Project Mausam: Maritime Routes and Cultural Landscapes

Project ‘Mausam’ is a Ministry of Culture project to be implemented by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi as the nodal coordinating agency with support of Archeological Survey of India and National Museum as associate bodies.

Project Launch

The unique idea of this project to showcase a Transnational Mixed Route (including Natural and Cultural Heritage) on the World Heritage List has been well appreciated during the Project Launch by India at the 38th World Heritage Session at Doha, Qatar on 20th June, 2014. The Director General UNESCO appreciated India’s initiative in launching this unique project and ambassadors of several countries including China, UAE, Qatar, Iran, Myanmar, and Vietnam expressed great interest in this multifaceted cultural project. (ATTACH VIDEO)

About the Project

Focusing on monsoon patterns, cultural routes and maritime landscapes, Project ‘Mausam’ is examining key processes and phenomena that link different parts of the Indian Ocean littoral as well as those that connect the coastal centres to their hinterlands. Broadly, Project ‘Mausam’ aims to understand how the knowledge and manipulation of the monsoon winds has shaped interactions across the Indian Ocean and led to the spread of shared knowledge systems, traditions, technologies and ideas along maritime routes. These exchanges were facilitated by different coastal centres and their surrounding environs in their respective chronological and spatial contexts, and simultaneously had an effect on them.

The endeavour of Project ‘Mausam’is to position itself at two levels:

• At the macro level, it aims to re-connect and re-establish communications between countries of the Indian Ocean world, which would lead to an enhanced understanding of cultural values and concerns;
• At the micro level, the focus is on understanding national cultures in their regional maritime milieu.

The Project scope falls under several themes to be explored through various UNESCO Culture Conventions to which the Government of India is a signatory with the Ministry of Culture and ASI as nodal agency.

Initiatives till date

Preliminary works on this new project has already been initiated. A monthly lecture series has been organized at India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi in collaboration with IGNCA, National Monuments Authority (NMA), New Delhi and IIC. The first international conference, scheduled in February 2015, is being organized with national and international research partners and collaborators. The Research Unit at IGNCA is in the process of collating data from all identified organisations and institutions and a series of national workshops are planned before the international conference in Feb. 2015. IGNCA has set up a webpage for the Project and more information about the project can be sourced at 

India’s foreign policy in West Asia

Despite being a major player in the region, it is said that India’s foreign policy in West Asia lacks vision and is nearly moribund. Critically examine why.

India has a strong influence in the West Asia and North Africa due to various reasons like old civilizational ties with Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia; old sea trade routes; Khilafat Movement days; the Non Aligned Movement amd the Bollywood. Today the region holds immense importance for an aspirational India. There are about 7 million Indians working in these areas that are a source of huge remittances despite facing gruelling working conditions with little social security amd prospects of eviction due to domestication of jobs. Most of India's trade passes through Suez Canal and India depends upon oil (70%) from this region only. Paksitan enjoys cosniderable influence there as well due to Islamic nature.
Of late, India had recently lost much ground in these regions due to wide involvement of the West, specially after 9/11. India's stance has often vacillated on key issues as is evident from voting patterns in the UN. For example India abstained from voting on Libya and did not oppose when the West pushed for regime change. In Syria, India did not raise voice against IS Congress's decision to arm moderate Syriam rebels despite India's own bitter past with arming of Taliban. India voted against Iran on the nuke issue presumably under the US pressure, despite the engagements like Chabhar port and Delaram Highway.
The more turmoil that happens in a country, India seems to be less willing to engage it. The Palestine issue seems to be another area where India is facing problems due to increased trade in defense with Israel and silence is construed as endorsement of human rights violation. India's role seems to have been limited to evacuating its citizens form war torn areas.
The most glaring evidence is lack of diplomatic and high level visits.
Clearly, India needs to revamp the stance. The region is torn with ISIS, political turmoil, mutial bickering and Shia-Sunni sectarian divide. Any moves to directly engage ISIS will be detrimental to us. So we need to work on confidence builidng measures and starting diplomatic exchanges and cultural shows. Gulf Cooperation Council will be good place to start afresh and seek multilogues on concerned and shared issues. And it is quite sure that if India makes its voice heard, it will be recieved well in this region.