Revisiting Princely Patronage, the Institution and Practice of the Zonal Cultural Centres: Hauntings, Continuities, Conjunctions

Presenter:

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Abstract

Broadly, my research is concerned with cultural policy and with institutions that support and promote the performing arts in independent India. In this paper I look at a curious governmental configuration: that of the post colonial Indian state’s oblique ‘revisiting’ in the mid-1980s of the frameworks of princely stewardship for the arts. My interest is in the Indian government’s inauguration in the 1980s of a series of seven cultural institutions intended to supplement, and in time perhaps supersede, the National Akademies established in the 1950s. These institutions, the seven zonal cultural centres (ZCCs), constituted an alternative institutional model. They were characterized by their territorial spread across the length and breadth of the subcontinent. Of relevance to this paper is the government’s deliberate location of several of the ZCCs in the capitals of former princely states. My paper will explore the conjunctions and continuities in narrative and thinking about patronage in the Princely states of Udaipur(North West Zone Cultural Centre), Patiala (North Zone Cultural Centre) and Thanjavur and the (South Zone Cultural Centre), and the ZCCs established within their precincts. My analysis will draw upon an examination of the archives of both the princely states mentioned above and of the particular ZCCs. Besides this, the work will also use material derived from fieldwork.