India Did Not Kick Us Out

The headline screamed, “SHEEMA KERMANI KICKED OUT OF INDIA...”

The report said, “A Pakistan-based cultural action group, invited by a prominent women’s

NGO to stage plays in India, has been abruptly asked to go back by the very NGO after its first performance here on grounds that it displayed an anti-US stance.

The Karachi based Tehrik-e-Niswan (Women’s Movement) was invited to perform at the South Asia theatre festival, ’Staging peace - a dialogue in theatre: a women’s endeavour to create the culture of peace’, by the Women’s Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA).

However, shortly after the staging of its first play, "Zikr-e-Nashunida" at Lucknow’s Isabella Thoburn College Sunday, the 10-member group was summoned by office-bearers of WIPSA and told to pack up.

Sheema Kermani, renowned Pakistani actress/dancer and founder of “Tehrik-e-Niswan” gives her version

I want to make it clear: India did not kick us out. It had to do with one organisation. There are always a few groups of malicious people. WIPSA did ask us to stop our play and leave the premises; they cancelled our tickets and we were harassed and had to look for new accommodation at 5 am. We found another guest house, where again we were asked to leave. All this because they found our play too radical.

They said that they were funded by the Ford Foundation and therefore there would be problems for them. Do you think the Ford Foundation has the time to go into these small things like plays? The NGO was behaving more loyal than the loyalists.

There are people who are vindictive and do not want any peace initiative. They will use any excuse to hijack it.

The fact is that, after all this noise, we went to Delhi and performed the same play at the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD), and it was simply wonderful. So there is no question of my not returning to India because, not only were we not thrown out, we were allowed to stay for as long as we wanted.

Neither India nor Pakistan has got anything to do with this solitary episode.