Media

Seminar - Preservation of the composite culture of India

June 2008
Asianaffairs Magazine

New Delhi, India: One of the best known Indian websites on the Internet is urdutehzeeb.com ‘tehzeeb’ meaning ‘culture’ in Urdu. The site organized a seminar in New Delhi on May 17th at the India Islamic Cultural Centre which is located in Lodhi Road, adjacent to the famous Lodhi Gardens in which are situated some of India’s oldest Islamic mausoleums.

Entitled, Preservation of the Composite Culture of India, the seminar was a huge success. It was inaugurated by the Governor of Haryana State, Dr A R Kidwai, and with many Indian intellectuals; poets, writers, film-makers, academicians and social activists participating as speakers. Also present as speakers from the U K were, Baroness Nicholson MEP, Yavar Abbas, internationally renowned Indian film-maker, Chaman Lal Chaman, well known Indian poet and broadcaster and writer Tom Deegan of Asian Affairs.

The purpose of the seminar was to encourage a wider debate on the subject of India’s cultural heritage and to discuss ways and means of maintaining and reinforcing it as a counter to the efforts of some sections of the Indian community and foreign agencies to create communal tensions and separatism.

Dr Kidwai said that for India to assume its role as a global power it was essential to preserve its unity and integrity and that was possible only if its composite culture was preserved.

In her address, Baroness Nicholson pointed out the wide diversity of linguistic and cultural traditions now developed as a community of shared values within the European Union.

Historian Professor Mushirul Hasan explained that a composite culture was not a homogenous entity. He said it was a system in which diverse identities could flower in recognition of and respect for each other.

Film-maker Yavar Abbas stated forcefully that an ethnically cleansed society was morally unclean, intellectually bankrupt, socially monotonous and boring. It was, he said, cross-fertilization which gave societies their strength. The partition of India, he went on to say, was planned decades before the end of British rule to create Pakistan as a buffer state against Soviet Russia and as a market for the armaments industry.

Tom Deegan likened the Indian experience to that of Ireland which had also been partitioned when the British withdrew and he suggested that many separatist community leaders were motivated by personal ambitions rather than the welfare of their own people.

Dr A A Fatmi of Allahabad University explained how the Sufi scholars chose to write in regional languages rather than the Arabic and Persian and it was they who spread literary-cultural enlightenment throughout India.

Writer Dr Ali Engineer also gave credit to the Sufi saints and scholars for the development of the Indian composite culture and stated that it was a political lie to say that Islam had been spread by the sword in India. The Sufis, he said, were regarded as role models because of their universal humanism and that was why Islam spread in India.

The venue for the seminar was well selected. The new Indian Islamic Cultural Centre in New Delhi was opened by Sonia Gandhi in 2005. It is an impressive building displaying Islamic architecture and designs to best advantage. The auditorium is situated on the right side of the building on the first floor and caters for about 350 people. Mercifully, the building is well cooled because the assembly was on the full-house margins.

The urdutehzeeb.com organizers had arranged the seminar in three sessions with two short breaks and one longer break for lunch. Food and refreshments were provided free for the speakers and the congregation.
Urdu poetry was recited by some speakers some of whom were cheered. All speakers received great applause and some got shouts of encouragement and agreement from a mixed audience of young and old, male and female, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. At the end of the debates invitations were extended to the audience to make short addresses or ask questions and several took advantage of the opportunity.

The seminar finished at about 6pm and at 7pm there was an entertainment of traditional Indian music. That was well received and enjoyed by those who remained to see it.

The seminar was well attended by the media. Mr Aziz Burney, Group Editor Sahara India, delivered a valedictory address and promised support for other such seminars in future. Some audience members asked if such seminars could be held in all the big cities. Mr Burney promised to support this idea.

Many newspapers and TV channels covered the event.