Opportunities - exchanges and point of views

Tilmann Waldraff, former Regional Director of the Goethe Institute in South Asia writes for Pro Helvetia New Delhi [dated January 2007]

With the opening of its New Delhi office, Pro Helvetia is starting a new chapter in the history of cultural exchange between India and Switzerland. What does this commitment mean in terms of international cultural work? Tilmann Waldraff, former Regional Director of the Goethe Institute in South Asia, hazards a guess at what lies in store for the new Pro Helvetia office.

Some considerations on the occasion of the opening of the Pro Helvetia liaison office in India.
Few people in India actually know much about Switzerland. Even educated Indians generally react with an embarrassed laugh when asked about this country, as they are aware that the first idea that occurs to them - the mountain landscapes familiar to them as the setting for romantic scenes in Bollywood films - hardly amounts to an in-depth knowledge of Switzerland. Then they come up with a few obvious phrases: "chocolate", "banks", "precision instruments", "languages that aren't spoken in India" - and perhaps even, "Oh yes, Le Corbusier - wasn't he Swiss?" when they think of Chandigarh.
So what chance is there for a newly set up cultural liaison office in India? Every chance, actually!
Indians are open-minded and inquisitive - especially about the West - and their booming economy is giving them an even greater thirst for information and exchange than before. Another positive factor is that, while few people have any very concrete ideas concerning Switzerland, at least they do not come up with negative associations either. Switzerland has never been a colonialist power, it did not take part in the wars of the last century, and it is not suspected of harbouring any kind of imperialism or fundamentalism.

However, there are also limitations, four of which are listed here and discussed in terms of their impact on the work of the new Swiss office:

1) To begin with, there will be only one Swiss cultural institution in the whole of the huge, culturally diverse subcontinent of India, apart from the cultural departments attached to the consulates.
It will be an enormous task for a single office to involve even the most important cultural regions, represented by their urban centres, in its work in an effective manner. This will necessitate paying great attention to the different cultural scenes, flexibility, keeping up to date with new developments and, of course, comprehensive data collection.

2) This institution will not take the form of a traditional cultural institute with premises for a great diversity of activities, such as those maintained in India by the British, French, Germans and Japanese, but will, instead, be a liaison office with a basic infrastructure and few staff.
The need to enter into partnerships, if only for reasons of space and on organisational grounds, could in fact be seen as an advantage, since this will inevitably lead to fruitful encounters in terms of content too. And, as the number of activities held outside Delhi rises, the fact that the office does not have its own facilities for staging events will become less significant.
It is not quite so easy to find alternative solutions for another important aspect of the work of a cultural institute: in a lively cultural centre, people are constantly meeting up, either intentionally or by chance. Meetings like these introduce the participants to fresh ways of thinking and new topics, projects and concepts. The liaison office will have to find alternative means of communication for this aspect of its work - i.e. the institute as a melting pot which produces new ideas. 

3) The office's remit restricts it to "culture in the narrow sense": in other words, the fine arts, music, theatre, dance, film, literature and also design.
The time when concerts, film series, theatre productions or exhibitions could simply be "put on" and left at that is now in the past. In order to carry out effective cultural work it is essential to provide opportunities for a deeper understanding of the themes broached in the main event. Other events should be organised as a matter of course, to complement or elaborate on the main one. These need to involve experts from the discipline in question. And this quickly leads to related areas such as sociology and psychology that are not necessarily "cultural" in the narrower sense of the word, and it would be regrettable if these could not be included.

4) The target group is defined as an educated urban audience in all parts of India, not just Delhi.
Cultural interests and ambitions are mainly to be found in the Indian middle classes, which are growing rapidly, as are the opportunities at their disposal. It remains to be seen how far the interests and requirements of the newly affluent diverge from those of the traditional middle class.
It is clear that the work of a foreign cultural institution has to begin with this social group. An institution such as the one planned cannot address the needs of the (new) upper class, whose members fly to London to do their shopping, but nor is it able to tackle cultural and educational work at grassroots level, and this cannot therefore constitute part of its primary tasks.

Finally, two other aspects need to be  considered briefly. Cultural exchanges tend to be talked about far more than they are put into practice. Whenever an artist travels to India to show examples of his or her work and returns home enriched by new impressions, this does of course constitute an exchange up to a point. But, contrary to current practice, genuine exchange would also mean bringing much more Indian art to Europe.

The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) certainly makes some contribution in this respect, but mostly at the level of simply "putting on" an event. The structure and budget of the official Indian cultural establishment do not stretch any further. This is an area where it would be worthwhile to step in and offer support, and to assist Indian artists and other cultural practitioners in forging contacts with Swiss institutions and sponsors.

To conclude: culture always expresses a particular point of view. "There is simply no point in hiding behind the fig leaf of "neutrality", which, in any case, is fiction." (Barbara Basting in the January 2006 Newsletter edition.) This begins with an uncompromising commitment to quality (and thus a rejection of mediocrity) in art and extends to the adoption of a position - not on everyday political issues, but rather on the major questions that concern us today, wherever we may find ourselves: human rights, violence, democracy...

A cultural institution which shies away from tackling such themes, thus pushing a crucial aspect of art to one side, would not deserve its name and would not win the respect of its target audience. This also holds true when mainstream public opinion is not wholly behind the institution in question.
Switzerland is a relative latecomer to the international cultural scene in India. But it is marvellous that it is taking this step at all at a time when cuts in public spending - not just in Switzerland - are leading to cultural institutions being closed rather than opened. In view of the development taking place in India and the country's quantum leap forward - which is primarily economic, but also cultural in the sense of an opening-up (with all the ensuing consequences) -,  this step comes just at the right time and in an appropriate form. An approach that is bound to succeed.

Tilmann Waldraff