of a catering order, she was lured to a distant village where a group of dominant-caste men held her captive and sexually assaulted her for two days. The police refused to believe her and delayed action. When they finally arrested the perpetrators, bail came swiftly. Free again, her attackers began a campaign of intimidation, ensuring Solanki could never rebuild her life in her village. When Guha and Agarwal met her, she barely spoke and was afraid to even step out.
But watching Chu Kar Dekho shifted something for Solanki.
“When I saw our stories unfold on stage, I broke down. But I wasn’t alone—so many women around me were crying too. In that moment, I think we all began to heal,” she recalls.
“For so long, society refused to believe me or acknowledge my pain. But now, I stand before the world and tell my story on my own terms. When I’m on stage, the audience has no choice but to listen. They must sit with the discomfort, feel it in their minds and bodies, and acknowledge it. Because I am no longer invisible.
Most of the women in the collective cannot read or write. So, they began drawing sketches, which became storyboards that evolved into improvisations on the floor. With training that includes yoga, chi-gong, trauma-informed care, and many months of patient trust-building by Maraa, these women empowered themselves to refuse the erasure of their stories by using theatre as a form of resistance and truth-telling as a form of power.
Owing the narrative
The first play that took shape from this programme was ‘Nazar ke Samne’ (which has now completed 50 shows, including one in Bangkok) developed through an organic, participatory process.
‘Nazar Ke Samne’ explores the dynamics of violence through the lived experiences of these women. However, it rejects the mainstream fixation on violence as a singular event. Instead, it equally explores the small, everyday denials of freedom—the right to beauty, desire or to step outside one’s home without fear.
The women developed the script through drawing, improvisation, and movement, ensuring that their stories were told in their own language.
Varsha Malviya, another member of Freeda, says her skin still prickles when she recounts the violence her body and mind have endured. When she was asked to share her story for the first time with Agarwal and Guha, Malviya says she was overcome with guilt and shame.
“I was kidnapped from my home, raped, and nearly sold in Dehradun. After I escaped, my own family refused to take me back—they believed I had brought them disgrace. And for the longest time, I believed it too. I blamed myself for everything that happened,” she says.
It was only after days of sitting with Maraa’s team that her awareness shifted. “They helped me see what should have been obvious—that the shame was never mine to carry.”
She started performing in panchayat halls, community spaces, and villages, where patriarchal, caste-based violence was an everyday reality. Sometimes, dominant caste men in the audience dismissed the play’s themes. Other times, performances had to be moved for safety reasons. And yet, women came to watch.
The impact was undeniable. After one performance, a woman said, "In telling this story and seeing it performed, I finally feel free of it."
Theatre as a tool for resistance
The collective is now out with a new play, Marju aur Moina ki Kahani, a political satire set in a fictional village where two young girls fight against a corrupt king and minister trying to take their land. Unlike Nazar ke Samne, which emerged from personal histories, this play—created by the women along with Victor—allows them to step outside their own experiences and use theatre to critique broader systems of power.
Performing has also given these women mobility, independence, and, for some, financial stability. Where once they were confined to their villages, they now travel 15-20 days a month for shows. They have performed in cities, at feminist conferences, and in international spaces. Slowly, they are learning to book their own shows, handle logistics, and run the collective independently.
But it is not without its struggles. Backlash is real, and safety is a constant concern. Maraa works through trusted networks and civil society organisations that understand the risks on the ground. Even within urban theatre spaces, there is scepticism. "People assume that women from villages can’t understand abstraction or complex storytelling," says Guha. "But of course, our women disprove this over and over again."
Funding and the future
Maraa’s work is largely supported by feminist funds and individual donors, but securing funding is always a challenge. "Theatre isn’t seen as essential—it’s seen as a luxury. But the truth is, creative expression fosters confidence and resilience," explains Guha.
The long-term vision is to create more collectives in different parts of the country by training women as facilitators and ensuring that this work is sustainable beyond Maraa. There are also plans to help women set up their own cooperative businesses to ensure they have a livelihood outside of theatre.
For now, the collective continues to perform. Maraa believes its existence is an act of defiance in itself. On stage, Freeda’s women reclaim what was taken from them. And in the eyes of the women watching them, something shifts.
Edited by Kanishk Singh
