IGNCA told to write tourism pamphlets

NEW DELHI, JUNE 4: The BJP-led Government, which had earlier taken over the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts IGNCA, has now assign...

NEW DELHI, JUNE 4: The BJP-led Government, which had earlier taken over the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts IGNCA, has now assigned a completely different role to the institution, away from research and from the tomes the Centre was publishing on ancient and medieval Indian cultural heritage. It will now work in tandem with the Ministry of Tourism to promote religious tourism 8212; a pet project of the Government. It is expected to work wonders for the tourism industry and bring hordes of international tourists rushing to India.

The IGNCA has to also lend its expertise to sister organisations, like National Museum, National Archives and Archaeological Survey of India, for making them IT savvy. It will also play the role of a coordinator for a number of minor regional archives to help them produce CD-Roms, open websites and do networking with the world.

8220;The IGNCA supposed to be an autonomous body which can decide its own activities will now be doing national liaisoning activity. It will coordinate with its sister organisations for digitisation programmes,8221; says the Government-appointed Member-Secretary, N R Shetty, openly outlining the Government8217;s plans for the 8220;autonomous body8221;.

The first task before the scholars at IGNCA is to become experts in tourism development. The IGNCA, which has a collection of 1.7 lakh manuscripts and an equally large cache of rare materials on ancient and medieval architecture, religion and art, is digging into its reserves for bringing out specialised tourist material on the Buddhist trail. And all for the Ministry of Tourism with which its shares the Minister 8212; Ananth Kumar 8212; who also holds the Culture portfolio.

8220;The entire IGNCA cultural archives have been built with public funds and should be made accessible for public use,8221; insists Shetty. 8220;Their highly-qualified experts can help develop material on the travel of Buddhism from India to the whole of South East and Central Asia. This will attract tourists from Japan and China and rest of Asia.8221;

The idea, of course, emanated from Kumar, who has this bee in the bonnet promotion and development of religious tourism in India. 8220;It is not such a bad idea. India with its great traditions and cultural heritage can build up on educational/religious tours which have not been developed before. The entire material is lying at the IGNCA to be used,8221; a senior official in the Ministry said.

However, these plans have left the scholars at IGNCA cold. They feel it will detract from the rigorous international-level research and documentation work they were engaged in on the textual traditions of ancient and medieval India publishing encyclopaedias on Indian art, training young scholars in German institutes where maximum Indology-related work is still done to read old scripts of Sanskrit texts, conducting field studies on lifestyles of tribal cultures, analysing folk and rock art etc.

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8220;The IGNCA was developing as a centre of international repute which has a collection that could rival any western collection of ancient and medieval Indian materials. We put under one roof collections from Berlin, Paris, Moscow as well as some neighbouring countries, not to mention the collection and preservation work we have done around the country,8221; said one of the scholars.

The IGNCA is now being run by the Department of Culture on the basis of daily phone calls. It is yet to get an executive council or a president for its board after the new Government ousted the old trustees and took over.It also does not have an academic director to play the role of a buffer between the Government and the institute. 8220;Where is the need for one?8221; asks Shetty, making it quite clear that there won8217;t be one.