Educated citizens of India have much to contribute towards enriching the Republic
I thank myself for witnessing the completion of 75 years of the Indian Republic, and for me, it is time to reflect on my services to enrich it in various capacities. ‘We the people’ in the preamble of our Constitution means every Indian citizen must understand that they have created all the institutions of democracy—from the Supreme Court to the Election Commission of India, Parliament, and legislative assemblies and the huge grassroots-level administrative structure of the village, taluka, and zilla panchayats and the urban local bodies for self-rule.
There are several ways the Republic may summon you to serve. I always wondered why all government orders are issued in the governor’s name and published in the official gazette. That’s because the President of India appoints the Governor. That means I work under the President of the Republic of India once I get an order in the Governor’s name. It automatically implies my constitutional duties to enrich the Republic as per that order or notification. The Republic gave me my salary at the university; the Republic now pays my pension, the Republic provided me all necessary facilities and comforts, powers to make certain decisions, a mandate to formulate specific policies, and commanded me to use all my knowledge, experience, and expertise to enrich it.
One of my services to the Republic was to prepare the first state-level cultural policy in India. It did not begin with an initiative from the central or state government. The story begins on January 26, 2000. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led stable NDA government was in power at the Centre, and Goa had a shaky and opportunistic political alliance supported by the BJP under the then CM Francisco Sardinha. The second-time BJP MLA from Margao, Digambar Kamat, joined the cabinet in November 1999 and was allotted the art and culture portfolio. After watching the parade on Rajpath, New Delhi, on January 26, 2000, the golden jubilee celebrations, I began to think about something historic I needed to do that day for the Republic. Then the idea of advocating a “Goa State Cultural Policy” came to me. The impulse to “Do Something for the Republic” was so strong that within two hours, I wrote an 11-page detailed petition addressed to the minister for art and culture, Digambar Kamat, signed it, put it inside a file, and rushed to meet him at Kala Akademy, Campal, where he was the chief guest for a function in the evening. The petition had justified the need for a cultural policy of Goa and had included steps to be taken to prepare it. I met the then director of art and culture, M. V. Naik, and informed him about my mission. He looked at the file in my hand and requested that I wait till the function was over.
After he left the stage, I quickly rushed to Minister Kamat, told him about the petition, and presented the file to him. On his direction, the art and culture department studied the proposal for over a year. Then it constituted a task force committee under my chairmanship in August 2002 to prepare the draft cultural policy within three years. Many members on the committee were senior to me, but they all cooperated. We formed 14 subcommittees with 42 experienced members to discuss various aspects of the draft cultural policy.
As chairman and editor of the final draft, I had to do much research on model cultural policies worldwide. All the subcommittees were given complete freedom to make the recommendations. I strongly supported one important recommendation to form the Tiatr Akademy of Goa. After considering all subcommittee reports, I had to spend a lot of time editing and preparing the final draft, which was presented to the then art and culture minister Ramarao Dessai in December 2004. I reminded the then CM Parrikar to finalise the cultural policy, but political turbulence hit Goa in February 2005. The draft policy was translated later into Konkani and Marathi and circulated to MLAs, cultural institutions, and prominent writers and artists. Their comments were considered when preparing the final policy to be approved by the cabinet. Much time had been lost since December 2004, so I kept enquiring with the new government since June 2005. Finally, the Goa cabinet under the government led by Pratapsingh Rane approved the Cultural Policy in August 2006. It was then published in the official gazette in January 2007 and came into force immediately. The planning commission of the government of India took special note of the policy, the first of its kind in India in 2007, and recommended the Goa model to other states. The Goa government has created many new schemes since 2008 under the cultural policy, which benefits thousands of artists and writers every year. This is an example of what educated citizens like me can do to enrich the Indian Republic, our beloved Republic.
(Nandkumar M Kamat, who has a doctorate in microbiology, is a scientist and science writer)
