Abstract
Kapila Vatsyayan shaped the cultural discourse in contemporary India in a way no other figure has been able to do. Her scholarship, institution-building initiatives and a lifelong journey of discovering the magnificence of people’s art and culture in all corners of India made her a unique icon of this nation’s cultural universe. But in all her activities she succeeded in making a lasting impact because she had a perspective underlying her mission. It was a perspective that emerged from her learning from the world of practice of art. She studied the performing arts as closely as she did the treatises from ancient India. She learnt all the major classical dances––Kathak, Manipuri, Bharatanatyam and Odissi—from the most famous gurus of her time. She closely observed and participated in many folk festivals in different parts of India, especially sharing tribal people’s cultural activities.
Close observation of dance performances and and intimate visuals as audience were as much a source of theorising that were presented in her many books and articles as analysing the intricacies mentioned in the shastras. She challenged the categories of classical, modern and folk dances and established their integrality and continuity. That was the great act of democratising cultural discourse giving honour and status to all forms of performing arts. In a country where caste order, royal patronage and temple rituals dictated the hierarchy of cultural forms, Kapila ji broke many barriers and created a new world of culture. Recognised and awarded numerous times for her efforts, she was nominated to the Rajya Sabha and also bestowed the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour.
Kapila Vatsyayan firmly repudiated the familiar method of distinguishing tradition and modernity that dominated social and cultural analysis during colonial and post-colonial India. She documented and demonstrated how people’s living culture represented many strands from the past and constantly underwent innovation in practice. According to her, the beauty of discovering these layers of confluence was the primary task of cultural studies.
What was remarkable was that she did not do all this to exhibit Indian cultural heritage before the West as many of her contemporaries did. The world came to India to learn from her and acknowledged her contribution in multiple prestigious awards. Her long association with UNESCO in many projects and as a board member (2004–2009) and her crucial role in the UN-initiated Dialogue Among Civilisations in 2001 are testimonies to her approach to the study of culture and civilisations. People from all over the world carried elements of civilisation and contributed to the history of human civilisation. One only needed to acquire the right perspective and methodology, recognising them, valuing their culture and learning from them and giving them their dignity. Kapila ji’s field of close study was India which was reflected in the many books she authored. She did all her cultural work for the people of India. The rich, diverse, multi-layered and pluralist culture of India needed self-discovery and the ability to capture the dynamic process gave new meaning to its genius. Kapila ji had the wherewithal to do so as she had equipped herself with both Indian and Western tools of research. She had a master’s degree in English Literature from Delhi University and another in Education from Michigan University, Ann Arbor, Michigan and a PhD in Indology from Banaras Hindu University, besides undertaking many stints as a researcher in different parts of the world. But her real education was from the world of practitioners. She continued to learn from experience till the very end.
The institutions that she set up or guided embodied that perspective. While in the Government of India and associated with the ministries of education, culture and human resources development from 1954 till 1990, when she retired as secretary, she took a number of initiatives. The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) in New Delhi and the Central Institute of Tibetan Studies (now a Central University) in Sarnath were primarily conceptualised by Kapila ji. She took the initiative to renovate and energise the Asiatic Society, Kolkata, Khuda Baksh Oriental Library in Patna and the Rampur Raza Library located in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. She worked with Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay to set up and develop the Sangeet Natak Akademi and the National School of Drama. Kamaladevi ji’s passion to revive and sustain Indian handicrafts was fully supported by her.
It is this perspective, accompanied by a formidable store of knowledge and practice, that attracted numerous organisations and individuals to her to seek her support and advice. I will take the opportunity to cite a few instances from my personal experience.
As the Life Trustee of India International Centre (IIC), Kapila Vatsyayan was also a member of Council for Social Development (CSD) Society and was always supportive of all our academic and cultural initiatives. And from the days of CSD’s founder Durgabai Deshmukh, the CSD faculty had the great opportunity of taking part in IIC’s many cultural and academic programmes. I will mention just two, the Bandung Day Symposium and the Satyagraha Conference. After the summit meeting of leaders in 2015 on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Bandung Conference, it was decided to observe 24 April every year as Bandung Day to remember the Bandung Declaration, adopted on that day in 1955, emphasising values of independence, sovereignty, equality, peace and human rights. To that end, CSD and IIC decided to jointly hold a Bandung Day Symposium every year. The first time it was held in IIC in 2016, Kapila ji was in the chair and thrilled the audience by recounting her work as a student volunteer in the Asian Relations Conference in 1947 and as a young cultural performer in Bandung in 1955. She lauded this initiative and was excited by the idea that these values were upheld strongly and wished that a closer cooperation be forged among people of Asia, Africa and Latin America. She had taken many initiatives for cultural exchanges among Asian countries. Indeed, the IIC-Asia Project, now renamed the International Research Division, helmed by Kapila ji, has produced many valuable research publications, curated memorable exhibitions and conducted momentous conferences thanks to her leadership.
Most unforgettable was her active participation in the international conference on satyagraha in the twenty-first century organised by CSD and IIC in collaboration with many other Indian and foreign institutions in October 2019 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth. Touching 90, a frail Kapila Vatsyayan helped by her colleague Mr Ramachandran attended all the plenary sessions. Before going up to take her seat as the inaugural speaker, Medha Patkar noticed her in a back row and went to hug her to the delight of a packed multipurpose hall in the Kamaladevi block. On the concluding day, after Vandana Shiva gave her valedictory address, Kapila ji insisted on walking up to the stage to embrace her. Even more memorable was her presence in the evening programmes. An evening of Satyagraha poetry that Ashok Vajpayee and Savita Singh had organised with seven other well-known poets of India absolutely delighted her. Spontaneously, the poets dedicated the evening to her in her presence. Equally enthralling was to see her acclaiming the most imaginative dance drama on seven episodes of Gandhi ji’s Satyagraha that the noted Bharatanatyam dancer Geeta Chandran presented another evening. In all these events, Kapila ji saw herself unfolding, whether it was in a lecture or a paper on peace and conflict resolution, education and social transformation, truth discourse in world traditions or poetry and dance on people’s struggles for freedom, equality and justice, they all represented her life’s mission.
I can recount many such episodes where she encouraged us to venture into bold initiatives. Space does not permit but I remember many initiatives we took jointly between the Institute of Chinese Studies and the IGNCA, especially the Dunhuang Cave art project and the cultural and economic cooperation between Northeast India and Southwest China or Delhi University’s Developing Countries Research Centre’s major project with IIC on gender and migration. But I will end with our last effort together. When the communal riots broke out in northeast Delhi last February, CSD President, Muchkund Dubey and I reached her office in the IIC annexe with a proposal. She was full of anguish as were the rest of us and immediately agreed that we work together to make a joint appeal to the Prime Minister of India to urgently convene an all-party meeting and appeal for peace and take strict measures to stem the violence. Swami Agnivesh, Deepak Nayyar and Fali Nariman also signed immediately. No such meeting took place. But history will record how contemporary India’s most famous icon of cultural creativity cared deeply for defending the democratic and pluralist character of India.