The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

cordially invites you to the Weekly Seminar

at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, 16 October 2012

in the Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building

on

‘Agenc(y)ies for Democracy: National Akademies and the Administration of Arts in Independent India’

by

Dr. Malvika Maheshwari, Research Associate, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Abstract: From 1947 onwards the Indian statesmen focused not just on the consolidation of a modern, independent state through the establishment of institutions of the rule of law, centralized bureaucratic administration, census etc., but also on envisioning and deepening democracy, an adventurous experiment in the nation’s social and political evolution. Carefully chiseled, democratic institutions were erected foremost through an assertion on people’s participation, ‘including the rationalistic autonomist idea that a people “choose” and “give to themselves” their constitution.’ These democratic mechanisms facilitated the formalization of a collective agency and will to a point where it became possible to say, as Kaviraj puts it, that a ‘government will act on behalf of the society if only to translate its collective intentions into policy.' It is the amalgamation of these features that also outlined the independent state’s initial interest and interventions in art.  The twist in the meaning of the word ‘agency’- between a purely institutional solution for art patronage and a habitat created and sustained by cooperative and strategic actions of individuals- could foment an inquiry into the politics of art patronage in India today, and in particular its organization through the National Akademies to recognize artistic finesse and to democratize art during the early years of Indian independence. The paper seeks to highlight an analytical institutional history of state patronage of the arts in India post independence. By focusing on the formation of the Akademies some preliminary, inter related and decisive questions have to be posed- like how to sustain artistic practice in the country?  What was the interest of the state in sustaining art practice, in other words, what does art do for the nation? What did the Government of India want to do with the arts?

Speaker: Dr .Malvika Maheshwari is currently a Research Associate at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. She did her PhD in Political Science from CERI, Sciences Po Paris. She has been teaching various courses at Undergraduate and Post Graduate level since 2009. Some of her publications are Hindu Nationalism and Violence : From Revolution to Terrorism, (In preparation with Prof. Christophe Jaffrelot); ‘Cultural Policing in South Asia : An Anti-Globalization Backlash Against Freedom of Expression ?’ in Helmut Anheier, Yudhishthir Raj Isar (eds.) The Cultures and Globalization Series: Cultural Expression, Creativity & Innovation, 2010, pp. 148-157 (with C. Jaffrelot and L. Gayer); ‘Paradigm shifts by the RSS? Lessons from Aseemanand’s confession’ Economic and Political Weekly,XLVI (6), 2011: 42-46 (with C. Jaffrelot); ‘Dissecting domination in art: Positioning Dalit artists in India today,’ The Arts Politic, 2010, pp. 52-22, Jinnah’s wrong war,’ Himal South Asia, Mar-Apr 2006, etc. - All are welcome. Those wishing to have their names added to the e-mail list may please e-mail us at: nmmldirector@gmail.com