Rambachan: Divali Nagar must balance culture and commerce

SHAS­TRI BOODAN

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Di­vali Na­gar is more than a com­mer­cial event, but its eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties can help sus­tain its cul­tur­al mis­sion, says Na­tion­al Award re­cip­i­ent Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan.

In a so­cial me­dia post, Ram­bachan, who holds the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT), said cul­ture and eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty were some­times treat­ed as though they be­longed to op­pos­ing worlds, a view he de­scribed as mis­tak­en.

“A tal­ent­ed cook who sells tra­di­tion­al food, an ar­ti­san who cre­ates hand­craft­ed prod­ucts, a de­sign­er who pro­duces cul­tur­al cloth­ing, a mu­si­cian who per­forms or a ven­dor who in­tro­duces a new prod­uct is par­tic­i­pat­ing in eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty. Each is al­so con­tribut­ing, in a dif­fer­ent way, to the cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence of the Na­gar,” he said.

Ram­bachan said an event of Di­vali Na­gar’s scale pro­vid­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for small en­tre­pre­neurs to reach cus­tomers, test prod­ucts, de­vel­op busi­ness re­la­tion­ships and earn in­come.

He added that the eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty sur­round­ing the event could al­so ben­e­fit trans­port op­er­a­tors, sup­pli­ers and oth­er busi­ness­es.

“The pre­cise scale of these ben­e­fits should be es­tab­lished through ev­i­dence, but the wider prin­ci­ple is clear: cul­tur­al events can cre­ate eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties as well as cul­tur­al val­ue,” he said.

Ram­bachan said Trinidad and To­ba­go should cre­ate more op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to turn their skills, ideas and tal­ents in­to pro­duc­tive en­ter­pris­es.

He said young peo­ple should recog­nise that cul­ture could pro­vide a path­way to en­tre­pre­neur­ship and em­ploy­ment, rather than be­ing viewed on­ly as a sub­ject to study or an in­ter­est to pur­sue in their spare time.

How­ev­er, he stressed that eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty must com­ple­ment the cul­tur­al mis­sion and that the in­sti­tu­tion’s pri­or­i­ties must re­main clear.

“Com­merce is not in­her­ent­ly the en­e­my of cul­ture. Poor­ly man­aged pri­or­i­ties can be. The dis­tinc­tion mat­ters,” he said.

Ram­bachan ac­knowl­edged that Di­vali Na­gar had at­tract­ed crit­i­cism from peo­ple who be­lieved it had be­come too com­mer­cial, adding that every cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tion should pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly ex­am­ine whether its ac­tiv­i­ties re­flect­ed its found­ing pur­pose and whether the bal­ance be­tween re­li­gion, ed­u­ca­tion, en­ter­tain­ment and com­merce re­mained ap­pro­pri­ate.

How­ev­er, he said a fair as­sess­ment must al­so con­sid­er the prac­ti­cal re­al­i­ties of fi­nanc­ing an event of such mag­ni­tude.

He point­ed to the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with light­ing, elec­tric­i­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, san­i­ta­tion, stage pro­duc­tion, equip­ment, ad­min­is­tra­tion, main­te­nance and oth­er ser­vices need­ed to host the event.

“How does one fi­nance an un­der­tak­ing that at­tracts thou­sands of vis­i­tors and re­quires light­ing, elec­tric­i­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, san­i­ta­tion, stage pro­duc­tion, equip­ment, ad­min­is­tra­tion, main­te­nance and the many oth­er ser­vices nec­es­sary to make the event pos­si­ble?

“Who pays the bills? Who meets the costs when the per­for­mances are over, the equip­ment has to be main­tained and prepa­ra­tions be­gin for an­oth­er year?” he asked.

Ram­bachan ques­tioned whether the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) should be ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er an event of na­tion­al im­por­tance while avoid­ing the eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties that could help make it fi­nan­cial­ly sus­tain­able.

“These are not un­rea­son­able ques­tions. They are es­sen­tial ques­tions,” he said.

He added that good­will alone could not cov­er every ex­pense, de­spite vol­un­teers giv­ing hun­dreds of hours, busi­ness­es con­tribut­ing re­sources and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers of­fer­ing as­sis­tance.

Com­mer­cial par­tic­i­pa­tion, he said, could pro­vide in­come to sup­port the wider cul­tur­al un­der­tak­ing.

“There is noth­ing in­her­ent­ly wrong with that. The pres­ence of a ven­dor sell­ing food does not erase the cul­tur­al val­ue of a dance per­for­mance. A craftsper­son earn­ing a liv­ing does not di­min­ish the artis­tic mer­it of a hand­craft­ed prod­uct. A busi­ness con­tribut­ing to the event does not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly un­der­mine its re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance,” he said.

Ram­bachan said it was im­por­tant to dis­tin­guish be­tween rais­ing funds to sus­tain a cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tion and al­low­ing the pur­suit of rev­enue to dis­place its pur­pose.

He said the long-term sur­vival of cul­tur­al in­sti­tu­tions de­pend­ed on hav­ing a clear and vi­able fund­ing mod­el.

“We can­not de­mand ex­cel­lence with­out re­sources. We can­not in­sist on am­bi­tious cul­tur­al pro­gram­ming while pre­tend­ing that large events can be sus­tained by en­thu­si­asm alone. And we can­not rea­son­ably ex­pect an or­gan­i­sa­tion to meet sub­stan­tial fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions with­out de­vel­op­ing a vi­able fund­ing mod­el,” he said.

Ram­bachan said the an­swer was not to aban­don com­mer­cial par­tic­i­pa­tion, but to man­age it re­spon­si­bly, pro­tect the cul­tur­al mis­sion and en­sure the right bal­ance was main­tained.