A debate and subsequently a framework for the creation of a national culture policy, which can create conditions necessary for trans-regional/ethnic empathy and trust, should take off
In India, antagonistic cultural differences are sharply etched on to our political consciousness. The frequent attacks on the communities from the North-East in Delhi, the Biharis in Mumbai and the suspicion with which the Kashmiris are held occasionally — to enumerate a few — offer a massive challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious quest for sabka vishwas (everyone’s trust).
While it is true that “unity in diversity” has long been the guiding leitmotif of our policies on culture, education and federalism, but has it been successful in mending the fractures which plague the Indian society today? As the argument runs, acts of acceptance precede overtures of trust, and acceptance is premised upon true recognition.
The Prime Minister’s project entails, in no small part, a sympathetic appreciation of cultural specificities, which animate politics in religious and ethnic minorities. Observing a ‘Kashmir week’ or a month-long North-Eastern cultural festival in Government-aided institutions across the country will, undoubtedly, reap far greater dividends. However, although we have a Ministry for Culture and a constellation of affiliated research institutes, libraries, archives and cultural bodies, yet India lacks a national cultural policy which can create conditions necessary for trans-regional/ethnic empathy. Such a policy, led by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Human Resource Development in particular, can create an environment for mutual recognition, enhance people-to-people contact and diffuse mistrust.
A national cultural policy implies a planned approach to Government-aided cultural activities, keeping in perspective broader goals which have been debated among the citizens and identified through consensus. The absence of such a policy in the country contrasts sharply with global trends. Virtually every country, including the most diverse ones, have a well-defined cultural outlook.
To comprehend this absence, we need to understand the general suspicion with which terms such as culture, policy, national and Government are held in contemporary India. Particularly so when they appear together in a sentence. In his book, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1943), the American-British poet, TS Eliot, describes culture as constituted by a set of organic “basic structures”, which get transmitted hereditarily and cannot be fabricated.
Unfortunately, in most intellectual discourses, culture is viewed as a disruptive intervention, which is either fictive or imaginary. Academic fervour is expended on hyphenated concepts such as sub-cultures and anti-cultures among other things. Trends in both social media and universities suggest that many maintain a safe distance from everything “cultural” or “national”, except when invited to critique it. It is feared that advocacy of a national cultural policy is anchored to conservatism, parochialism and majoritarianism.
But did India always lack a national cultural outlook? To answer this question, one need not go any further than the Sahitya Akademi, India’s cultural avant garde. Established in 1954, the Akademi seeks to celebrate those elements, which are organic to India, however variegated their expressions might be. “Indian literature is one, but written in many languages”, its motto proclaims.
Bodies like the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (1950), the Sangeet Natak Akademi (1953) and the National School of Drama (1959), some of which were instituted by parliamentary resolutions mooted by India’s first Education Minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, reflected the Government’s official cultural outlook with aplomb.
To the founding fathers, it was clear that promoting elements “organic” to our national identity has to be an integral part of nation-building. The establishment of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) during the Indira Gandhi regime in 1972 stressed the need to introduce national perspectives in historical research, too.
The objectives of ICHR, compiled in March 1972 by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, earmark the need to provide “national direction to an objective and rational presentation and interpretation of history” as one of its priorities.
It is, therefore, ironical that in the past few decades, the loudest opposition to a policy framework on culture has come from academicians and scholars, who have been at the helm of affairs in the institutions mentioned above.
In 2008, an 18-member committee was constituted to draft a policy for modernisation and coordination among Government-aided cultural institutions. As expected, most of the members abstained from the meetings and the proposal was dismissed without a fair trial.
Noted scholar Kapila Vatsyayan was among the dissenters. In 1972, as the deputy education advisor to the Government, she had drafted a report for UNESCO titled, ‘Some Aspects of Cultural Policy in India’. Arguing after Gandhi, the report makes an explicit plea for cultural policy to underscore “fundamental consanguinity and unity of approach to life in India in spite of the seeming heterogeneity.”
This warrants a rhetorical question: Why and since when did the idea of a national cultural outlook become a forbidden subject? Our experience of whatever modicum of planning, which has been made to bear upon cultural activities in India, contradicts their oft-expressed fear. All the aforementioned bodies, without an exception, have promoted India’s cultural plurality in all its richness.
The ICHR, too, as stipulated in its Memorandum of Association, has been striving to promote “popular literature” and support research in “neglected and new” areas. Further, the apprehension that cultural policy may be a garb for promoting unscientific appropriation of the past remains unsubstantiated, too. Many of these institutions have triggered modern movements in arts, literature and research.
But our cultural institutions are plagued by sheer lack of coordination. This often results in effort-duplication and resource wastage. A national policy on culture would lead to greater alignment between institutions, funding agencies and cultural goals. Through concerted institutional efforts and periodic revision of focus areas, retrieval and promotion of diversity will become much more effective.
Further, institutional support for local cultural groups to engage with regionally diverse art forms and a body like the National Cultural Coordination Committee (NCCC) for greater cultural exchange across regions would be extremely useful.
It is about time that the Ministry of Culture furnishes a policy draft for debate. This will go a long way in securing a truly integrated society; one which is not restricted to the code of tolerance but based on the ethics of trust.
(The writer teaches English at the University of Delhi)
