Vishakha Desai is the first woman president of the prestigious Asia Society and the first of Asian origin. In this Idea Exchange moderated by Assistant Editor Mihir Sharma, Desai speaks of how the Society balances China and India and what it was like to work with Richard Holbrooke

MIHIR SHARMA: The Asia Society is part art and culture and part very hard policy. How do you manage the two?

The Asia Society was founded in 1956 by John Rockefeller. It was with a simple proposition at the time, which was the beginning of the Vietnam engagement and the Korean War. Mr Rockefeller had this great idea: he was very interested in spiritual-historical-cultural dimensions of Asia. He had been coming to Asia since 1929 and every year he would spend two-three months at a time in different countries. He found that Americans needed to know more about Asia. He was interested in arts and culture and also current affairs. So he said, why not combine them, the basis of the civilisations and where they are currently. We have always been a multi-disciplinary institution with a commitment to arts and culture, education and policy and business. This is still a hallmark of ours compared to other institutions. Initially, it was an American institution but it was always interested in the exchange of ideas—both ways—with what Rockefeller called respect for Asia. Today, we have actually changed our mission statement. We have taken the word ‘American’ out of our mission statement to say we are a global institution dedicated to the spread of partnerships among Asians and Americans from leaders, institutions and individuals. This is what I call the three ‘C’s’: culture, commerce and current affairs.

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