Table Of Content

Culture and Power' RUSTOMBHARUCHA E veryone seems to be cashing in on 'culture' these days-activists disillusioned withtheeconomisticandinstrumentalistunderpinningsofdevelopment;religious groupswhichrealizethatthe anofproselytizingcan beenhancedifitisgrounded inthesymbols and codes ofeverydayculturalinteractions;environmentalistswhohave sought connections between nature. nurture, and the archetypes of culture in their opposition to the violations of biodiversity and ecocide; and finally policy-makers and administrators whohave wokenup to thereality thattheirpoliciesmayhave failed inthe absenceofany real cognizance ofand respect forthetransformativepowers ofculture. India's Culture: The Slate. the Arts and Beyond is one such anempt by an Indian administrator(or"civilservant"ashedescribeshimself)whichstakesaclaimfor'culture' within the necessities of administration for the larger stability of the State. Before we analysethe power that is embedded within B.P. Singh'sabsolute faithinadministration. itisnecessary to dispel any illusion that he isa "distinguished scholar",as describedin theattractivelydesignedjacket cover of thisbook.NotonlydoesSinghhimselfadmitin the preface that his book is an outcome of "J8 months" of close involvement with "culture",ostensibly when he was the CultureSecretary to theGovernmentof India,he alsoacknowledgesthat'Theexclusivenessofsuchaconcernisunprecedentedinmylife" (xi). While this would seem like a candid admission of the chimerical life of an administrator--Singh has nowbeen appointed as our HomeSecretary- weareexpected tobelievethatthis"recentmentaljourney" asdocumentedinthe b<xJkisanillumination ofSingh's "whole being" (ibid.). There isobviously Some kind of hubrisandself-mystificationatworkhere.Scholars and researchers have spent their entire lives trying to decipher the multiple strands in "India'sCulture" ordiversecultures. Increasingly.withgrowingcriticalreflexivity,there areacknowledgementsofthefragmentation,omissions.gaps,erasures.andtheimplicitly casteist,sexist.andracistevaluationsof'other' cultures.Themostpioneeringscholarship todayhas become atonce more tentative and microanalytical.Omniscientoverviewsof 'Indian culture' are best left to pundits unable to free themselves from the positivist categoriesofanearliertime. However,let usacknowledge thatsome of thesepunditshave a classicalscholarship *Review-article:B.P.Singh,India'sCulture:TheSt4U,TheArtsandlkyond.Delhi:O_JordljniversityPress. 1998.Rs425. Stzng~ttNatak Nos. 127-128. 1998 36 RUSTOM BHARUCHA thai sustains their Himalayan visions of 'Indian culture'. MeSingh does not have this scholarship. His41-pageencapsulationof"India'sCulture" in the openingchaptertohis book, encompassing everything from Mohenjodaro. the Vedas, the Brahrnanas, the Upanishads, the epics, the six systems of 'philosophy' (Nyaya, Vedanta, etc.), the Nutyashustra. the Arthashastra, Ajanta. Ellora, is not even an adequate paraphrase of derivativescholarship.It isbetter readasthekindofbackground materialthatonegetsto read inthe moreexpensiveeditionsofcultural tour guides. ATourGuideofIndian Culture ' Banality is one of the dominant signs of this touristic discourse: "Kalidasa's Meghadoota isaclassicoflyricalbeauty.Similarly.Kalidasa'sAbhijnanashakulltalamis thegreatestworkofdramanotonlyofancienttimesbut ofsubsequenttimesaswell"(18), That'sitfor Kalidasa.Alongwith thisbreezy hyperbole,there isalso anauthenticationof our glorious past throughtotallyfabricateddates: "By the year AD I, India was ahighly developedculture" (I)-nofuzzinesscan betolerated here;likewise,"the Ramayanaand the Mahabharata were alreadya part of the collective Indian consciousness prior to the 8thcentury BC" (16).What isthe verification for these assumed 'facts'?Indeed.whatis theepistemologyunderlying suchhistoricity?Whatkindofpastis beingconstructedhere. andforwhat purpose? The overwhelming problem in Singh's 'scholarship' is that he consistently confuses informationfor facts.Thisresultsinatrivializationofassumed knowledge- forexample, in afour-sentence paragraphonmedicineintheAtharva Veda,thereisaninexplicabletit bitinterspersed betweentheperfunctory identificationsofDhanvantari and Charakainthe '''20different typesof [surgical]knivesand needlesand 26 articlesofdressing" matwere inusebythe"firstcentury AD"(34),Clearly,theauthorisoutofhisdepthhereinfiguring outanadequatenarrativemodeinorganizing"somefacts"toprovide "someperspectives", Ajudiciousselective principlebecomes mandatory for anysuch overview of "India's Culture"-for example, in connection with Singh's obvious devotion to the art of administration, it would have been useful to analyse why the Arthashastra emphasizes "the need for abureaucracy to uphold dharma' (35).Butthisis merely "interesting"for ourbureaucrat-scholar,andheletsitpass.Likewise,myowncuriosity iswhettedwhenI am reminded that the "Lion Capital", one of the most "remarkable achievements of Mauryancourtart", isalsotheemblem oftheRepublicofIndia(25).Howexactlydidthis process of image-making materialize at a conceptual level? How do symbols become emblems? What is the political think-tanking that goes into the retrieval of traditional visual resources inorder tocreatethe signs ofourtimes? If answers to such questions are totally elided in this tour-guide of our cultur.ll traditions. it is because Singh has no critical framework in which to situate his adhoc of information.Notonlydoesthisresultinsimplificationsbutinafalsification indigenoUS cultural histories through a grand assimilationist strategy. Thus, the author has no CULTUREANDPOWER 37 difficulty in claiming with no elaboration whatsoeverthat"the fusion between tribal languagesand Sanskrit isevident" instateslike Bihar, Madhya PradeshandOrissa(II). Likewise.whilethe"Tibeto-Burrnan languagescameundertheinfluenceofSanskritand its two majoroffshoots. Assamese and Bengali"(ibid.), there is no hintas to how this cameaboutthroughtheculturalcolonizationofVaishnavism,amongotherprocessesof irnercuhuration. Perhapstheconceptualvacuuminthesedetailscentresaroundatotallyamorphoususe ofthe word'culture'. Singhinforms us inafootnote that he isdrawing ondefinitions of culture provided hy Edward Taylor, A.L. Kroeher, Ninnal Kumar Bose, and D.O. Kosambi.Thelastreference isperhapstheunkindestcutofall,becausethereisnothing inSingh'scavalierreadingofculturetosuggestthathehasgraspedeventheelementsof thedialecticaldensityof Kosambi,forwhom"patterns ofcultureandethicalvaluesare not mere ideological superstructures of establishing economic relations", but are "historicallydetennined-hy the logic ofthe history ofideas" (42).Inthe courseofhis book. Singh attempts to demonstrate a global awareness of culture in relation to the market,science.andtheenvironment inwhatwouldappeartobeacontemporaryhistory ofideas.Unfortunately,this 'history' isultimatelysubsumedwithin anall-encompassing andultimatelyarbitraryreadingofculturethatisreducedtobureaucraticjargon. Politicsof CulruralDiversity Singh. ofcourse, is not alone in this political appropriation of 'culture' hy policy makers. whose enthusiasm for the term is matched, unfortunately, by an absence of intellectual rigour in dealing with its multiple dynamics andcomponents. Since the publicationoftheUnescoreportin 1995 onOurCreativeDiversitypreparedbytheWorld Commissionon Cuhure andDevelopment.there is now anofficialrecognition at the highestinternationallevel forencouraging"empathyandrespectfortheentire spectrum of human differences" (75). Suffice it 10 say that this master-text on culture and developmentisnotfreeofitsownsuperficialities,euphemisms.andreductions. Inthemeasured critique ofthe Unesco document hy ArneMartin Klausen(1997), we learnhowinthesearchforamore"holistic"and"synthesising" useofculturetofacilitate ''trans·sectorialanalysis and overallperspectives", there is a problematiccontlationof culture and society (10 which Raymond Williams had alerted us many years ago). Anchored firmly within "the Unesco tradition of unanimity", Our Creative Diversify "elidesdifferences,particularly those relatingtoacriticalanalysisofmodernity,notonly underdevelopmenC·(Klausen 1997: 29). Confusing the anthropological. cognitive. and sectorialmodesofanalysingculture,indeedunable todiscriminatebetween"nonnathr~" and "descriptive": readings of culture, the Unesco blueprint ultimately succeeds In "inflating"thewordtosuchanextentthatitbecomes"meaninglessand inoperative"- a "fashionlable]sound-bite" (ibid.: 31-32). 38 RUSTOM BHARUCHA InamuchlessrefineddiscoursethanOurCreative Diversity,B.P. Singh'smusingson "India's Culture" succumb precisely to the same traps of an essentially factitious comprehensiveness. Withourso muchasquestioning thepertinenceofthe Unescorepon to Indianrealities.hejumps ontothebandwagonof"diversities" :Howcan wegowrong here?- we have all the statistics in the world to prove that we are the most "diverse" country in the world with 18officiallanguages. 1700 dialects.45.000 plant species,etc. Singh uses the Unesco report(Q claim thatthe world islooking to India for answersthat are likelytoemergefromour"5,000yearsofuninterruptedcivilisation" (76).Barelyable toconcealhispride.hepromptlygoesontoaffirm:"Indianculturalunity hassuccessfully tackled problems of political instability and military invasion, social obscurantism and religiousbigotry,and has gained renewalatseveralstagesofitshistory" (ibid.), Stop right there, Mr Singh. Indian "cuhural unity". in so far as it exists today, has certainly not tackled any ofthese problems: the nation has been politically unstable for quitesometimenow;ourrecentnuclearblastshaveintensifiedthepossibilitiesofmilitary invasion;social obscurantism and religious bigotry arerampant. Wecannotregardthese problems as contemporary aberrations; nor can we mildly chide the laws ofManu,as Singh does, for "formalising inequalities", with the caste system engendering "snobbishness and pride in the higher castes", and "a spirit of inferiority and servility amongstthelowercastes" (152).Ifwe werehonestenough toconfrontthe atrocitiesthai continue to be inflicted on the marginalized sections of our society, particularly among dalit communities- the word 'dalit' docs not seem to exist in Singh's political vocabulary-I think we would have to acknowledge how our "cultural unity" has been sustainedthroughanunacknowledged racism. What is urgently needed in thiscontext is ananalysisof the politics of diversitythat has sustained the increasingly nationalist myths of our "cultural unity". Unfortunately, this analysis is absent in Singh's tediously familiar reiteration of statist platitudes. Contrasting whathedescribesas a"segmented viewofculture" witha "composite"one, Singhdoes not elaborate atall on the two primary sources ofsegmentatlcn-c-rreligiou" and"region" (48). While communalism isfleetinglyglossed in thecourse ofthebool:" nomention,ofcourse,oftheBabriMasjiddemolitionortheriots inMumbai-thereisno analysisofhowreligion can function as asourceofdivisiveness rather than diversity.In this regard. Singh simply falls prey to the deeply internalized notion of "pre-fonned. scaled religious communities", as Kumkum Sangari (1995) indicates in her exemplary analysis of the politics of diversity. Pre-ordained by birth and transmitted across generations. these "religious diversities" are invariably divested of "internal diversity, looseness, and open boundaries" (Sangari 1995: 33(0).Sequestered from "regionaland class variations". they need to be interrelated. as Sangari would insist, with specifk historiesofsocialdisparityand patriarchy. which produce diversities in theirownrighl. Withoutinterveninginthiscontentiousdebate.Singhtotallyavoidstakinganyposition CULTUREANDPOWER 39 onthecontradictorydynamicsofreligion.culture,andtherightsofcitizenship.Likewise. there is no historical perspective '7"hatsoever in his book on how regional cultural identitiesemergedthrough-andagainst-the mechanismsoftheState.Hereitwouldbe imperative toexaminethealmostunanimousacceptanceof linguisticcultural identities during the freedom movement, which became increasingly more complicated after independence. with different linguistic groups seeking distinct state identities and formations. Such was the chauvinist intensity of these linguistic demands that Nehru himselfwascompelled to acknowledge asearly as 1960 in the LokSabha:"We liveina closedsociety-notoneclosedsociety,butnumerousclosedsocieties.ThereisaBengali closedsociety,aMarathi closedsociety, a Malayaliclosed society, andsoon"(quotedin Nag 1993:1527). Insteadofdealing withthe increasing provocations ofregionalism. Singhfalls back predictablyenoughonavague,woolly, sentimentalnotionofrcomposlteculture",which hecompares to "bee activity" (48). Just as it is impossible to "separate the specific contributionofeachflowerorplant" inthetransformation ofnectarinto honey. India's diverse culturesare composite. Atbest. the "variationsof Indiancultural honey"taste differentlyaccording to the localvariations inenvironment.climate,and language (49). Typically,Singhusesthewords'composite'and'pluralist'synonymously,revealinghis intellectuallazinessinfailingtodiscriminatebetweeneventhemostvitaltermsincultural discoursetoday. Alittle laterin the book,however, Singhdoesinflect his seeminglyunequivocal faith in the plurality of"India's Culture" by acknowledging the "fears" about"Hindi-isation" and"Assamisarion",whichwillcontinueto"hauntsectionsofourpeopleandwillcontinue untilpluralitytakesfinn roots" (66). I welcome thisqualification,but Iwouldalsoneed someexplanation as to why plurality bas not taken finn roots in Indiansoil.The marxist scholarJaveedAlarnonce suggested that while"tradition" withinasocietycanbemarked bydiversity,"pluralism"isa"post-enlightenmentresultbornofstrugglesfordemocracy" (Alam 1994: 24). Unfortunately, there is no such conceptual intervention in Singh's freeWheeling reading of 'diversity', 'composite culture', and 'plurality', which simply becomeinterchangeable catchwords,frustratinganypossibilityoftheoreticalillumination, ThesheerconfusionofSingh'spositionbecomesonlytooobviousinthearbitrariness ofhis thought process, which has not been assisted in any way by thesloppy editingof themanuscript'snumerousredundanciesandabrupttransitions.Atonepoint.forinstance. Singhquotes Gandhi's famous statement: "I want the cultures of all lands tobeblown aboutmyhouse." ", whichwouldseemtoprovidethefoundationsfor"India'scultural policy" (66). In the next paragraph, there is a list of fourteen "first-rank leaders ofthe freedom struggle" (67), This is followed by a quotation deconteXlualized f~m ~e historian Ravinder Kumar's discriminations between "Civilisation~State" and 'Nation State", And finally. when Singh commits himself to making his own statement on 40 RUSTOMBHARUCHA plurality,this iswhathehastosay: [T]heapproachtocultureinIndiamustpositivelyencourageregionaldiversityandnot just tolerate it. No region or group should have the feeling of a threat of being swamped.Thereareno'majority'and'minority'cultures. (ibid.:myemphases) Thefirststatementiscastinanimperativemode:thesecondismorepaternalistic;thethird isessentialist.From"must'to 'should' to 'are':thisishowthegrammar ofadministrative discourse functions. from a declaration thata problemcan andmust be resolved to the acknowledgementthatthereisnorealproblem inthe first place. Strategizlng theNational Culture Fund IfSinghisnottheoreticallypreparedtotakeonconceptualissuesrelatingtothepolitics ofdiversityand plurality, one would expecthim 10handle the bureaucratic nitty-grittyof culturalinstitutions withmoreauthority.Butapartfromanextensivehistoricalsurveyof the Archaeological Survey of India-which unaccountably includes nine pages of documentsrelatingtotheearlyprioritiesofthe ASIin1862-there isnocriticalreading oftheleadingculturalinstitutionsinthecountry.Atonepoint,Singhmerelyliststheearly pioneering initiatives of Santiniketan, the Kerala Kalamandalam, the Uday Shankar Culture Centre atAlmora, theIndianPeople's Theatre Association, the MadrasMusic Academy.buthedoesnotaddressthematall.Thisevasionofcriticalaccountabilityalso extendsto hisperfunctoryaccount ofpost-independence institutionsliketheAkademis, theNationalSchoolofDrama, andtheZonalCulturalCentres,which are merelyendorsed with the mildlycritical comments ofHigh Powered Committees led by P.N. Haksarand U.R.Ananthamurthy. Apart from this totally inexplicable absence ofanyanalysis of the inner workingsof theseinstitutions,Singhavoidsanydialogue(ordebate)withcontemporaryIndianartists. Ifailtosee inthisregard howhecanpresumeto include"the Arts'<inthesubtitleofhis book when he does not really deal with them except through scandals like the recers administrative crisis in the Lalit Kala Akademi (which Singh attributes a little tOO Self· righteously tothe"moralbreakdownofitsleadership");controversiesrelatingtoStateart purchases.suchasthe Brunner paintings(throughwhichSinghsomewhatoverstatesthe transparencyofNehruinacceptingthecriticalviewsofanexperts);andthesmugglingof art objects (which is cast in the mode of a "veritable crime thriller" as Singh tracesthe "odyssey" of the Natarajaof Sivapuram fromTamilNadu to New York).Unfortunately, these are relatively marginal, if not sensational events, that do not really tackle the ideological bankruptcy andbureaucracy of State institutions in theirroutine modesof operation.Insteadofelicitingadebateonadministrativeprocedureswithculturalanalysts and practitioners.Singhincorporates theviews ofjustone contemporary Indianaetist the"sensitive"MallikaSarabhai,whose perspectiveon"corporatesocial responsibiliry" CULTUREANDPOWER 41 (61)isobviouslycompatiblewiththe one institution thatSinghisprepared todealwithat length-the NationalCulture Fund. As the originator of the very idea of the Fund and the President of its Executive Committee, Singh has obvious stakes here which are substantiated with a pragmatic. though not particularly inventive, managerial strategy. The raison d'hre for the Fund comesfromtherealitythat"thereisaneedtolookfor[financial]support[forthearts]from outside" (71}-inotherwords,outside the sanctified boundariesoftheState,whichNehru and MaulanaAzad had legitimized in the 1950s as theonly appropriateSourceoffunding culture in post-colonial India. Not only was the feudal bankruptcy of more traditional sources ofpatronage considered inappropriate for a modern society. itwas also assumed that themarketwas too undeveloped,unpredictable, and philistine toprovidesupportfor thearts. Times have changed. For all his loyalties to the Nehruvian legacy, Singh is now prepared to re-think the creative possibilities of corporate sponsorship and the positive effects of commercialism. Even in the more ruthless world of the global economy, he acknowledges that "Commerce also has a neutralising effecton violent behaviour since commerce facilitates prosperity and this. in turn. would give people a stake in peace" (123). While this speciously deductive logic does not receive any elaboration, Singh is more convincing when he uses statistics to prove that external support for the arts is criticallyneededfortheir sustenance. Weareinformed inthisregardthatthetotalbudget allottedfortheculturalsectorinthe8thFiveYearPlanwasRs800crores,whichamounts toamere"0.19 percent ofthetotal planoutlay oftheGovernmentof India"(70). While this isundeniably shameful, one wonders whySingh and his colleagues do notusetheir cloutwithin the government to raise the cultural budget to atleast 1%of the total plan. Instead, we find him justifying a Fund whose models are 10 befound in the U.S. and Britain, which have totally different corporate structures. and indeed. a culture of 'businessphilanthropy' thatcannotbesustainedwithinthepresenteconomicuncertainties of Indiancorporations:industries, andbusinesshouses. Instead of confronting the hard facts of our economy, Singh allows himself to be seduced by the rhetoric of First World funding policies, which would like to privatize cuhuralcapital in aseeming marginalization oftheState (which,ofcourse,has thetotal sanctionofthe State itself). Now the "onus" is no longer on the government10 provide administrativeandfinancialassistance forculture-relatedactivities;nowwhatmattersare "inter-institution partnerships for mobilising extra-budgetary resources forculture" (72). Not onlydoes Singh envision an intermediary role for theStateadministration betw~en the public and private sectors, he also advocates an advisory intervention in theere-alton ofnew"servicestructures" fortheexistingnational institutionsrepresentingarchaeology, museo!ogy,anthropology, and the archives. Thus.what is being envisioned here is an expansion ofadministrative capacities that 42 RUSTO'IBHARUCHA totally overlooks the questionable expertise of its personnel. In addition, Singh seems totallysanguine aboutthe cultural andethical implications involved in allowingdonors from thecorporate world todetermine thokindsofprojects that they would like tofund. Taxbenefits,tomymind.shouldnotlegitimizecorporateaestheticstandards.Despitethe recent facadesof Indian foundationsinconscientizingthecultural normsofthebusiness world. there shouldbenodoubtsaboutitspreferenceforglitzandspectacle- galaevents structured around cricket, horse-racing, fashion, and beauty competitions rather than experimentsinart. The SpectacleofPolitics Spectacle cannot be dismissed in the cultural politics ofany administration. which assumesthatculturemustbevisibleinorderto haveanimpact inpublic life.Thus.we find Singh totally enamoured by the scale and prestige ofthe Festival of India andthe RepublicDay Parade.Rhapsodizing on theformer, he has the nerve to celebratefestivals preciselyonthegroundsforwhichtheyhavebeencriticized byawide rangeofartistsand writers.Totallyignoringthepoliticalagendas ofthesemega-events,Singh wouldhaveus believe that the Festival of India was designed to dispel the stereotype of India as, "romantic andexotic landof maharajas. tigers, snake-charmers. the Taj Mahal, and of course,grindingpoverty" (55). Firstly,onewouldneedtoacknowledgethatiforientalist stereotypes were eliminated by the Festival of India, they were also replaced by another set of stereotypes that packaged the diversities of India and its timeless folk wisdom within a neo-colonial framework of themodern nation-state. Secondly, there must be something seriously wronginSingh'sunderstandingofthestereotypeifheisabletoplace "snake-charmers" alongside "grinding poverty", Surely poverty is the dominantreality of ourcountry, which places us 138th in the list of the world's nations (this is one statistic thatSingh needsto remember). The stereotype is notpoverty, butthe erasure ofpoverty. which enables festivals to cast their synthetic and extremely transitory spells on "enthusiastic crowds", whose sensitizationtoIndian "folk traditions"andcontributionto thetourist traffic-theassumedlypositive kickbacksoffestivals-canbemore accurately readasa wish-fulfilmenton the part oftheIndian bureaucracy. "When the festival ends", all that the organizers can do is to "disappear", as Pup<JI Jayakar puts it poetically.vinto the night" (56). But has anyone in the Departmentof Culturecared tofind out what happenstothe folk practitioners when they retumtotheir villages?Hasthere been anystudy ontheeffectsof festivals within inter/intra-regional sectors and communities identified with particular performative skills? What are the structures of dialogueand translation prepared by thegovernment to initiate meetings belween performers across thedifferences andhierarchies of class, caste, religion.and language?The truth isthat theorganizersareprimarilyinterested inmountingaspectacle -' Cl:LTUREANDPOWER 4J with maximum media attention; what happens at human and psychological levels to peoplewithinandoutside the framework:ofthe festivalisofnoconcern. Amore formalprocessofdehumanization isatwork inthe RepublicDayParade. but Singhfails to see it in his total endorsement of the nationalist raison d'stre of the spectacle.Hereoneencounters themostblatant instrumentalizationofculturethathasits roots.in the liberal vision ofa post-independence politicalelite, who imagined that the young Republic of India could score over more developed nations in its capacity to combinea "ceremonial military parade" with a "culturalpageant" (as AshfaqueHusain, the Joint Secretary of the Department of Education had emphasized in his 1952 correspondencewithMaulanaAbut KalamAzad),Thereisaqualityofquaintnessinthese reconunendations: while Azad referred approvingly to the pageants in the Parade as a "CulturalCaravan" (96),Husainwent one stepfurtherin affirmingthatthis"beaugeste" (95) should impress notonly the foreign dignitariesbUIthe masses ofIndia. Nehruwasatonceenthusiastic,andyetrestrained.inhisrecommendationthattheParade shouldemphasizethe "civilian" aspectsofcontemporary Indiansociety(97).BUIhewasalso insistent,on General Cariappa's suggestion. that"folk dances" shouldbe presented,"more especiallybytribalpeoplefrom...theNorth-East,theNagas,etc,"(ibid.).liealsosuggested that some of these folk dances could be presented "on a small scale" at the Rashtrapati BhavanpartyonthedayfollowingtheParade.Itishard nottoreadanimplicitcondescension intheserecommendations, which can also betraced in the criticalcomments recordedby Nehruinhisimmediateresponse tothe 1952Republic DayParade: Thefirstpartof[thepageant]depictingwhatiscalled 'YouthandProgress' appeared tobemerely an array of people holding up placards.There was nothingartistic or impressiveaboutif... Maharashtra was good, but too long drawn out. Lezim fitsinwithaprocession,but Malkhamb doesnot. Having boxing and thelike was ratheroutofplace...The UP Ramlilawasfeeble.Itwasjustacrowdsittinginatruck. (93) . WhileSinghemphasizes thatnothingescapedNehru's"discemingeye".1thinkoneneeds to question what was meeting theeye in the firstplace.When yousay "Maharash~ w~ good", there isan incredible reductionism at work herethat has beentotally normallz.-.d on Our official cultural discourse. Firstly, there is an entity called Maharashtra that has ~en determinedbyacertainhegemonicstructureofvaluesandassociations;itisequatedWitha particularculture;thiscultureisreducedto atableauwithperforrnativeaccessories;andthe ingredients of this performativity are specifically aligned to folk forms-hence itbe~omes possible for Nehru to say that Lezim works, Malkhamb does not. Even "'lbin.!he hermeneuticsofofficialpageantry,one cannothelpbeingtroubled here bythe assumpUons notonlyofcriticaldiscriminationandtaste.butofwhatisbeingmadeofpeoplemaforum thatvalues "cultural progressno lessthanmilitarystrength" (95). 44 RUSTO~1BHARUCHA If this would seem like an overly fastidious reading of what is after all a parade,I woulddrawSingh'sattentiontotheinvaluabledocumentationoftheFirstDramaSeminar organized by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1956, where the most distinguished participants including Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, V. Raghavan, .Mulk Raj Anand, Sombhu Mitra, Balraj Sahni;among other luminaries, had expressed their distressabout thevulgarity andmoneywastedontheRepublicDayParade.WhiletheimmediateSOUrt, of theprovocationwasthemodernizeddressof aKuchipudiperformance intheParade, the actual circumstances of arranging the performance, as pointed out by Nataraj RamakrishnaintheDramaSeminar. wereevenmoreobjectionable: ThemostunfortunatepartofitisthatnoneofusinKuchipudi knewthatatroupewas being organisedto participate inthe Republic Day Parade celebrations. The official who wasentrusted toorganise couldnotcontact[the] rightpersons buthe wantedto prove his efficiency. He gatheredtogetherpersons who did not know their artand thoughtthatmoderncostumeswouldgivethemdignityinthecapital of India.There wasnobody totellthemthattheywouldlookclownishinmodemcostumes. (n.d.:322-323) At this point in the discussion, the irrepressible Dina Gandhi had intervened-her voice comes throughthedusty pagesofthe Seminar-by saying:"Weneednotwasteour time overthefolliesofofficials andartists.Itisatragedythat thisworldcannotbegotrid offools" (ibid.: 323). Thefoolsarestillaround.Ifwecannotgetridofthem,wehavetoquestiontheraison d'streoftheir folly.Today westillcontinuetocelebratethe Republic DayParadeinmote orlessthesameform asitsearlyexplorations.Theformhasnowcongealed;itistimeto re-workitbyquestioning itsconceptual.political.and choreographicingredients.Watch out forthe Parade nextyear. No consolation prizes fornot guessing the maintheme: Nuclear Peace. I can see a large CUI-OUl ofthe Buddha floating down Raj Path, perhaps surrounded bya phalanxofsaffronflags,followed by nuclearmissiles which,hopefully, will not betoo authentic.Thedummies willdo. "CultureisPower" These perversionsofourtimes,however,shouldnotpreventusfromconfrontingthe limitations,prejudices,and blindspots of thepast.Thisispreciselywhat Singhrefusesto do.Ontheonehand,hefailsto acknowledgethelacunaein theNehruvian legacy,buthe also scrupulously avoids any comment on the culturalpolitics ofpost-AyodhyaIndia.10 this vacuum,he hasnootherchoicebutto holdontothe eternalist chimera of"India's Culture" that will surely go on forever: ''The change in [the] political complexionof governmentsoracabinet crisiswithingovernmentnevermadeanysignificantimpacton Our cultural freedom" (68). While there is a passing reference in the book to "the dart cloudsofthe Emergency"(xvi),there isnOIaword on theideologyofHindutva,oronthe