Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Building Cultural Bridges between India and Australia

By Raj Natarajan

When I left India to migrate to Australia 32 years back, one of my biggest worries was not whether I would find a suitable job or find a reasonable accommodation but whether my children would lose the cultural links with our mother land, India.

I think every Indian migrant, probably, goes through similar dilemma before migrating to a western country including Australia. It took me a few months after my arrival in Sydney to find out that Indian culture is alive and well here in Sydney, in particular and Australia in general. A visit, with my family, to Sri Venkateswara Temple at Helensburg just outside of Sydney Metro started easing my worries about losing our cultural links.

Thereafter we found out that there are many more temples like Sri Mandir in Auburn, Mukti Gupteswar Temple in Minto. Many more temples, gurudwaras and other places of worship have sprung up in Sydney and Melbourne in the last 30 years and at the last count, I understand that there are 52 temples in Sydney and similar numbers in all major cities of Australia.

I can see that Indian migrants have changed the landscape of Sydney and Melbourne, in a positive way, in the last three decades. As per the last census, Hinduism is the fastest growing religion in Australia.

These days you can see saris, selvar kameez and kurtas not only in various Indian functions in the weekend but also in offices and doctors’ surgeries.  Many of my doctor friends wear Indian sari to medical and other professional conferences. Now if you look at the spread of science of Yoga, there were only a few Yoga schools here and there in Sydney and Melbourne in the 1990s and now every suburb has one or two Yoga schools and meditation classes. Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi’s proclamation at the United Nations, 5 years back, that 21^st June be celebrated as International Yoga Day every year has given a new impetus to the Yoga movement all over the World including Australia.

The other big change I have noticed since my arrival in Australia in 1988 is the growing love for Indian cuisine. 25 years back I used to go in search of an Indian Restaurant but now, for example in Eastwood, the place where I live in Sydney, I can count half a dozen Indian Restaurants in a 5 kilometre radius. Local Aussies have taken to Indian food like duck to water.

Probably the biggest Indian ingredient in the Australian cultural melting pot is Bollywood. There isn’t an Australian girl who does not love Bollywood dances and Bollywood dance classes are helping girls and even boys of all races to master the moves of Deepika or Kareena or Aishwarya or Shah Rukh. Same can be said about the Indian classical dance classes teaching Bharathanatyam or Kuchipudi or Manipuri or Kathak. One of my friends from India who came on a visit to Sydney remarked that there are more Indian dance schools in Sydney than in Chennai or Bengaluru and his words may not be very far from truth.

Also all Bollywood and South Indian films are being released in major cities of Australia at the same time as they are released in India and if you go to a movie theatre showing a Bollywood film, you will see not just people of Indian origin but a wide variety of people from all races and ethnicities. Sometimes I wonder whether Cricket and Bollywood have brought the peoples of India and Australia closer than any initiative by the two governments!

Spread of Indian Culture in Australia has been phenomenal in the last three decades and people who have migrated from India are not missing anything in terms of their exposure to Indian culture, Indian food or yoga. Swami Vivekananda once wrote –“Spider weaves its web where the great Caesars ruled but if there is any country in the World where people still come to account for their Karma, it is India.” Indian culture is time tested and has withstood the onslaught of colonial rule and other conquerors from outside and continues to flourish because it has been built on an unshakeable foundation and evolved over a period of 2,500 years.

Many years back Indian Government recognised the importance of spreading the Indian Culture outside of India and established Indian Council for Cultural relations and Dr. Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, Member of Parliament (RS) is the current President of Indian Council for Cultural Relations which is generally known as ICCR. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India, involved in India’s external cultural relations, through cultural exchange with other countries and their peoples. It was founded on 9 April 1950 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the first Education Minister of independent India. The ICCR Headquarters are situated in Azad Bhavan, I.P. Estate, New Delhi, with regional offices in all the major cities of India as well as over 20 branches overseas.

The Council fulfils its mandate of cultural diplomacy through a broad range of activities. In addition to organising cultural festivals in India and overseas, the ICCR financially supports a number of cultural institutions across India, and sponsors individual performers in dance, music, photography, theatre, and the visual arts. It also administers the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding, established by the Government of India in 1965, whose last award was in 2009

Dr. Sahasrabuddhe was on a visit to Australia to take part in the Indian Republic Day celebrations in Canberra and as first port of call on his arrival in Sydney, he interacted with a cross section of the Indian Community at the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre (SVCC) which is part of the offices of the Consulate General of India in Sydney. Dr. Sahasrabuddhe says that main function of the ICCR is to enhance India’s cultural links with other friendly countries which he calls as “soft power”.  Dr. Sahasrabuddhe further added soft power influences the perception and thought process of the peoples around the World about India and in the process India has become a “Super Soft Power”.  Dr. Sahasrabuddhe adds that we are in a global World and soft power fosters the recognition of Indian values in all parts of the World and the World expects India to take on the leadership role and spread its value systems to find answers to issues and problems the World is facing today.

Dr. Sahasrabuddhe outlined the new initiative called “Understanding India”and he says thanks to the Democratic values of India and Bollywood, understanding the values of India is growing around the World and he asks people of Indian origin living outside India (NRIs) to help ICCR to spread this message through media outlets and corporate initiatives. He says that India is ranked 26^th   in the World in attracting foreign students to study in India and 3^rd in sending students overseas to study and Dr. Sahasrabuddhe asks why not work towards achieving a balance in sending and receiving students to and from India by promoting India as the preferred destination for higher studies. Here Indian origin teachers, he says, living in Australia can make a difference.

Finally Dr. Sahasrabuddhe said that he considers every NRI as a cultural ambassador of India and they play a critical role in spreading Indian values and culture around the World and further reiterated that Indian Australians who continue to have emotional links with India must help spreading awareness about greatness of India and its cultural values in Australia. While Dr. Sahasrabuddhe has arrived in Australia to celebrate Indian Republic Day in Canberra, he will also be a part of Australia Day celebrations, what a happy coincidence.