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World Commission on Culture and Development established by UNESCO, invited Kapila Vatsyayan s one of the Key-note speakers at the Commission’s Regional Consultation for the Asia and the Pacific, held in Manila from Nov.21-23, 1994. Here she presents her views on development and cultural expression and the arts.

Theme 1: Defining a vision of development in terms of the cultural values of Asian and Pacific societies

As has been pertinently stated in the background paper of the World Commission on Culture and Development, the challenge before humanity is to evolve a model of development which responds to the civilization and culture of diverse societies in different parts of the world. The adoption and adaptation of developmental models based on the experience of the industrialized world has not brought about either peace and harmony or alleviation of poverty value systems which are conducive to peace and harmony. Violence and intolerance, fragmentation and unhealthy assertion of a self-centered self is in evidence.

Countries in Asia and the Pacific have been the home of many great civilizations. Some amongst these are still alive and vibrant. The civilizations are embedded in cultural values which give priority first and the foremost to the human development. The cultural patterns have been fostered and sustained through the commitment and affirmation of the principle of interdependence, interrelationship and the co-existence of a multiplicity of racial, linguistic and religious, communities of the region. The societies have known a staggering variety of religious ethnic, tribal, rural and urban communities. Any developmental model which seeks to homogenise these diverse societies into a single uniform pattern is likely to fail. A vision of development for this region as also for Africa must take into cognizance both plurality and the principle of interdependence and interrelationship. Each group, community or level of society has a defined role in relation to other groups and communities. Recognition and respect for the cultural values of Asian and Pacific societies has been basic. There has been an in-built system of interaction of equalization on particular occasions and particular place. The reversal of hierarchies is also known. This is evident from the reading of the myths and countless legends of these cultures. Also, the developmental model must foster and ensure the continuation of a worldview which does not give priority only to the material or the monetary in the hierarchy of values. Recognition of the potential of each individual or group contributions at his/her or its level to the totality of the nation or the region must be recognised. This can only happen through the acceptance of plural models of development keeping in view the geo-cultural ecological situation of each region. In such a model of development the role of competition on the basis of a single uniform yardstick may have to be eschewed. In such a vision of development industrialisation for the sake of industrialisation may also have to be reconsidered. Much greater emphasis will need to be placed on the local sub-regional geo-eco-cultural distinctiveness. The tendencies of homogenisation on the basis of imported or devised models of development would need to be replaced by those which allow for the natural flowering of differentiation with mutual respect. Large sections of the people of this region termed as indigeneous people or even tribal societies would not be marginalised and considered backward on account of the application and the economic criterion of GND or GDD. Instead they would be recognised as the highly culturally developed sections of society which have been the carriers of vision and skills for many millenia. Their role would be legitimitised as givers to society and contemporary development. There would be or should be should be an equity between the highly industrialised materially affluent, formally educated but culturally poor, and those who are today economically deprived but are culturally rich. The notion of majority-minority on the basis of race, religion, language or main stream and subsidiary streams on the basis of modern education and modernisation as also the notions of melting pot or a mosaic, would be replaced by the notion of the image of Cosmic Man where all systems and all parts of the Body and therefore the universe are interdependent and indispensable, though they be big or small, major or minor limbs. Globalisation can have meaning and significance only if interdependence and mutual respect are the guiding principles within different cultural groups in a nation State, regions and between the socio-economically rich and developed and the culturally rich but economically developing countries of the South.

Theme 2: Cultural Expression and the Arts Emerging forces for Development in Asia and the Pacific

From times immemorial, from the days of Mesopotamia, and Mohenjodaro to the humblest hamlets and villages of contemporary Asia and the Pacific, the arts have been part and parcel of the functionality of life. They have been integral to ordinary work. The extraordinary monuments and products of other arts are the work of ordinary people, largely in anonymity. The arts were fostered by the community, were and are intrinsic to daily and annual life. They were not the prerogative of a minority elite although there is evidence of great architecture as a result of royal patronage and surplus money. The makers were still the `ordinary’ underprivileged.

In the non-industrialised world the arts have been the instrumentality of making communication between man and nature and man and the cosmos. The arts remind the human that he is one amongst all living matter and his life depends on the maintenance of ecological balances between good & evil, between man and God. The daily, the seasonal cycle, the annual calendar, give rise to a variety of art forms, be they literature, the visual arts or the performing arts. Each is essentially a strategy for facilitating this communication between man and nature, man and the cosmos. The artistic act is by volition, situated in specific `time’, `place’ and `space’. Equally, the arts are the instrumentality of making communication between the individual and the society, particular groups and regions. The life cycle is interspersed with a series of ritual ceremonies with a marked artistic form. These serve as milestones for the development of the human as individual and as part of the collective society. Besides, the arts have been the instrumentality of making a communication between the past and the present, the ancient and the contemporary. The arts of this region have moved concurrently at the plane of the mythical, the historical, the celestial and the terrestrial worlds. This capacity of the Asian arts to move on different planes and different dimensions and different orders of time concurrently have released creative energies which revitalise society. The arts help to find balances without breakdown with ease. The arts have been the instruments of criticism of lampooning, of providing correctives as and when either ecological imbalances are imminent or individual or social balances are threatened or political power as anideology or rule becomes smothering. Thousands of examples can be given of the role of these arts ranging from the Wayang Kulit puppet plays of Jaya and Bali to the traditional theatre forms of India, to the scrollpaintings of Sri Lanka and the oral poetic recitative forms and balled traditions of the entire region. The arts have been the vital channel of communication between individual and society, diverse social and ethnic groups, between the ruler and the ruled. They have also been the most potent tool of cutting across racial socioeconomic hierarchies where the low and the high come together.

Fortunately and perhaps on account of the comparatively slow pace of the development (understood as the evolution of progressively Consumeristic Society) there is an infinite variety of indigenous tribal village societies which have fostered and sustained a continuity of cultural lifestyles. Levels of society in these regions which have been entirely uprooted and alienated have drawn from the arts of these people to re-energise themselves. They have been the givers of a sense of `identity’. Often, also their artistic products have been appropriated, used for export and promotion of tourism to the utter neglect of the people and the cultural milieu of the producers. Torn out of context the artistic manifestation, which was integral to life and society and consequently the objects, are `coveted’ as possession and replicated as merchandise. In the process the `object’ becomes fossilised repetition and the maker a labourer.

The dialects of lifestyle and the `arts’ have to be understood if both the `arts’ and the makers hitherto are to play a positive energising role.

Undoubtedly, experiments have recently been made in different parts of Asia to employ the arts to communicate developmental messages. Sometimes they have failed because the messsages themselves have nor been integral to the societal values. The interface and the interpenetration of developmental goals, cultural and artistic forms are an area to be investigated with great sensitivity, empathy and understanding of the dynamics of the cultures of Asia. While the thread of unity and similarity in approaches and attitudes in worldview runs across and underneath all artistic manifestations, the artistic forms themselves are diverse multiple plural and variegated. The plurality of languages, dialects, cultural expressions, ethnic communities must be sustained because it is in the recognition of the plurality and diversity that a unity can be fostered. Indeed, some parts of Asia and some societies and communities in Asia are eminently suitable for the evolution of alternate models of development. In these societies the individual and collective human development and the artistic and aesthetic well-being of the society were identified as the centre of focus. Some cohesive societies in this region have known how to maintain ecological balances, man-nature relationship, recycling of natural resources, water management, land management, agricultural practices all of which find expression in artistic events which are collective. A deep and careful study of such phenomenon with recognition of what has been done by the societies may perhaps give new directions for re-defining development and continuing to recognise the arts as the energizing force for a beautiful harmonious development of societies based not on greed, but on need and minority, rich or poor, literature or illiterate. The potential of all minority, rich or poor, literate or illiterate. The potential of all human beings not only a selected few or artistic expression would then be recognised. Creativity is the patrimony of both the rich and poor, majority and minority, literate and illiterate. Lastly, it must be recognised that arts and culture, creativity and economic affluence and surplus money may or may not be in direct proportion: sometimes it can be an inverse.

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