• News
  • 'The East has been deeply influenced by India'
This story is from August 12, 2011

'The East has been deeply influenced by India'

The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) has opened a centre in the South Korean capital Seoul and set up a chair of Sanskrit at the Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University in Cambodia. These initiatives are part of the Indian government's 'Look East' policy. ICCR president talked with Shobhan Saxena about India's growing soft power and need for more engagement with countries in our extended neighbourhood : Karan Singh
'The East has been deeply influenced by India'
The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) has opened a centre in the South Korean capital Seoul and set up a chair of Sanskrit at the Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University in Cambodia. These initiatives are part of the Indian government's 'Look East' policy. ICCR president talked with Shobhan Saxena about India's growing soft power and need for more engagement with countries in our extended neighbourhood : Karan Singh
Why is India suddenly promoting cultural ties with East Asian countries?
Till recently we have had very sparse representation in the region.
So i decided that we should "Look East" as part of the government of India's policy. In the last six years, i've opened nine cultural centres - Kabul, Kathmandu, Thimphu, Dhaka, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Beijing, Tokyo and now Seoul. With the West we have a lot of people coming and going, but we don't have the same ties with East Asian nations. Secondly, the East has been so deeply influenced by India for thousands of years. Buddhism was a great influence. Angkor Wat is surely the most extraordinary place of worship in the world.
So i thought let's renew our cultural relations with these countries. Let's pick up the threads which had snapped because of centuries of colonial domination. We used to have flourishing trade with these countries. But after the Muslim invasion and colonial domination, our ties with the East were very much destroyed. So to renew our ties we've decided to open these cultural centres.
Of late, Indian foreign policy has been more focus-sed on the West?
I'm trying to make up for it. We have been very Euro-centric and America-centric but it's important now that we take a more balanced view. China particularly for example. Maybe i'm compensating for it. Indian foreign policy is also beginning to look East slightly more than it was earlier.
Is China a factor in this?
Economically and culturally both. The great structures are all Indian - the Borobodur, Angkor Wat - but there is a lot of Chinese influence on their language, food and way of life. However, we are not really in competition with China there. We are developing our centres, the Chinese are doing their own thing. They are setting up 100 Confucius centres around the world ostensibly to teach Chinese but probably they also double up as cultural centres.

Is there any assessment of India's soft power?
By definition soft power is unquantifiable. When you have trade you know so many millions of dollars, so many billions of dollars, so much exports and imports. But with soft power, if i have a beautiful Bharatanatyam performance in Kuala Lumpur, there is no way of assessing how much influence it has. But, i think, cumulatively there is an improvement. If nothing else there is a reviving of the ancient ties between India and these countries.
Are there any plans for Iran?
We are hoping to open a centre there. We are negotiating with them. They have a cultural centre here and it's not fair that we don't have a centre there. We don't have many centres in West Asia though we have opened one in Cairo. We can do music and academic programmes in these countries if they have a problem with our dances. In fact, we also want to open a cultural centre in Pakistan. But so far they have not agreed. That's the only country in Saarc where we don't have a centre. We are going to open one in Maldives.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA