Govt has done little to help pandemic-hit 'arts' community: Arundhati Ghosh

The pandemic has hit hard an already vulnerable community that survives on creativity. And the government's response hasn't helped, Ghosh tells Chintan Girish Modi

When the government wants to boost tourism and peddle soft power, arts and culture serve their purpose. Artists are sent out as emissaries. But when a pandemic breaks out, they are the first ones to be abandoned,” says Arundhati Ghosh, executive director of India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), which supports practice, research and education in the arts in India. 

While she is upset that her sector has not got its due, Ghosh admits that artists and culture workers have led precarious lives even in pre-pandemic times. 

“We could teach others about being atmanirbhar, you know!” she says.

Ghosh took on the leadership role at IFA in 2013, having joined the organisation in 2000 after a decade in the corporate sector. The stint in the corporate world happened after a degree in economics from Presidency College in Kolkata, and a postgraduate degree in management from Mudra Institute of Communications in Ahmedabad. Though she is primarily known as a fundraiser, she has also studied classical dance and is a published poet in Bangla. 

Ghosh lives in Bengaluru, and I am in Mumbai, so we catch up over a Zoom call. This online adda is clearly not the same as meeting her in person at CultureCon 2020, an arts management conference in February. Despite the digital fatigue from endless work meetings, she is warm and energetic for our virtual chat. 

“Soon after the pandemic struck, and most of us became house-bound, I was invited to join a Facebook group called ‘Simple Recipes for Complicated Times’ started by writer-editor Peter Griffin,” she says. When she started posting about the food she was cooking at home, people began approaching her for advice. And this came as a huge surprise. “I am normally the go-to woman for advice on investments, relationships, politics, women’s issues, etcetera. but no one has ever asked me for advice on cooking. I felt like a total queen of the kitchen.”

Though we call it a coffee chat, neither of us has coffee. The irony is not lost on us. I sip from a glass of kokum sherbet, and bite into a vegetable sandwich. Ghosh nibbles on a chocolate brownie she has made using whole wheat flour, butter, eggs, organic cocoa, cinnamon, vegetable oil, sugar, walnuts, cranberries, and baking powder. “Baking has taken me to a place I had been looking for. I cannot fully articulate it. It’s about how simple elements come together to make a miracle. When you bake, you have to wait for things to transform. You have to let go,” she says.

For someone who calls herself ‘a control freak’, the realisation that “some things are never in your control; you just have to trust the world” is a big leap.

Our conversation is interrupted by trains in the background because my house is close to a railway station. Ghosh assures me that she is not bothered by this. She, too, has grown up living in houses near railway lines. “First, it was Asansol, and now Bangalore. I like the sounds that trains make. They have a soothing quality,” she says, before we go back to talking about cooking. 

Her understanding of feminism is changing. Apart from fighting fiercely for what she believes in, she also feels pulled towards embracing “all the nurturing parts of myself”. 

Feeling grounded is crucial to grapple with the chaos on the professional front. The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Act received the assent of the President on September 28. According to Ghosh, this legislation will have a major impact on arts funding in India. “At IFA,” she says, “we raise funds from large bodies using our skills, expertise and years of networking, and then give grants to artists, scholars, researchers —  both individuals and collectives. Local funds are not sufficient, so foreign funds help. The new amendments are going to affect us and others in the sector. Also, the paperwork will be an energy sucker for thousands of NGOs all over India.”

The Act has received criticism from NGO professionals who believe that, under the guise of strengthening statutory compliance, regulating the inflow of foreign funds and increasing transparency, the government wants to shut down projects that are critical of its policies. Ghosh says, “During Covid-19, marginalised communities were served by civil society and non-profits. Now the government is tightening its noose around the same NGOs who supported and provided relief during these hard times. It seems it wants to stifle anyone who raises a critical voice. Our civil society must fight back against this.”

Ghosh was involved in running three fundraisers during the pandemic. One was in partnership with Sangama, an NGO working for the rights of gender and sexual minorities, particularly transgender individuals, sex workers, and people living with HIV. “We managed to raise Rs 19 lakh through crowdfunding to provide rations,” she says. She also joined eminent personalities from the arts and culture sector — Shubha Mudgal, Aneesh Pradhan, Sameera Iyengar, Rahul Vohra and Mona Irani — on a fundraiser called Assistance for Disaster Affected Artists to raise Rs 42 lakh for 132 families of folk artistes across the country.

Ghosh mentions that she helped the Desi Trust raise Rs 10 lakh towards pandemic relief for weavers in North Karnataka, and is currently working with the PM Bustee Community Kitchen on relief efforts in West Bengal, a state that was affected by Cyclone Amphan in addition to Covid-19. She participated in these initiatives in a personal capacity, not on behalf of IFA. However, the IFA itself gave out 25 grants of Rs 25,000 each to support artists in a small way, and to celebrate 25 years of grantmaking at the organisation. 

“Our theme for the grants was 25 years of the internet in India. We have a variety of projects across genres, disciplines and languages,” she says. The grantees are scattered in locations all over the country, such as Goa, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Secunderabad. 

Ghosh thrives on hope and humour, in addition to chocolate brownies. She is convinced that people who care about the arts will come together, and make things happen, unfazed by the obstacles in their path.