Documents 

Circus has always figured in the common sense as a place of extreme exploitation with dangerous working conditions, wretched living conditions, miserable wages, irregular working hours, physical and mental harassments, and insecure employment and life. But, strangely, if we look at the history of trade unions in India we would hardly find a circus workers’ union. This chapter talks about the Akhil Bharat Circus Karmachari Sangh organized under the Communist Party in late 1960s, which succeeded to an extent to establish a workers’ circus—owned, worked, and managed by the workers. The chapter also discusses the emergence of the only existing circus workers’ union in India now, the Indian Circus Employees Union, under the tutelage of Indian National Congress.

Wild animals have always been an indispensable part of circus around the world. This chapter traces their trajectory from the ‘wild’ to the ‘submissive’. It also discusses in detail the attitudes of the colonial and post-colonial states towards animals in general and the changes over the period in relation to circus animals. This section examines such statist double standards focusing at the ban of wild animals in Indian circus by the environment ministry, which proved to be fatal to both circus people and the animals. This chapter also explores how the present ‘conservation’ ideas excludes and thus jeopardizes certain historical practices of animal taming, training, and performance.

The ‘circus kalaris’ were established in north Malabar during the beginning of the twentieth century where a ‘new’ and ‘modern’ physical culture was shaped. It was undoubtedly a radical refashioning of a space, of kalaripayatt, that emerged out of the caste system and was sanctioned by its tradition. Circus kalaris were training centres where women and men from different communities got trained and went on to become renowned artistes. The chapter tries to look at how the ‘traditional’ physical cultures and the European acrobatic practices have been important in the making of an acrobatic culture of Indian circus. This chapter also looks into the influences of different indigenous medicinal systems such as Ayurveda and dietary practices.

The itinerant character of the circus is best exemplified by tents. All life and work in the circus happens in and around various tents. The disasters related to circus also inevitably bring in the imagery of tents. In a sense, they have the twin facets of the carnivalesque as well as the dangerous. This chapter looks at the circus tent’s spatial economies and shifting technologies over the decades. Tents have been ubiquitous from the nineteenth century and were indispensable for a colonial state that was desperate to spread its tentacles.

Having watched the spectacular performance of Kannan Bombayo, a ‘dark’ acrobat from Malabar in a British circus touring Berlin, Adolf Hitler is said to have exclaimed, “The Jumping Devil of India”. In 1959, the King Pole magazine published from London wonders: “Today there are several really large Indian circuses whose artists are predominantly young girls, most of whom hail from a place called KERALA. Who are these girls and where do they get their training?” This presentation will trace the significant yet unexplored history of circus bodies, its spaces, techniques and transgressions that produced those renowned acrobats from Malabar who ruled the tents across borders in the first half of twentieth century. The trajectory of this enquiry will then move on to the contemporary shifts which have occurred in this itinerant topography. In the beginning of the twenty first century the circus body was caught up in a discourse of ‘cruelty’ that culminated in a ban from the apex court of the nation teasing open crucial questions regarding the dominance and legitimacy of ‘tradition’. The line of enquiry shall also take us to problematic livelihood issues and labor migration across boundaries today, within the frame of the wandering tents.

Social sciences and humanities have recently begun posing enquiries such as do animals have histories, memories and subjectivities. Circus animals hardly figure in the discourses on animals while a wide variety of animals existed in the rings globally as performers and workers. The ban of the training and performance of certain wild animals by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, India in 1991 was a watershed moment for the almost 150-year-old circus industry in the subcontinent. This article explores the legal battle that followed the ban, various discourses around animals, both wild and captive, the human and non-human association in circuses and the history of animal training and performance and critically examines the ideas of rescue, rehabilitation and conservation. The acquisition, taming and trade of animals are implicated in the history of hunting, wildlife policies of the colonial and postcolonial states in India. The ‘rescue’ and ‘rehabilitation’ of animals from the ‘private’ circus companies to the ‘public’ zoos would unravel how the very idea of scientific conservation becomes a violent guile of state and civil society actively propagating the binary of cruelty and mercy. The article will also briefly discuss the questions of intimacy and emotions between the animal and the animal trainer beyond the common representations. [editor summary]

Merely three years after it came into being, the Kerala Circus Academy, the first circus academy in the country set up by the government of Kerala, is on the verge of closure due to lack of vision. If the government is serious about reviving this dying entertainment form, then a more concerted effort will have to be made.
Anyone familiar with the history of Indian circus should find it quite appropriate that the first state owned circus academy in the country was established in Thalassery, North Kerala. Most of the acrobats, trainers and entrepreneurs in Indian circus over the past century have hailed from this part of the world. The Kerala Circus Academy was inaugurated on 2 August 2010 and started functioning in a rented building at Chirakkuni. The glaring irony lies in the fact that this building was a former cinema theatre; cinema, an art form often blamed for the impending “death” of Indian circus industry. Hardly three years into operation, this circus academy is now heading towards a closure; a closure for good.