Culture as an Instrument of Diplomacy

Author(s): Pavan K. Varma

Source: Indian Foreign Affairs Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2 (April-June, 2008), pp. 68-74
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Indian Foreign Affairs Journal Vol. 3, No. 2, April-June 2008, 68-74

Culture as an Instrument of Diplomacy

Pavan K. Varma

The coinage "cultural diplomacy" is fairly new but if we think back, this
idea is as old as history. All accounts of our past show how cultural
negotiations - the gifting of gems and jewellery, art objects and artefacts,
the sharing of court poets, dancers, musicians, painters, sculptors, even
cooks, craftspeople, weavers and so on, presenting rare plants and animals
of one's country to another, are records of how political issues have been
resolved, or at least restrained, with help from things which are part of the
cultural composite of a nation. Trade opened new avenues of approach to
each other. Markets opened up and aided this process. All exchanges,
economic and otherwise, closed in distances and brought communities
together. They cemented a friendship that had beneficial long-term effects.
This was cultural diplomacy at play.
Now we are looking afresh at this idea because its value is not lost to
us. We know that governments are made up of people, and they work for
and with the people. Any policy matter, therefore, is intricately joined at the
core with people. Culture takes root in people directly, because all of us
understand and connect to matters of culture - music, dance, drama, food,
dress, films etc. The list is inexhaustible. We may or may not make sense
of foreign policy, but a song touches us directly even if the words make no
sense. Images from a film or a play evoke memories in us instantly. They
mirror our lives, our experiences. They force us to face the reality that,
ultimately, we are essentially the same, subjects to the same emotions, feelings
and desires. No matter how many borders separate us, no matter how
many boundaries we have between us, there are many indivisible aspects
that connect us.

Cultural activity is very often a part of our daily lives. But when it is
consciously given a shape, it succeeds in spreading those aspects of ourselves
that truly and essentially characterise us as a community and as a nation.

The author is Director General, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi.

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 Culture as an Instrument of Diplomacy 69

Sharing, sensitivity and respect for our own culture, and for those of others,
forms the core of cultural diplomacy. This thought also forms the core of
Indian philosophy - all that is noble must be allowed to flow in. This belief
allows a continuous interaction between cultures, one that is constructive
and lays the foundation for an onward journey between one human being
and another, cutting across borders and boundaries, moving beyond barriers
and boardrooms.

When we listen to someone singing, we go through a range of emotions.

The same happens whether we watch a dance performance or a play or look
at a painting. In case the lyrics remain foreign, it is the music which touches
us, which connects us to the singer. If the words make sense, they transport
us to feelings above the ordinary. For example, a Sufi song by Abida Parveen
lifts us up to feelings completely removed from those of land and boundaries.
There is, at that moment, no thought of which country she comes from. We
connect instantly to the Great One and His is the spirit that fills us. Even in
the case of a modern rock performance, where the sentiments may be far
removed from a spiritual experience, and the lyrics may seem to resonate
with modern angst, we react to the words which probably force us to face
the truth of a lonely, rootless, deprived life. Even to those of us who may not
take well to modern music, we never dismiss a song or a singer because of
her or his nationality, rather we do so on the grounds that the words are too
depressing, or the music too loud, and so on.

The same holds true for any of the art forms. A play, written in one
country and re-adapted in another, connects at a level deeper than the verbal.
The Ramayana is one epic, but its story is told with variations by different
nations. The Malaysian version has numerous shades which may not be
seen in the Indonesian one. In spite of its shades, it remains the story of the
victory of good over evil, a universal narrative that would relate across the
globe. Shakespeare's plays, whether reinterpreted in Mizoram or made into
films - such as Ran in Japanese or Maqbool and Omkara in Hindi - play
again upon universal themes which we respond to as people, not as Indians
or people of other nationalities. We look to such means of cultural sharing
with gratitude. Such exchanges bring us far closer to each other than other
logical, well-thought arguments ever can.

Today, we have once again become aware of the importance of cultural

diplomacy. This consciousness can be seen across the globe. Institutes of
cultural diplomacy have come up, which impart training for what is seen as

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70 Pavan K. Varma

an indispensable subject of study and practice today. The British Foreign

Secretary now presides over a board on cultural diplomacy. The British
Council and British Broad Casting (BBC) are two of its other participants.
Alliance Française, the cultural extension of the Government of France,
much like the British Council and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations
(ICCR), is being given renewed importance wherever it exists. Even today,
Russia has over eighty active cultural centres in various parts of the world,
five of them in India; the erstwhile Soviet Union maintained over 150 such
centres abroad. Notably, the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, stated
in great detail in her testimony to the Senate on the eve of her confirmation
to the post that her focus is on the "soft power" of America, and how it
could be leveraged in the interests of that country. According to a recent
edition of Newsweek , China is the latest entrant to this field. China's focus
on cultural diplomacy will be aggressive; by 2010, it intends to spend $10
billion, an astounding amount, to set up one hundred centres abroad. These
centres, in keeping with its spirit of antiquity and history, will be named,
interestingly enough, after Confucius.

The challenge for India, in the face of such figures, is great. We are
emerging slowly as an important face in the areas of politics, economics
and the military. In the field of culture, however, we have always been a
superpower, given our civilisational depth and antiquity. It was this realisation
of our cultural force that led to the conceptualisation and creation of the
ICCR as far back as 1950. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad founded the institution,
and his vision was fully shared by Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister.
India stands today at the threshold of being accepted as a new global cultural
ambassador, a perception no doubt modulated by the fact that we are
emerging as a significant global power in other arenas as well. The interest
in what we have to offer culturally has always been there, but today it is
seen in a new light. The world wants to know what makes us tick; they
want to study our history and our roots; they wish to understand our age-
old tradition and wisdom; and they want to understand what makes us
respect and retain our diversity. Perhaps, the most important question they
have is how such a multi-layered country, with such a large number of the
poor, has managed to become the world's largest democracy, and is now
poised to become a major economic power. The world wants, in short, to
understand India's past, not only for its antiquity, but to link that heritage to
the changes of the present and the promise of the future.

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 Culture as an Instrument of Diplomacy 71

In this scenario, India has an opportunity to project its strengths. We

are a democratic and secular nation; we are a plural society that respects
and draws sustenance from its diversity; we have a rich and ancient heritage;
we are a multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-ethnic people who have
managed to preserve our individual essence and national character. Such
strengths of our country are reflected in our foreign policy objectives and
further reinforced through our diplomacy. Politics and culture are
complementary, two sides of the same coin. In fact, cultural diplomacy
itself is an intensely political matter, while politics cannot do without cultural
interventions. The practice of culture within a country, and by extension
the practice of sharing cultures across borders, helps to lay the foundations
of and reinforce political diplomacy.

In step with its mandate of projecting our culture abroad, the ICCR has
expanded its reach over the years since it was set up. Its annual budget
today is over Rs. 6 billion; in 1950 this figure was Rs. 100,000! The budget
is allocated carefully and effectively to allow for as many cultural exchanges
as possible. In fact, ICCR has spent more than they were allotted. The
scope for further expansion is immense; the Standing Committee on External
Affairs has for years been urging ICCR to increase its activities manifold.
The ICCR now has its own website, launched in 2005, and this gives easy
access to the full range of our activities.

The ICCR already runs twenty cultural centres abroad and supports
twenty-four Chairs of Indian Studies in universities arouiid the world. Two
centres were recently inaugurated in Kabul and Kathmandu. There are plans
to open more of them, in Washington, Dhaka, Paris, Tokyo, Bangkok, West
Asia and elsewhere. In August 2005, during his official visit to Afghanistan,
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced 500 scholarships for Afghan
students to pursue undergraduate and postgraduate studies in India. The
ICCR has been mandated to administer this special scheme, which includes
courses in the Arts, Sciences, Engineering, Commerce, Business
Administration and Law. The response to this offer has been overwhelming.
The centre in Kabul will help to service these scholarships. The ICCR
currently offers 1200 scholarships every year to foreign students to pursue
undergraduate, postgraduate and Ph.D. courses in India. The grant of
scholarships to Afghan students, which is in addition to the general
scholarships already offered by the ICCR, is a positive step toward
strengthening and promoting Indian cultural ties with other nations.

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72 Pavan K. Varma

Overall, the ICCR has increased the pace of its activities tremendously.
This can be seen in the number of activities that have been organised both
in India and abroad. In February 2006, a very successful conference,
"Continents of Creation: Legacy, Identity, Assertion", was held in New Delhi
and Neemrana. This brought together forty-five writers from twenty countries
of Africa and Asia to converse on matters of international consequence that
impact us all today.

In 2007, which marked the sixtieth anniversary of India's independence,

the ICCR served as the nodal agency for two major Festivals of India, one
at Brussels, held over four months from October 2006 to January 2007,
and another year-long extravaganza in Japan from December 2006 to
December 2007. The year 2007 also saw India take over the Chair of the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). To celebrate
this honour and to reiterate the significance of the Association and its goals,
the SAARC Summit was held in April 2007 and an Inter-Sessional SAARC
Council of Ministers Meeting in December 2007 in New Delhi. While a
carefully thought-out programme of the best of music and dance in the
SAARC countries was choreographed to coincide with the Summit in April,
a full-fledged SAARC Cultural Festival, as mandated by the Summit, was
organised in December 2007 during the twenty-ninth session of the Ministers
Meeting. In addition to music and dance, this encompassed a variety of
other cultural programmes in areas such as painting, theatre, folklore, fashion
and food. Both the Summit and the Meeting saw the top leaders of the
SAARC nations in attendance. The cultural quotient of the Summit
strengthened its political one by taking the concept and meaning of SAARC
to the masses. The exchanges between the artists of the member-nations
served to highlight their common civilisational heritage while sensitively
presenting the fine differences which marked them as individuals. In addition,
the Council organised numerous other cultural events and exchanges, both
in India and abroad, with Indian and international artists. This ensured a
continuous sharing and interaction between the people and countries, a slow
but steady building of awareness and understanding of the variety that
constitutes the world. New venues were considered for many of the
programmes in order to move out of established locations and reach out to
newer audiences. The public participation we saw as a result was tremendous
and was a definite sign that culture is a potent force to forge stronger
connections across the globe.

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 Culture as an Instrument of Diplomacy 73

On the home turf, the Council embarked on essential renovations to its

Azad Bhavan building. While a new conference room and a multi-purpose
hall have enabled many group activities and exchanges between students
and artists, the soon-to-be-inaugurated auditorium will instantly provide an
in-house space for slightly larger cultural programmes. New regional centres
were opened in Pune and Varanasi. We are also hopeful that ICCR's new
Rabindranath Tagore Centre at Kolkata will be inaugurated this year. In
Mumbai, at Jinnah House, plans are underway to set up a South Asian
Centre for Arts and Culture which will become a vibrant focus for south
asian cultural activities - art, music, theatre, films, dance etc. After all, it is

we in India who share Urdu with Pakistan, Nepali with Nepal, Bangla with
Bangladesh, Tamil with Sri Lanka and English with the rest of the world!
Each such little effort has added to the larger goal that makes the ICCR's
mandate, and we are taking this forward with renewed energies in 2008.
Indians are specially blessed as model cultural ambassadors. The
composition of our country is such that we live a cultural medley every
moment of our lives. India is made up of numerous states, each a tiny
nation in itself. We have an array of languages; in most cases, we speak a
different dialect every few kilometres. Communication is an art, one that
most of us begin to learn and appreciate the moment our senses come
alive. We are a multi-religious country. Our respect for the faith that we
subscribe to individually extends to what others practise as well. This
sensitivity and respect for each other's beliefs is enshrined in the Constitution
of the country making us a secular nation. Our legal systems reflect this
double combine very well. They keep the secular nature of the country in
view while at the same time keeping religious sentiments protected as far as
possible.

As Indians, we live a life of convergence and divergence, which

orchestrates beautifully. We share food habits, yet we nurture flavours and
aromas peculiar to ourselves. We share dress codes and yet are aware of
the slight differences which set us apart. Our fabrics are very similar and
yet we are alert to the slight shifts in the regions they come from by that
one* small motif or colour used. Our architecture varies from state to state
and yet the sharing is obvious. Our. places of worship are structured in
ways that we can read our philosophies in them. Hundreds of such examples
are available. And it is these lived instances which record the cultural
negotiations that we are part of every minute as Indians.

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74 Pavan K. Varma

Cultural diplomacy is, therefore, an integral aspect of our vocabulary.

As Indians, we have understood in innate ways that we must retain our
individual traits as well as draw from our community bank. We know that
it is the exchange of "culture" between ourselves that draws us closer and
makes us stronger. We are able to perceive the universal in the individual
precisely, and vice versa, because we live this fact. For us, therefore, as a
nation, to extend this idea to the political front on an international level is
not really a difficult task.

Culture is an enormous source of power. It has the potential to shape,

alter and impact the ideas and opinions of public communities. From a wide
ranging perspective, culture has the capability to resolve tensions and
prejudices - ethnic, religious, communal, national and international. It can
create a climate of tolerance, respect and understanding among nations,
religions and entire regions. It is thus an essential medium for peaceful and
tolerant contact and communication. From a more political point of view,
culture is both a diplomatic tool and a crucial bridge. It leads us to understand
each other with the help of what gives us, to a large extent, our identities.
A theatrical evening, a film show, a painting exhibition, a Qawwali
performance sets the mood for an instant connection between people which
can further lead to other areas of cooperation. Cultural exchanges can take
away the formality which may be seen in an across-the-table negotiation.
The feelings of comfort and ease that cultural interactions can bring will
add to other forms of diplomacy.

The success of cultural diplomacy relies on intercultural dialogue and

mutual respect. It is an active and planned process, unlike what many see
as a random series of events. It is actually a projection of our identities, our
philosophies, our values, the unique personality and essence of a nation, on
an international platform, and the willingness to expose ourselves to cultural
assets of other nations. In its implementation it requires the support and
active involvement of a country's people, its artists, its non-governmental
organisations, corporate entities and all others who give that country its
individual character and mood. Cultural diplomacy cannot be practised in a
vacuum. It must be a multifaceted interaction, one that holds the power to
join each of us to a larger world, one that will teach us respect, appreciation
and sensitivity to ourselves and to others.

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