Fears of uniformity in the land of plurality

There is a vast institutional framework of institutions, schemes etc which are publicly funded and managed by the state both at the central and provincial levels. This is nothing unusual. The world over, in fact in more than 100 countries, most of them democracies, including UK, US and France, cultural institutions and promotion and support schemes are publicly funded either directly by the governments or through autonomous bodies like the Arts Council (UK), the National Endowment for the Arts (USA). There are National Culture Policies in place in most of them. Similarly way back in 1950, soon after attaining independence, India took some steps in this direction, setting up new institutions such as the three national academies and strengthening and restructuring the colonial legacy in the National Archives and the Archeological Survey of India etc. As of now, the Government of India funds nearly 40 institutions of culture and most of them, though unfortunately not all, enjoy a large degree of autonomy. As the painter-poet Ghulam Sheikh pointed out, this institutional framework on ground already manifests a policy. The big question is in what direction, through what restructuring of management, autonomy and accountability, with what professional and financial-physical resources these institutions should move in the next phase.

The NCP, as is being currently drafted, looks closely at these issues as also at the need of expansion of the institutional framework to take care of new challenges that emerge on the scene in the beginning of the 21st century. Enhanced financial outlays (the current percentage of the Government of India’s spending on culture stands far below even 1 per cent of its total budget), better coordination between various ministries (such as Information and Broadcasting, Human Resource Development and Ministry of External Affairs) which are handling some aspect or the other of culture; deepening elements of culture in education, media etc are some of the other concerns that the NCP hopes to address. The current state of decline and atrophy in many public institutions in engaging major attention and improvements and elasticity in procedures of recruitment, more professionalism are being suggested. Acknowledging the important role non-government agencies play in culture, the NCP could endeavour to enhance support for them and suggest new dynamism for private-public partnership. Since culture is a state subject as per the Constitution of India, the Government of India would have to constantly persuade the various state governments to similarly identify areas of public support and action, enhance outlays, offer support to public-private partnership, create proper management structures and become vigilant and active custodians of a shared rich heritage and the rich and ever renewing plurality of culture.

The fear that a government ruled by parochial concerns or ideological obsessions could misuse this policy is a genuine but it should not stop us from having a policy in place. We have seen in the past that public institutions being misused for narrow political ends or manipulated to accommodate servile mediocrity. Once there is NCP (it could also be placed in the Parliament), it would be difficult for the government of the day to undermine plurality and diversity and to interfere with autonomy of institutions. Such matters would then become a matter of public debate as also open to possible legal intervention.

The writer heads the Lalit Kala Akademi and is on the NCP’s drafting committee