Sacred Spaces and Contested Identities in Ronnie Govender’s “Beyond Calvary”

Abstract

This article engages with the theme of contested identities and sacred spaces in Ronnie Govender’s debut play, “Beyond Calvary”. The tension between Hinduism and Christianity is explored within the context of 1960s South Africa, which saw the destruction of vibrant communities due to racial segregation, and a wave of forceful conversion campaigns by Christian missionaries that exploited the vulnerability and precarity of displaced subalterns. The antagonism of the new Christian converts towards their Hindu brethren was as despicable as white aversion towards black people. The crux of the play is formed by the Hindu–Christian conflict depicted between the key protagonists, Linda and Prabhu. The play exposes occidental blindness, prejudice, and arrogance. Govender points to a spiritual sensibility that experiences the world in different ways in order to appreciate the range of sacred spaces that characterised the early narratives of the indentured sugar slaves. The play imperceptibly moves “other” modes of thought, prayer, and sacrosanctity into the public space in order to assert the legitimacy of all modes of living and thinking. Gods, homes, and hetero-patriarchal politics are expertly drawn in the play, giving way to issues of social concern which open out to matters of class, gender, and cultural identity. The article will draw congruences with Agnes Sam’s short story “Jesus Is Indian” and Omar Badsha’s resistance photography, which disrupts dominant occidental/settler discourses in apartheid South Africa.

Keywords:

• “Beyond Calvary”
• Ronnie Govender
• theatre
• sacred spaces
• dramatic criticism

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge funding received from the National Research Foundation and the University of the Western Cape's University Capacity Development Grant (Research).