UNESCO IN INDIA : CULTURE" BY
 BHASKAR CHOSE
 

UNESCO's activities in the field of culture have been low- profile, and, indeed, at times muted, almost self-effacing, but they have always been in areas where they have touched the well-springs of our cultural perception and vitality, and thus enriched those who were involved.

One, of die earliest, projects undertaken by the National Commission for UNESCO was on Gandhian Ideology in 1949-50. A major seminar was held in New Delhi in 1952 on the subject "Gandhian Ideology and the Resolution of National and International Tensions and Conflicts", which considered the various aspects of what was then UNESCO's central problem, namely how the crusade for peace could and should be carried out in the minds of men. Just seven years after the end of World War II it was understandably a prime concern that the new peace should be secured, and that the horrors of war never allowed to ravage humankind again. It was equally an area of special concern for India, having emerged only a few years before from the trauma of partition, and the riots that accompanied it, and from the shock of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Another major project was the establishment of the first public library under UNESCO's Public Library Project, the Delhi Public Library, in 1951. This has now grown into a network of branches throughout the city which cater to thousands of readers. It is a unique institution, and it serves a most valuable purpose in the city.

One notices a very clear transition in UNESCO's activities in India from those early days through the following decades to the closing years of this century, and this transition

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speaks eloquently of UNESCO's concern to support the country's growing awareness of its awn many-splendoured cultural traditions in the new heady atmosphere of freedom,, "We look on the world with calm and tranquil eyes", said pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in his historic speech on the night of 14 August 1947, minutes before India became free at the stroke of the midnight hour., and this embodied the new nation's approach as much in the cultural sphere as in others. It was similar to Mahatma Gandhi's famous comment: "I do not want my house to be walled in on all. sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any

It was in the spirit of what these two great leaders had said that India participated in some major projects during the late fifties and early sixties which were supported by UNESCO. One such was the Indo-US Bilateral Project to Promote Mutual Understanding Between the Two Peoples, adopted in 1958, which consisted of the National Commissions of the two countries convening groups of scholars to identify the traditional values animating the lives, of the respective peoples and then producing working papers on the findings. Dr.Ralph Henry prepared a working paper on `Traditional Values in American Life' and Dr. Sudhakar Chattopadhyaya prepared one on `Traditional Values in Indian Life'. These were then presented to the counterparts in 1960 (US) and 1961 (India).

Again, carrying forward the presentation of Indian culture and its values to the US and learning in turn about US culture and values, a series of five regional seminars were, held during 1962-1963 under UNESCO auspices, with different universities playing host to these seminars.

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As a new nation, India eagerly participated in a major UNESCO project which helped the mission to take India's rich and complex culture to the world, and receive in turn the abundance of richness in the cultures of other countries. This was the East-West Major Project, which sought to bring the cultures of the West and East closer together, to create greater understanding and appreciation. An international conference with this aim was held in Calcutta in 1961., inaugurated by the then Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and attended by distinguished scholars from All over the world. It made a significant contribution to the objectives of the East-West project and pleaded for the setting up of research institutes to carry forward work in this field.

This was precisely what. UNESCO had aimed to do. In 1960 it adopted a programme for the creation of an international network of research institutions devoting themselves to establishing long term research projects for a more intimate mutual. knowledge and appreciation of Eastern and Western civilizations. These institutions, known as the Associated Institutions for the Study and Presentation of Cultural Values, would, by coordinated programmes of preparing and bringing out scholarly works and publications, pursue the study of civilizations in a broad geographical framework, and also study various cultures with reference to the way they are experienced by those who participate in them. The Research Council for Regional Cultural Studies set up in the India International Centre, New Delhi, in 1961 under the auspices of UNESCO was one of these institutes, During the sixties the Council took up a number of relevant studies with UNESCO support. Some of the subjects covered by the Council were: Attitude Towards Work, Technology, and Modernization; Images and International Understanding; Tradition of Non-Violence in the East and West;

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Eastern Students as Culture Carriers; Industrialization and Social Change and Science and Technology in Traditional and Modem Oriental Civilizations. The Council also brought out a Director), of Research Institutions in Southeast Asia.

The sixties saw a broadening of the areas of cultural activity that UNESCO supported: preservation of monuments, such as the Sri Ranganathaswami Temple, Srirangam (1966-68), conservation of paintings, metal and sum at the National Museum, New Delhi (1967-68), help in setting up an Asian Theatre, Institute (1961) and later for a seminar held on the, occasion of an Asian Theatre Festival am Seminar organized jointly by the, Bharatiya Natya Sangh, the International Theatre Institute and the Ministry of Education (1966). UNESCO helped to set up the National Book Trust, and then provided support for the National Book Fair they organized in Bombay in 1966; there was support for library studies (1960), the conservation and microfilming of paintings, an objects, important documents and books (1965) and seminars on the development of museums (1966).

Together with the Ford Foundation UNESCO supported the establishment of the Film Institute of India, Pune, in 1967, later to become the Film and Television Institute of India.

It would be, true to say that the spreading of UNESCO support to a variety of cultural activities was not merely on account of UNESCO's own interests but more because of the requests made by other agencies as the activities in the cultural field began to burgeon. The seventies saw more of this, particularly in specialised fields; one such was a project on Buddhist Art (1969-1973) coordinated by the department of Ancient History, Culture, and Archaeology, University of Allahabad, with the Assistance of the Professor Nihar Ranjan Ray.

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Another was a project to preserve the wall paintings of Ajanta (1975- 76). UNESCO supported a project, significant both in its size and the very specialised nature of its subject matter, Was the international Conference organised by the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai, on The Role of Music and the Performing Arts in the Preservation and Presentation of Historical Monuments and Sites (1979).

A very large project, involving $197,000 was sanctioned to support the establishment of a pilot film archives to fund travels abroad to study foreign film archives and to locate Indian films abroad, and, for a seminar on the subject of film archives: this was organized by the National Film Archives of India, Pune, in 1983. Additional support was given 1984.

The Centre for Cultural Resources and Training, (CCRT) New Delhi entered into a close relationship with UNESCO in these years, with a training workshop in 1984, the preparation of a cultural kit for the Festival of Asia and the Pacific in 1986, and a study on Traditional Motifs and Pictographs -- the source of Sign Language in India, I also in 1986.

There were other agencies which benefited from UNESCO support, such as the National Research Laboratory for Conservation of Cultural Property (NRLCC), National Council of Science Museums, but the eighties will be remembered for one historic event, or , more correctly, several historic events which formed part of a major milestone in India's cultural history. This was the entry into the, UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites of the Taj Mahal (1983); Agra Fort (1983); Ajanta Caves (1983); Ellora Caves (1983); Sun Temple of Konarak (1984); Mahabalipuram Group of Monuments (1984); Manas Wildlife Sanctuary (1985); Kaziranga National Park (1985); Hampi (1986); Goa Churches and Convents (1986);

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Khajuraho Monuments (1986); Fatehpur Sikri (1986); the Elephanta Caves, Mumbai (1987); Brihadeeswara Temple, Thanjavur(1987); Nanda Devi National Park (1988); Sanchi (1989); Qutab Minar (19 ); and Humayun's Tomb (19 ).

In the last five or six years them was a brief, if significant and valuable return to the early interaction of different cultures. The major project Integral Study of the Silk Roads came to India, first as the ship tracing the sea route to China stopped in Goa and Madras on its way east, but later in a more substantial manner when the International Consultative Committee for the Soil Roads met in Now Delhi in 1992 to take stock of the project and decide on the future courses of action. The meeting brought up a rich crop of recommenda- tions covering a broad range of the project's activities including festivals, publications, expeditions and use of the media.

The project came to India again when the Roads of Dialogue, portion which traced the Buddhist Route went through India, to end in Nepal.

These last years have also mu the consolidation of the close support UNESCO has been giving to the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). The project on Strengthening of the National Facility for Interactive Multimedia Documentation of Cultural Resources involves UNESCO, UNDP and the IGNCA in what is certainly one of the most significant activities in the cultural field today.

New ground has been broken by the massive Japanese Funds-in-Trust project being administered by UNESCO to conserve and preserve the Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi and Satdhara. This is the biggest project of its kind and work has been taken up in real earnest..

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Two major international Conferences were held in New Delhi in 1995, with UNESCO's active support. One was on Culture and Sustainable Development, and the other on Stone Conservation. me first was to provide inputs to the UNESCO World Commission on Culture, and Development, and the second focused attention on the urgent need to safeguard the monuments at Konarak, and the need to have a special unit in the Archaeological Survey of India to look after the World Heritage monuments.

One, observation needs to be made at this point. This relates to the seeming lack of balance between active programmes such as training programmes, supply of equipment or experts for a project, on the one hand, and passive programmes like seminars and conferences. The fact is that at all times one nook to took at benefits which accrue in holistic terms, and there can be no doubt that seminars and conferences play a most crucial role in sensitising participants, and through them all those that the participants interact with later, to issues and ideas, to concepts and now techniques. The process of cultural development is a process of growth and change, and in this the exchange of ideas is the most vital component. Over the years the various seminars and conferences that UNESCO has supported have undoubtedly played a seminal part in developing ideas and awareness in large numbers of those who are active in the relevant fields. One cannot therefore minimise their importance.

The shift from support and encouragement for projects which brought cultures together, which forged greater understanding and appreciation, through the sixties and seventies to a variety of projects at times appears, one has to admit to lack direction; support has in some cases been ad hoc, given to belated projects not all of which seem to serve any defined purpose. It is true that a great portion of this is because of active lobbying for

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support by a large number of agencies not all of which are doing, useful work, but having, said that one has also to say that there was a certain lack of a, coherent policy, even an. awareness of where all this fitted into the total picture of human development.

The Commission on Culture and Development has now given work in this field a sharp focus which is going to hold good for a long time to come. In its report *Our Creative Diversity", the Commission states what can be, in a very real sense, "the new perspective that will now inform activities in this field": People am not self- contained atoms; they work together, co-operate, compete and interact in many ways. It is culture that connects them with one another and makes the development of the individual possible. Similarly, it is culture that defines how people relate to nature and their physical environment, to the earth and to the cosmos, and through which we express our attitudes to and beliefs in other forms of life, both animal and plant. It is in this sense that all forms of development, including human development, are determined by cultural factors... Culture is not a means to material progress: it is the. end and aim of `development' seen as the flourishing of human existence in all its forms and as a whole.1 The agenda recommended. by the Commission calls on UNESCO to "launch an international research and action programme on the links between culture and development, focusing on:

(a) Interactions between cultures, cultural values and development processes that make up the contemporary dynamics of culture change;

(b) Cultural indicators, including a systematic collection of information on violations of cultural rights; and

10 our Creative Diversity (Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development) (Paris: UNESCO, 1995), p.24.

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(c) Nature and causes of ethnic conflicts.2

This overall focus would have the virtue of giving a direction to the support that UNESCO gives to the variety of cultural activities, but at the same time it would be a pity if the mandate became unnecessarily restrictive. The key hem seems to lie in the policy perspectives that the country gives itself, and in this if the national policy conforms, however generally, to the objectives set out by the Commission on Culture and. Development, then the chances of there, being areas of divergent interest would be remote.

It has to be admitted that the development of society, for which so much is being spent, aims at ultimately lasting value all round. Historian Paul Kennedy, says, "The most important influence on a nation's responsiveness to change probably is its social attitudes, religious beliefs and culture. Students of past civilizations that failed to adjust to the challenge of modernization point, in example after example, to the obstacles which hindered new developments: a distaste for industry and manufacture, a Mandarin suspicion of trade and. enterprise, an ideological or religious opposition to Western, capitalist mores, power structures which favoured courtiers, the bureaucracy, the military, the church and legal and taxation systems (or even outright plunder) that discriminated against entrepreneurs and in favour of officeholders".3 He is referring to obstacles which are cultural in nature, and it is for this mason that development has to take these factors into consideration and agencies which are endeavouring to create a greater awareness about and sensitivity to cultural values

2 Ibid., p.272.

3 Preparing for the Twenty First Century, p. 16. 156

and traditions need equally to be aware of the nature of some traditions. It is in this field that UNESCO's support would be of the greatest value.

There have, sadly, been rather too many instances of requests for funding going to UNESCO merely because local funding ha either not been found or has been declined. In too many cases the anxiety, often quite understandable, to get a project going obscures the promoters' vision of what the nature of the project it. A purely local event, or a small, closed training programme needs to be supported from within the country's resources; it surely makes sense to go to UNESCO with such projects as are in consonance with a global dimension, which in some way enhance the awareness of other cultures or cultural practices elsewhere in the world. It is true that the National Commission does keep a watch over the nature of projects but it would perhaps be more appropriate for those making the requests to make the right decision on whether or not their projects are suitable for UNESCO support.

These remarks may give the impression that UNESCO is being seen as a grant-giving agency, which is not the case. The UNESCO support is in many instances not expressed in financial terms -- like the inscription of monuments and sites in the World Heritage list -- and it needs to be more generally accepted that it is a form where the world comes together to consider, among other subjects, matters relating to culture which are of concern to the nations and civilizations of the world. Consequently, them is more reason to look mom carefully at programmes and projects which are being presented at a global level for discussion, or for support, or even merely for information.

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Locking back over the years what stands out is the concern, both in UNESCO and the agencies with which it worked in collaboration in the early Years, to project India's culture to the would and to bring to India the culture of other societies. The Research Council for Regional Cultural Studies did excellent work in the sixties, producing reports and studies of abiding value.

This sustained and major effort is matched by the new vitality found in the project to restore, and preserve the monuments at Sanchi and Satdhara, and the attention drawn to the urgent need to preserve monuments in the World Heritage list and in particular the monuments at Koran. It speaks of the concern now brought into sharp focus by the World Commission on Culture and Development, that culture no longer be regarded as a sort of precious, esoteric activity to be encouraged only when possible but as central to the very, process of living, and hence to the effort to reshape and improve the quality of life.

It may take time for all countries to accept such an approach. The World Commission admits this, and points out that only two developed countries, Sweden and the Netherlands, have accepted and implemented this approach. The World Summit on Culture and Development - which the Commission strongly recommends be held in the next five years - will give the process a greater impetus. Meanwhile it is for the policymakers in the country to build the, approach into the basic planning process, so that the cultural dimension finds a central place, in the development plans being formulated; this will be in harmony with the priorities that UNESCO will formulate in the next few yew and will accord to the development of different aspects of, the many cultures in the country the importance it warrants.