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Angana Parekh
NEW DELHI, SEPT 3: The Bharatiya Janata Party is gearing up to launch a culture offensive. The party is setting up a culture cell to promote the party's philosophy of cultural nationalism through the arts. Sources said that the cell would also interact with and advise the Human Resource Development Ministry which includes the Department of Culture.
Members of Sanskar Bharati, the culture wing of the RSS, are actively associated with the cell, which is currently in the planning stage after having received the nod from the BJP's top bosses. The cell is expected to be formally constituted later this month. Critics of the BJP believe that ``cultural nationalism'' is a euphemism for Hindutva.
One of the priorities of the cell would be to ensure the reconstitution of committees in the country's top cultural institutions like Lalit Kala Akademi, National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) and Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). ``These committees are dominated by Left-leaning persons. We want to break theirmonopoly,'' said one of the members of the culture cell.
HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi has already reconstituted the board of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and appointed several pro-BJP historians. The ICHR's member-secretary TVK Subramanian, who had openly criticised the Babri Masjid demolition, was removed yesterday.
The Ministry is also believed to be considering reactivating the move to formulate a national culture policy. Sources said that the BJP culture cell would provide inputs for the policy.
According to Raghu Vyas, the North India head of Sanskar Bharati, it was felt that the ``right'' artistes were not getting sponsorship. ``For instance, ICCR is sponsoring Left-wing artists. As a result, Hindu culture is not being promoted.''
On the art scene, too, it is believed that Leftist artists have dominated the stage for too long and that steps are needed to put an end to this. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Sanskar Bharati have been waging a campaign against MF Husain for hispaintings of Hindu goddesses and have accused him of deliberately hurting the religious sensibilities of people by ``his naked and obscene depiction'' of Hindu goddesses.
DP Sinha, one of the leading members of Sanskar Bharati, is tipped to be convenor of the BJP culture cell. A retired IAS officer, Sinha is Chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Akademi and earlier headed Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal and the UP Lalit Kala Akademi. He had also spearheaded the anti-Husain campaign.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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