NEW DELHI: Pandit Ravi Shankar was possibly independent India's first and best-known cultural ambassador. "It's an understatement," says Ronen Sen, former diplomat and one of Shankar's close friends. "He personified Indian soft power at a time when the term had not even been invented."
When India was under international pressure, particularly from the West and US over the 1971 Bangladesh war, it was Shankar who championed, and was a guiding spirit of, the hugely successful concert for Bangladesh.
"The Nixon administration had taken a tough stand against India's intervention in Bangladesh. But it was this concert that helped swing the popular mood in the world towards Bangladesh, and for this Ravi Shankar performed a stellar role as India's ambassador," says Sen.
Ravi Shankar, says Sen, put Indian classical music on the global map, not as "alternative" music. "Despite his following in the pop music world, Ravi Shankar never compromised on the purity of the Indian classical genre. Thus, he played in the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow and in Bonn. He was also the only Indian artiste to play at the Royal Opera House in London."
For Indian diplomacy finding its geopolitical feet in the decades after independence, Ravi Shankar was invaluable. With his music, evident spirituality and an infectious joie de vivre, he set a trend that was very different from the more hedonistic one led by Osho. "He was a pioneer in many ways and the reverence he commanded in the world was invaluable for India's cultural diplomacy," says Sen.
Ravi Shankar not only popularised Indian classical music for Indian audiences in the Dover Lane Music Conference in Kolkata but "as a good Bengali, ashamedly promoted Bengali cuisine", laughs Sen. "He loved his chingri maacher malai curry, ilish bhaapa, and neem-begun," he says, "and he was never ashamed to show it."
'Shankar personified Indian soft power'
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'Shankar personified Indian soft power'
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'Shankar personified Indian soft power'
