'Uppar se orders hain': Rangsharda auditorium demands playing of National Anthem before staging play

Amid ongoing debate over the Supreme Court's recent order on the National Anthem, an auditorium in Mumbai's suburb of Bandra demanded that the anthem be played before the staging of a play, reported The Indian Express.

On February 11, theatre  producer and director Atul Kumar claimed that Rangsharda Auditorium, a venue for live performances, demanded that the National Anthem be played before staging the play.

Kumar claimed that he was informed of this just 45 minutes before the performance of his play Piya Behrupiya, which was scheduled for 7.30 pm.

 “I mean no disrespect to the National Anthem. But Piya Behrupiya is a musical and begins with a preset music to set the tone of the play as the audience enters the venue. I told them that I may have accommodated it had I been informed earlier, but they wouldn’t listen to me,” Kumar said.

He also claimed that the auditorium also demanded a notice regarding the upcoming Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections be read out before the play begins. “I was told uppar se orders hain (There are orders from above,” he said.

However, since the show was getting delayed, they were allowed to stage the play without playing the National Anthem.

In January, four people were detained in Chennai after a group of students were allegedly manhandled for not standing when the national anthem was being played in the cinema hall before a film. In November 2016, a youth and two students were allegedly beaten up in another theatre in Chennai. These incidents followed a Supreme Court order calling for the anthem to be played in every theatre across the country before the screening of a film.