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Soft Spoken

Soft Spoken
Damon Wayans has a little less fire, but still funny
Wayans, who performs Thursday through Sunday at the Pittsburgh Improv, is thoughtful and soft-spoken when reached by phone at his hotel. The guy who played the thoroughly disgusting wino Anton Jackson on the television sketch comedy " In Living Color " has a novel coming out, titled " Red Hat."

Challenging the Understanding of Soft Power in India

 Challenging the Understanding of Soft Power in India

 

India may have not been a political or economic power, but has for centuries remained a cultural power. Culture represented in its wide range of creative industries, in its built and living heritage and expressions of civilizational identity remains one of the most powerful dividends that will pave the way for people to perceive us, and think of innovative means of having a dialogue with us. Exposition of the cultural dividend can fire the imagination of people around the world young and old to understand us, and be imaginative in the way they can create an opportunity for us and themselves in the new world order.

             Is then Bollywood and Yoga the most important aspect of our Cultural heritage that we need the Government to lend them its support?  The ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations) as the premier body under the ministry of External Affairs responsible to promote cultural diplomacy has through its new Director General  Virendra Gupta has announced its decision to invest in the promotion of these two cultural aspects in its various centers all over the world.

India has a vast index of cultural dividend comprising of her creative and cultural industry. There are those aspects of culture that do not really need the patronage of the government to push the image of India since they have already created a space for themselves in the global markets. Yoga and Bollywood significantly represent those examples.

 The primary role of a government led organization like ICCR is to promote the cultural dimensions of the ancient civilization that have the market but have not got the proper marketing force behind them to push them into the world. About two years ago I had spoken at the Indian Habitat Center under the Fulbright lecture Vidtva series. My lecture was titled Brokering Indian Culture: Perspectives on Cultural Management. The focus of the lecture was strategizing the Indian image abroad using her soft power comprising of her cultural heritage. Although brokering seems to be an odd word it was taken from the book by Dr. Richard Kurin ‘Reflection of a Cultural Broker – A view from the Smithsonian,’ where Kurin looked at the work of a variety of cultural professionals who created products to create the understanding of a nation’s culture for the community at large. I had argued that India really needs to think about what we need to export and then strategize the journey of its capital of cultural heritage to other nations.     Today the common image of the United States for example is about Hollywood, the various pop singers, time square and free society. Not much is known about its great museums, modern dance, Jazz, folk music traditions and national parks.

Routing the image of India beyond exotic of Maharajas, Bollywood, snake charmers and poverty is the need today to carefully export through its soft power represented by its cultural heritage. One must understand that while India is competing and is representing excellence in modern areas of IT, Biotechnology – these are areas which really were cultivated first in the West. On the other hand the variety of our own skills and areas of expertise represented in our cultural industry were first cultivated in our own country and define our seminal innovative and creative nature. These skills and knowledge systems that represent skills and innovations need to be showcased in imaginative and innovative ways so that they not only serve to empower the world image of India, but encourage these living traditions to create a market for themselves in the global economy. 

Today people are eager to learn about India and all her dimensions. The well spread Diaspora hunger for getting educated about the depth of Indian culture. There are funds with government which must be astutely used. Promoting Bollywood and Yoga should be the least of the concerns, there is no need to promote these two entities. Maulana Azad who was instrumental in the establishment of the organization would have expected much more. India’s popular image cannot just be limited to the world seeing Bollywood films, doing Yoga, wearing nose pins and eating Tandoori chicken. Young and old dynamic cultural professionals must have a much more constructive active role in such organizations. This is imperative to provide global strategizing of India’s image that will compliment its recent growing image of a global power.

About the Author

www.navinajafa.com

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