Patronage
of Indian art
By Ashok K. Choudhury
Every age and
country produces works of art peculiar to itself
reflecting its beliefs, hopes and desire. Art is
the vehicle of the abiding values that
civilization creates and is nurtured in different
countries and epochs.It is the expression and
communication of man's deepest instincts and
emotions reconciled and integrated with the
social experience and cultural heritage.
Each nation has
its own mode of aesthetic expression through art,
literature, music, dance and drama. India is no
exception, a multicultural melting pot resulting
from a history of migrations of diverse people,
from as far a field as Greece and Asia Minor in
the West and the borders of China in the East.
These constant infusions have enriched the art
and culture of India.
Prior to
Independence, Indian arts were patronized by the
kings and princes for greater personal glory. It
was considered an important part of their royal
duty to foster the arts, because artistic and
aesthetic accomplishments were considered a mark
of civilized men and women. Arts, before 1947,
were never supported directly or indirectly by
the Government. At the urban level they were
encouraged by Indian princes who subsidized
musicians and dancers in their courts through a
retainer system. Attached to all courts were the
best painters, poets, musicians, dancers,
dramatic players and wits. In British Raj,
therefore, art began to languish.
This pattern was
prevalent throughout India. Outside the small
court tradition, there was a middle class,
affluent or otherwise, which supported music and
dance as community activities not unrelated to
activities revolving round the temple. At the
rural level, the art continued to feature as a
major functional and recreational and
participative activity even of uneducated and
impoverished people.
It, therefore, can
be observed that on the eve of our freedom there
was a a rich, perhaps unsophisticated tradition
of the arts presenting a vibrant national culture
with strong regional identities, but one which
did not find patronage from the establishment.
The cultural and
intellectual renaissance in the country received
fresh impetus with the advent of Independence.
The nationwide revival of indigenous arts and
traditional forms and styles of dance and music
pointed to the need for national bodies in these
fields to act as coordinating agencies, not only
to provide the necessary encouragement and
incentive but to create conditions for a healthy
growth and development of art tradition.
The necessity of
such an organisation was all the more compelling
in view of the fact that all of a sudden the
erstwhile princely patronage to the arts had
ceased to function or was fast ceasing. Free
India was quick to realize the onerous
responsibility of filling the vacuum and a
proposal for establishing three Akademies came
under active consideration.
India, one of the
oldest civilizations with a kaleidoscopic variety
and rich cultural heritage, has achieved
multifaceted socio-economic progress after it
gained the status of a sovereign state. The first
Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who
was himself a great visionary, realized that
alongwith scientific, technological and
industrial advancement, equal emphasis should
also be given to the social and cultural
development of the nation.
As a matter of
fact one of the makers of modern India, Maulana
Azad, observed, ''The precious heritage of dance,
drama, and music is one which we must cherish and
develop. We must do so not only for our own sake,
but also as our contribution to the cultural
heritage of mankind. Nowhere it is truer than in
the field of art, that to sustain means to
create. Traditions cannot be preserved but can
only be created afresh. It will be the aim of the
Akademies to preserve our traditions by offering
the institutional form.''
Therefore, the
government's main effort lay in the establishment
of the three national academies of the arts
which, it hoped, would sustain and revitalize the
traditional arts and would create avenues for the
artists to express the hopes and aspirations of
modern India in contemporary language.
Sangeet Natak
Akademi (SNA), the National Academy of Dance,
Music and Drama, the first of the three national
academies in India, established by a Government
Resolution dated 31 May 1952, was formally
inaugurated on 28 January 1953 by the then
President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad. The
inauguration of SNA was a great event and
landmark in the cultural history of the country.
The day symbolized the new awakening and cultural
resurgence that was to take place in the country
under a system of patronage and hitherto unknown
to Indian arts. It opened a new vista to the
glorious future of our art tradition.
Conceived as a
'national organisation' to promote research in
the field of Indian dance, drama and music and to
coordinate activities in the sphere with an view
to promoting the cultural unity of the country,
SNA corporates a task for the furtherance of
performing arts of India with counterparts in the
states and voluntary organisations all over the
country.
Through
sponsorship, research and dissemination, SNA
seeks public appreciation of music, dance and
drama, together with a quickened exchange of
ideas and techniques for the common gain of
Indian performing arts. Its mandate is fostering
cultural contacts between the different regions
of the country and with other countries in the
field, co-ordinating the activities of regional
or state academies.
In pursuance of
its objectives, SNA undertakes activities on
nationwide scale such as holding seminars,
workshops, festivals presents awards to
outstanding artists, financial assistance for
theatre productions, extends financial help to
traditional teacher and grants scholarship to
students, recognition of institutions and payment
of grants, presentation and documentation of rare
arts, and publishes literature in the field of
performing arts. SNA has also been called upon to
provide instruction in the concern field.
To assist it with
the training programmes in the performing arts,
it has also established the following three
national institutions: Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur
Dance Akademi (JNMDA), Imphal, teaches Manipuri
dance and music, and allied subjects, i.e. Thang
Ta and Lai Haraoba.
With financial
support of SNA, the Bharatiya Kala Kendra founded
a college in Delhi for teaching Hindustani music
and Kathak dance in 1954. Functioned as a private
body for ten years. In 1964, the Kathak dance
section of the college, Kathak Kendra, was
reconstituted and the SNA took over the entire
financial responsibility. In July 1969, the SNA
took over the management of the Kendra from
Bharatiya Kala Kendra.
National School of
Drama (NSD), one of the foremost theatre training
institutes in the world and only of its kind in
India, was set up in 1959 by SNA. In the year
1975, the NSD became an independent body
functioning as an autonomous organisation with
the object of promoting in India a vibrant
theatre movement of contemprary relevance which
would take root in the traditions and cultural
diversities of the country.
To pursue the
activities, NSD imparts training in the field of
acting and production of dramas, conducting
research and surve in classical, traditional and
modern dramas, fostering cultural and academic
ties within India as well as other countries. It
also awards three-year diploma in theatre arts to
provide an understating of dramatic literature,
acting stagecraft and direction.
Its repertory,
probably the first officially sponsored repertory
company to be started in post-Independence India,
is the performing wing co- sisting of group of
players, mainly the past graduates of the NSD.
Started in 1964, the Repertory established to
give professional training to the graduates of
the School, today the main function of the
company is to produce plays of high artistic
merit and perfom them regularly for the theatre
lovers in Delhi and its beyond.
To work actively
for the development of literary art, the Sahitya
Akademi (SA), National Academy of Letters, was
established as a 'national organisation' by the
Government of India. 'Indian literature is one
though written in many languages', the slogan of
SA, one of the sacred trinities of Indian art and
culture, was formally inaugurated by Dr S
Radhakrishnan,the then Vice-President of India,
on 12 March 1954.
The main
activities of the SA are to popularize writers
and language-literature beyond their language
boundaries through translations, declaring
literary awards to books of outstanding merit,
prize for translations and offering fellowships,
honours, encouraging experiments in the Indian
languages through its journals, encouraging
younger generation of writers through its various
workshops, grants to authors and other schemes.
Its activities extent to all the fifteen
languages enumerated in the Indian constitution
and seven other recognised by it for the purpose.
To look after the
programmes and publications in the languages of
respective region, SA has set up regional centers
at Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai. In
1996 SA has opened 'Shabdan', Centre for
Translation at Bangalore, as a coordinating body
for its ambitious programmes of translating
famous literary works among different Indian
languages. Since its inception, SA maintains
contact, with several literary and cultural
institutions in foreign countries to encourage
better appreciation of Indian literature abroad.
In order to
foster, promote and co-rodinate visual and
plastic arts in free India, the Lalit Kala
Akademi (LKA), the National Academy of Art,
established as an apex cultural body in the field
of visual arts to encourage and advance creative
art such as painting graphics, sculpture, etc was
inaugrated on 5 August 1954..
Devoted to the
cause of visual and plastic arts, the aims of LKA
is to promote and development of fine arts and
undertakes programmes for the growth and
nourishment of painting, sculpture and other
graphic arts. To fulfill its obligations LKA
undertakes various activities of varied nature,
such as a national exhibition of art, Indian art
exhibition abroad, organizes seminars and
conferences on art, publications of books and
journals of art, organizes Triennale India,
Rashtriya Kala Mela, Art Fair, honours eminent
artists and art historians every year by electing
fellow, gives financial assistance for projects
in contemporary, folk, tribal and traditional
arts and also has set up artist-aid-fund to give
financial assistance to ailing artists.
To function more
efficiently LKA has regional branches at Kolkata,
Chennai, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar and Lucknow, so that
the fruits of achievements reach to every part of
the country. Besides it has a Community Artist
Studio with workshop facilities in painting,
sculpture and print-making and classics at Garhi
village, Delhi.
These three
national academies work as autonomous bodies
fully financed by the Govt of India.
However, the broad
objectives of the Akademies are to promote
excellence in the fine arts and literature, and
help in the process of conserving and
disseminating our cultural heritage. But this is
a formidable task which the Akademic cannot
fulfill all by themselves in our country of great
diversity and massive population. The
responsibility rests on the shoulders of a large
number of organisations with the akademies acting
as stimulating and catalytic force.
To overcome the
above situation, the Khosla Committee (1977), the
second Review Committee set up by Govt of India
to review the functioning of Akademies and ICCR,
recommended that all the states should establish
independent Akademies to undertake the important
task of fostering and disseminating the native
creative art and cultural values, on the same
lines as those at the national level.
To develop and
promote the rich diversity and uniqueness of the
art forms of the zones and to upgrade and enrich
the consciousness of the people about their
linkage among various areas through the evolution
of styles and their contribution to the large
composite identity of the cultural heritage of
India, the Govt of India in 1985-86 conceived a
scheme for setting up Zonal Cultural Centres
(ZCC), which was incorporate with Seventh Plan
and accordingly five ZCCs were set up in 1985-86
and two more in 1986-87 covering the entire
country with four to light States/UTs primarily
responsible for the increased cross-currents of
culture in the country.
One of the major
achievements in the field of art and humanities
in India has been the establishment of Indira
Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) at Delhi
to encompass the study and experience of all the
arts. Launched on 19 November 1985 by Rajiv
Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, as an
autonomous body, IGNCA comprises of five main
divisions, such as Kala Nidhi, Kala Kosa, Kala
Darshan, and Sutradhara. It is visualized more as
a national institute for fundamental research in
humanity than as a mere centre for the arts.
Some of spheres of
activities of the IGNCA are related those of the
Akademies.
Government
established the Indian Council for Cultural
Relations (ICCR) for establishing, reviving and
strengthening cultural relations between India
and other countries for promoting cultural
exchange with foreign countries.
All these premier
institutions of art and culture, with their basic
objective, patronise and help to arouse and
strengthen cultural resurgence in the country as
well abroad.- CNF
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