‘The Crucible’ takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 during the Salem witch trials. The play is a fictionalised version of the trials and tells the story of a group of young Salem women who falsely accuse other villagers of witchcraft. The accusations and ensuing trials push the village into a hysteria which results in the arrest of 200 villagers and the deaths of 19. The play was written by American playwright Arthur Miller, who was wrongly accused of communism and un-American activities during McCarthyism in the 1950s. Miller wrote the play as an allegory, revealing the political and moral parallels between the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy trials of his own time.

In 1963, Alyque did Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’. At that time they had a big scare in India. In 1961 the Pakistanis were threatening to bomb Bombay. There were skirmishes in Kashmir and the papers were full of news that war was likely to break out between India and Pakistan. There were also other alarming items in the newspapers. About how anyone with a beard on the streets of Delhi was being manhandled and beaten up because he was a Muslim and since he was a Muslim he might have Pakistani leanings. There was a kind of a witch-hunt going on.

It struck Alyque that the witch-hunt happening in India was akin to what Senator McCarthy did in the 1950s to loyal Americans who happened to be communists but owed no allegiance to Russia. The play premiered in New Delhi before Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Indira Gandhi sitting right by his side.

Fun Fact : The morning after the play, some friends of Alyque’s who’d had dinner with Mr. Nehru the previous night told him, “He talked about nothing else but the parallels between the play and what is happening in India. People are getting hysterical and violent.” But most of the sophisticated audience missed the parallel.

The play was supposed to have a total blackout, but since the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru was in attendance for the premiere, they couldn’t stage a blackout, for security reasons. It was the last play he saw.