Festival of India: Biggest, longest jamboree of Indian art and culture to open in London

Japakar : ambitious plansIt is called the Festival of India - the biggest, longest, all-round jamboree of Indian art and culture sponsored in the western world. When it opens in London early spring next year, it will occupy virtually all exhibition and performing spaces in the city; its connected activities will span all of 1982 and spill into 1983, and by the time it ends, the British Government is likely to have blown well over 1 million (Rs 1.7 crore) on the show.Although the Festival was mooted nearly three years ago when James Callaghan visited India (the idea was said to have come from the present British High Commissioner in India, Sir John Thompson), Britain was supposed to have taken full responsibility for it with only basic cooperation from Indian museums. No more than half-a-dozen exhibitions were planned - of mostly ancient Indian sculpture, painting, manuscripts, costumes and village life at the most prestigious of British museums - the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum and the Hay-ward Gallery - among others.Then Mrs Gandhi came along and changed the plans. If the British were keen to hold an exhibition of India, then India, she announced, should project its contemporary, scientifically advanced image as well as part of its cultural heritage. Immediately, she turned to her close friend, Pupul Jayakar, formerly chairman of the Handloom and Handicraft Export Corporation (HHEC) to take charge of the Festival; to expand it, and increase Indian participation at all levels. Krishna defeats Kalia, 10th-11th century A.D.With a carte blanche from the prime minister in hand, Mrs Jayakar, who has resumed her unofficial role as doyenne of the cultural establishment since the Congress(I) returned to power, is now keen that the year long Festival should become more than a cultural exposition, it should become a saleable commodity. "I believe these things have two sides to them," she says, "there is the aspect of culture, and there is the aspect of commerce. Many people will call me a Philistine for saying that, but what I am trying to do is to take culture to the marketplace."Expanded Scope: Ever since she was appointed chairman of the high-powered Festival of India Committee last year, Mrs Jayakar, 65, has set about expanding the scope of the Festival to such an extent that the Indian Government's financial commitments have gone up substantially. Besides, her emphasis on commercialising the show has aroused a barrage of criticism. Combined with the commercialisation of the Festival of India, a parallel industry of intrigue in the art and culture world has sprung up in the capital, accompanied by some agonised soul-searching about what is art, what is craft, what should go on show and what should not. In layman's jargon it boils down to who the new blue-eyed boys getting promoted are, who is getting how many free junkets and why, and if the whole exercise isn't in fact another wastefully extravagant effort to promote the Indian image without adequate infrastructure or follow-up capabilitiesThe high-powered committee is made up of bureaucrats (Mir Nasrullah, additional secretary in the Education Ministry, Eric Gonsalves, secretary, External Affairs Ministry and the Commerce Secretary P. K. Kaul among others), theatre and film personalities like Girish Karnad, formerly head of the Film Institute, E. Alkazi and B. V. Karanth, both past heads of the National School of Drama; chairmen of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, the National Book Trust and the Trade Fair Authority as well as assorted all-purpose "experts" like Usha Bhagat, presently attached to the Prime Minister's Secretariat, Martand Singh of the Calico Museum of Textiles and designer Rajeev Sethi. The last two who have been associated with Mrs Jayakar since her heyday at the HHEC are known to be her key advisers in the design and layout of the major exhibitions - yet both have been abroad for the past month amidst the vital stages of the Festival's preparation in India.With Rs 10 lakh in the kitty, the Festival of India Committee must raise at least another Rs 40 lakh from government sources such as the Department of Culture in the Education Ministry, even though conservative estimates are that overall expenditure will touch Rs 1 crore or more by the time the show takes off. Since government-owned corporations such as the HHEC, the Central Cottage Industries Corporation (CCIC), and government-subsidised institutions such as the National Institute of Design, the National Book Trust, and the Lalit Kala Akademi are all involved, bureaucratic nit-picking has already started as to who will pay up for what and why.Shiva in dwarf form, 44th century A.D.The expanded scope of the Festival now includes over two dozen separate exhibitions including one on science and technology being coordinated by Prof M.G.K. Menon for London's Science Museum, one on Indian textiles and ceramics at the Royal College of Art, a season of Indian films at the National Film Theatre and a presentation of Indian books at India House.Air-India will fly out its old and somewhat tacky exhibition of Indian costumes for the Commonwealth Institute, an Indian village -including, as a British handout quaintly points out, "a full-sized traditional bullock-cart"-will be transported, and some 200 Indian performing artistes, including a theatre repertory company, will intermittently entertain English audiences to classical concerts and folk music and dance. The last, says Mrs Jayakar, may include such innovative events as an all-night concert by the Baul singers of Bengal or non-stop eight-hour classical recitals presented in authentic baithak style, though sceptics may wonder how much pleasure an alien audience can derive from endless Baul ballads.Fear: The exhibits, fear the Festival's detractors, may not only be misdirected, they may also be over-exposed. In the case of contemporary Indian art, for instance, the British had organised an exhibition at the Tate Gallery of six great Indian painters, three living and three dead. These were Jamini Roy, Rabindranath Tagore and Amrita Shergill; and M. F. Husain, K. G. Subramanyam and Bhupen Khakar. But contemporary Indian artists were far from satisfied at this meagre representation, so now the Indian committee will hold a parallel exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art featuring the works of 35 contemporary Indian painters. For this, space has had to be booked for two weeks at the rate of 1,000 (Rs 17,000) a week. Says art critic Gita Kapur, who is writing the catalogue and helping select the painters: "If other Indian artistic expressions like traditional crafts and performing artistes can have major representation, then why not contemporary Indian art. Six contemporary artists are not enough."Organisers are consequently worried whether they will be able to manage the expanded number of exhibitions, many of which now fall entirely within the purview of the Indian committee. Says Nirmal J. Singh, a retired career diplomat, who has been appointed coordinating head of the Festival of India Committee: "The first thing to decide is that expansion of plans must stop. A sandstone Lokeshvara, 7th-8th century A.D.We should take on as much as we can handle; and we have enough already. " Yet already there is a good chance that the Trade Fair Authority might be involved in setting up an industrial exhibition. And as other departments join the line for participation, the all-too-familiar scenario that befalls Indian promotions abroad, of late arrivals and shoddy displays, of bureaucratic mismanagement and last-minute paste jobs, may well be repeated.Mrs Jayakar, whose antecedents as an organiser are not to be doubted and who is confident of her business sense ("Being a Gujarati," she says, "I have money in my blood.") realises the many pitfalls ahead. "But the Indian Government would have been criticised if they hadn't participated," she argues, and others agree that had it not, the Festival may have had a typical one-sided western slant similar to the one which infected the huge exhibition on Islam mounted a few years ago in London.Mrs Jayakar says she also realises that her chief problems are going to be to reach large numbers of people, which means that transatlantic and transcontinental audiences will have to be attracted. Equally, she will require a team of top-class managers to sell the show successfully to the western world. She also needs a couple of gimmicks to internationalise the event, to have it explode upon the world as a huge promotional gala, as the Egyptian Tutankhamen Exhibition in New York in 1978 did. "Initially we had thought of an exhibition on the jewels of India but that we realised would be too much of a security risk. Now I hope that the continuous stream of events will create a momentum to excite western audiences outside Britain. But I realise that despite my efforts I could fail."Costly: Meanwhile, the British side are also beset by panic. The Festival's growth to its mammoth proportion means that at least another quarter of a million pounds has to be found while the British Government, having run through the allocations in its Arts Council budget, has turned to private industry to raise the money, the Indians are wondering how best they can recover their costs, at least commercially. Designer Rajeev Sethi, whose two-year-old exhibition Aditi, on traditional crafts associated with the Indian child is also being shown, has produced a list of 300 assorted items, ranging from terracotta toys to footwear that should be produced and packaged for sale along with the exhibitions.Some of the doodads are certainly farfetched, such as cotton quilts stitched with scented thread soaked in sandalwood to be retailed at 100 (Rs 1,700) each. Since the production and packaging costs are budgeted at Rs 28 lakh, the scheme is shuttling back and forth from the Handloom Board to the CCIC, as to who will be its ultimate supporter. Moreover, Sethi's design ideas have come in for some sharp dismissals as being whimsical, hare-brained and commercially calamitous. Says designer Laila Tyabji, who was asked to work with him but refused: "There is absolutely no logic in producing items unless you have an idea of their market and marketability. Frankly, I can't see conservative Englishmen tightening their belts further to splurge on mortars and pestles or stuffed parrots as Valentine gifts. They have no utility value and may be typical of two-minute, throwaway junk that tourists tend to pick up." Adds Jaya Jaitly, design and development consultant to the Gujarat Handloom Corporation: "The majority of Sethi's stuff is whimsical and unsaleable. Moreover, it's priced all wrong. Traditional clay toys that he thinks will take London by storm have a breakage rate of 85 per cent when transported from Bhuj to Ahmedabad."Such being the genuine misgivings on the sales side, the Festival of India may not in fact create the commercial blaze it hopes to. As for its extended activities as a massive cultural exposition on India, it may end up as just another bandwagon for culture-vultures to take a free ride on. Given its meandering content and confusion of priorities at the moment, the Festival of India, could hardly set the Jamuna on fire, let alone the Thames.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 14, 2013 12:23 IST--- ENDS ---

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Festival of India: Biggest, longest jamboree of Indian art and culture to open in London

It is called the Festival of India - the biggest, longest, all-round jamboree of Indian art and culture sponsored in the western world.

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