By IANS,
New Delhi : India is promoting greater cultural interaction with Africa to “renew connections” and underscore the growing importance of Africa on the country’s foreign policy radar, says Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) director general Virendra Gupta.
The ICCR is hosting a mega three-day Africa Festival in the capital May 18-20 featuring five top performing arts troupes from South Africa, Rwanda, Malawi, Tunisia and Nigeria.
“Africa is a priority area for us. The cultural programming in Africa has expanded considerably. India is sending more culture troupes to Africa than in the past and endeavours to get more African performing arts exposed to India have intensified,” Gupta told IANS in an interview.
The last showcase of African culture in India occurred at the India-Africa Forum in early 2008.
“India has witnessed very few African cultural programmes compared to expositions from other countries because of financial constraints. Many African nations cut cost following the global financial meltdown and cultural promotion was the immediate casualty. We were unable to get African troupes to India,” Gupta said.
The ICCR director-general said he had been “concerned about the poor representation of Africa in India”.
“This festival is an opportunity to renew connections in the cultural space to underscore the importance we attach to promoting cultural exchanges with Africa,” he said.
Gupta said: “Africa is very often reduced to a rhetoric but we at ICCR want to go beyond that and create tangible opportunities for a two-way exchange.”
As part of its expansion plan, ICCR has also increased the number of scholarships for African students.
“Currently, 500 African students are studying in various universities across the country under exchange programmes,” he said.
The nodal culture body has also initiated “several new schemes designed to set up linkages with foreign universities that include Africa.”
“One of them is the New Academic Visitors’ Programme for study visits by Indian scholars, fellows and junior fellowships for overseas research. Indian scholars can avail of this scheme to study Africa and its culture,” Gupta said.
The ICCR is also planning to set up chairs in Indian studies in universities in South Africa and Nigeria.
“We are talking to some universities. The chairs will facilitate studies in Indian development economics, history, political science, current and post-Independence developments,” he said.
The ICCR is also increasing its footprints in Africa.
“We are setting up ICCR cells in Tanzania and Nigeria in 2010. The body is also in the process of activating two of its existing centres in Johannesburg and Durban and making them fully operational. At the moment, the facilities at the two centres in South Africa are limited,” Gupta said.
Asked about his wishlist, Gupta said: “I would like to see the private sector join hands with the government to support these exchanges.”
“At the government level, you can only scratch the surface. But the corporate organisations can take up the cultural and educational exchange programmes as their CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives to move opinions at the grassroots,” he said.
(Madhusree Chatterjee can be contacted at [email protected])