33rd Annual Convocation Ceremony
Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture
19 November 2019

REMARKS
High Commissioner Tanmaya Lal

Your Excellency, the Acting President Mr. Paramasivum Pillay Vyapoory,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen

May I extend a very warm welcome to all of you for joining us here this afternoon at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture for the 33rd Annual Convocation Ceremony.

We are especially grateful to Hon’ble President for sparing his valuable time and accepting our invitation to be the Chief Guest for this special event.

Hon’ble President is well known for being a connoisseur in arts and culture and has made a huge contribution to promotion of various forms of arts, poetry, music and culture including at the State House.

Excellency, your presence is a great encouragement to all the students who have pursued various courses at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture this year. It is also very motivating for all my colleagues and staff at the Culture Centre who are actively working to build bridges among two countries India and Mauritius.

May I also say a Big Thank You to all the talented artistes who have presented such wonderful performances here today.

Friends,

The very special relationship between India and Mauritius is rooted in our shared history over the past couple of hundred years, longstanding kinship ties and common civilizational heritage.

The diverse forms of Indian classical music & dance traditions date back to several millennia in many cases. They also represent a range of influences that have been assimilated over centuries. And there has always been a regular exchange between various art forms. In contemporary times, many of these have inspired and influenced great artistes and musicians from around the world. And it is this dynamism that also provides vitality to these traditions.

The Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture was established by the Government of India more than 3 decades ago to foster and build upon our cultural ties.

Both India and Mauritius are proud of the diversity of their peoples and cultures. The Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture provides a platform to showcase some of this diversity of our civilizational heritage and culture here in Mauritius. It is also a platform for promoting mutual understanding through culture exchanges among different art forms and genres.

An important role played by the Indian Culture Centre is the courses that are offered not only for music and dance but also the ancient Indian practice of Yoga that has spread far and wide across the world. We are fortunate to have very able teachers and practitioners of all these streams who are able to guide the students effectively.

In the last 33 years, as a very broad and conservative estimate I feel that at least 30,000 Mauritians have attended some course at the IGCIC. Most of them have been Yoga students. This is a remarkable number and we are very proud of the contribution of the IGCIC in helping to share these art forms with our Mauritian friends.

Today, we have around 250 students from Mauritius who will be awarded certificates in recognition of the completion of the courses that they participated in. As has been mentioned, this includes a total of 12 courses under 4 different streams of the Indian classical dance Kathak, Tabla playing, Indian classical vocal music and Yoga.

It is heartening to see so much interest in the younger generation to understand and practice these various classical arts and practices which we have inherited through the ages. This interest among the younger generation will continue to provide dynamism and continuity to these practices which have been handed down through generations.

My congratulations to all the students and I hope that they will continue to persist with their love and interest for arts and culture as they go forward.

May I once again express our gratitude to the Hon’ble President for accepting our invitation to join us at this Convocation Ceremony at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture and encourage the students of the IGCIC.

We will continue to make all efforts to provide learning platforms for various art forms and also promote cultural exchanges between peoples of our two nations.

Thank you.

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