Greater India's magnificent heritage
Rajeev Srinivasan on India's cultural empire
India's official indifference to these symbols of the nation's bonds with its cultural hinterland is very sad, but not surprising. After all, it continues to be the unsaid (and sometimes expressed) sentiment of the powers-that-be that Indic faiths and cultures are not worth salvaging. Thus, there is very little by way of official Indian involvement in Indonesia or Cambodia. One of the few was a project for the chemical restoration of apsaras at Angkor Wat; this has been reviled by westerners are unusually harsh and damaging, but then said westerners may also have some vested interests.
Compare India's indifference to what the officially secular governments of Japan and the United States do. There is Japanese aid to restore and renovate Buddhist structures everywhere: Thailand, India, Cambodia, Burma, wherever. The Americans interfere in the internal affairs of many nations to protect the interests of its fundamentalist Christians. India, alas, has no interest in the travails of Hindus or Buddhists anywhere.
Given this official neglect, it is incumbent on individuals to try and help re-create ancient bonds especially in the Indian Ocean Rim, which will eventually become a major player in the world. For, from South Africa to Indonesia to Australia, it has a large fraction of the world's resources and most enterprising people. It is incumbent on India to provide leadership for a resurgent Indian Ocean Rim organisation. I request that, we, as individuals, give our time and money for relief in Prambanan and Java at this time.
The past and the future of Asia is a tussle between India and China for influence. Alas, at the governmental level the Chinese are far ahead in their efforts to influence these countries. Their television programmes and other soft power are increasingly popular. They also have manufactured a new 'history' of some admiral who sailed the Indian Ocean four hundred years ago. This 'history' will be used to make territorial claims in future -- this is Chinese custom.
On the other hand, India, despite incontrovertible evidence of its cultural ties, does not appear to care: politicians prefer to claim second-class membership in the Middle East and in the OECD. Pathetic, indeed.
Comments welcome at my blog at rajeev2004.blogspot.com
Image: Lintel from Banteay Seri, near Angkor Wat.
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