People's Democracy

 Poster Exhibition On Cultural Diversity

AS part of the 15 year anniversary project of SAHMAT, we are developing a poster exhibition on the ‘Making of India’ celebrating the ‘complementary diversity’ of our culture. In our landmark exhibition ‘Hum Sab Ayodhya,’ we had looked at the multiple layers of culture, mythology, social development and history associated with a single site. Here we will expand the frame of our inquiry to encompass the subcontinent and, instead of a linear historical progression, will examine ideas, sites, cultural traditions, artifacts, architecture and social transformation through history. Instead of the simplistic notion of ‘unity amidst diversity,’ the exhibition will focus on our diverse traditions and emphasise the strengths of that diversity. As a complex culture which has been composed of complementing and overlapping diversity through history, this is precisely what makes our subcontinental culture so rich and unique as a civilisation, and it is this living tradition which stands counter to any notion of an interpretation or imposition of a single, monolithic culture owing allegiance to only a limited view of a singular religious tradition.

The ‘Making of India’ symposium at Chennai on November 2, was the launch of the project, with papers presented by historians Professor Champakalakshmi and Professor Aijaz Ahmad, both of whom spoke on civilisational aspects of our history.