ICCR to check abuse of Indian icons, deities: New President

The Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) will pursue an agenda of creating greater understanding of India and Indian civilisation to check abuse of Indian icons and deities or using these in a derogatory manner, its new President, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, said on Tuesday.

Speaking to the media here after assuming charge, Sahasrabuddhe laid out three priorities for his three-year tenure.

"First of all I would like to pursue the agenda of creating greater understanding about India and Indian civilisation and when I say so, I cannot forget incidents of various Indian icons being utilised or rather abused in a very crude manner and deities being used on footwear or toilet sheets and things like that," he said.

"So, these things happening in a way is an indication of lack of cultural literacy about India. And therefore, we should in our own way try create a situation where people will not commit these kind of mistakes and hurt the sensibilities of the Indians."

As such, Sahasrabuddhe said that the ICCR would work to evolve a greater understanding of India and Indian civilisation in the global community of academicians, men of letters, artistes, thinkers and thereby take the agenda of creating this understanding to a higher level through multiple efforts and in a more structured manner.

He said his second priority is to further consolidate the institutional strength of ICCR and increase its footprint across the world.

"We have to scale newer heights and also try to have a more pronounced footprint of this institution world over. And we have to do it in a scientific manner through evolving a more result oriented work culture," he stated.

Stating that there has been an assessment of ICCR's performance and whatever has already been done, Sahasrabuddhe said: "You can further work towards translating popular global goodwill which is there in abundance about India world over into a more vibrant diplomatic relationship, which is the agenda of the government as well."

He said the third priority is to ensure that wider concept of culture and civilisation encompassing a wide range of subjects from food to fabric, handicrafts to folk-art and diversity of traditions to emerging varieties of tourism get reflected in the institutional agenda of the ICCR.

Sahasrabuddhe, who is the BJP's national Vice President and also a Rajya Sabha member from Maharashtra, succeeds Lokesh Chandra whose tenure as ICCR President ended last year.

ICCR was founded in 1950 by India's first Education Minister, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who also served as its first President. Former Presidents Shankar Dayal Sharma and K.R. Narayanan, former Prime Ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee have also held the post.

The ICCR's main objectives are to actively participate in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes pertaining to India's external cultural relations and to foster and strengthen cultural relations and mutual understanding between India and other countries.

--IANS

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