Rukmini Devi Arundale
When the then prime minister Morarji Desai offered the chair of
the President of India to Rukmini Devi Arundale in 1977 she politely declined.
She decided she could do without the trappings of the state that a stint in
Rashtrapati Bhavan brought with it. But she was not a stranger to fame or power.
She had occupied a niche in the arena of Indian culture long before that.
Her powerful personality, her contribution to the renaissance of
Bharatanatyam and her creation of Kalakshetra, the world-renowned temple of arts
in Chennai, earned for her great admiration. Less widely known is her work for
animal welfare and vegetarianism long before either of these causes became
fashionable.
Rukmini Devi had grown up under the shade of the famous banyan
tree in the sprawling Adyar campus of the Theosophical Society of which her
father was an important functionary. In her 20s, the theosophists proclaimed her
the Mother Goddess -- the Devi -- embodying the great spiritual values of
Hindustan, even as they identified J. Krishnamurti as the new messiah. JK
refused the mantle and went his own way; Rukmini did not, but the attempt to
promote her as Mother Goddess fizzled out. Nonetheless, the concept behind the
move influenced her perception of Indian culture in spiritual terms and of the
arts as the embodiment of that culture.
Interestingly, after her controversial marriage to George
Arundale when she was 16, it was western ballet that first caught Rukmini's
fancy. She turned to Indian dance only when the ballerina Anna Pavlova advised
her to look at the "native arts" of India for inspiration.
Rukmini was introduced to Bharatnatyam by E. Krishna Iyer,
founder-secretary of the Madras Music Academy. During the 1930s Iyer fought a
successful battle to save the dance which seemed likely to be buried along with
the disfavoured devadasi system. It has been a shibboleth among the legion of
Rukmini Devi's admirers that it was she who saved Bharatnatyam from oblivion.
Recent research has revealed that this was not entirely true.
The credit for that belongs jointly to Iyer and the band of outstanding dancers
of the devadasi community, like T. Balasaraswati and Kumbakonam K. Bhanumati.
The dance had been revived and most of the dark clouds of social prejudice had
been blown away by the time Rukmini Devi gave her first dance performance at the
very end of 1935.
Given her upper-class Brahmin background, Iyer had rightly
anticipated that Rukmini Devi's entry into Bharatnatyam would further dilute
social ostracism of the community of dancers and performers. Historically these
arts had been the preserve of the Isai Velalar community which had nurtured them
for about 150 years, if not longer. Rukmini Devi herself gave credence to the
view that she had "reconstructed" the dance of the devadasis by making it
respectable. She did sanitise it by virtually eliminating the sringara (erotic)
element and enveloping it in bhakti.
She used her sense of aesthetics to enhance the beauty of
dance presentation; she replaced tawdry dance-wear with exquisitely designed
costumes and jewellery and presented the dance in beautiful settings. She
tackled the problem of the transference of the art from one generation to the
next. At a time when the teaching-learning process was still anchored in the
guru-sishya system, she set up Kalakshetra which provided an institutional
setting for the students of music and dance.
Here she retained the positive aspects of the system and
persuaded outstanding musicians and dance gurus to join the faculty and created
for them an ambience devoid of commercial considerations. Lastly, she pioneered
the use of the dance-drama format for presenting Bharatanatyam and sophisticated
versions of folk and devotional dances.
Rukmini Devi's forceful personality
was an asset.
She dominated Kalakshetra as a queen who brooked no disagreement
or even individuality. She once told me that her creative faculties were so
unique that Kalakshetra probably could not survive after her. Perhaps, perhaps
not.
Two groups began an internal battle for the control of the
institution -- and in the midst of it Rukmini Devi passed away. In the event,
the central government took over Kalakshetra which has since become a deemed
university. It is a moot-point whether Rukmini Devi's foreboding about the
future of Kalakshetra will turn true or false.
