‘Festival of India’ Set to Thrill, Entertain, Educate Indonesians

Jakarta Globe, Carla Isati Octama, Jan 14, 2015

Dancers from the Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center in Jakarta perform the
Radha and Krishna dance on Jan. 14, 2015 at the media briefing for Festival
of India in Indonesia. (ID Photo/Emral Firdiansyah)

Jakarta. The Indian Embassy in Jakarta plans to serve up a four-month-long bonanza of festivities to celebrate bilateral relations with Indonesia, kicking off on Jan. 26, the 65th anniversary of India’s Republic Day.

The “Festival of India in Indonesia,” which will run through May, will include 33 programs to be held in 15 cities across Indonesia, including Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Denpasar, Makassar, Medan, Balikpapan and Banda Aceh.

“This is a small tribute by India to Indonesia — a long-standing friend, close partner and neighbor,” said Gurjit Singh, the Indian ambassador to Indonesia and Timor Leste, said on Wednesday. “Our links have been geographical, civilizational and cultural for centuries.”

Events on offer will include various cultural and traditional performances, including folk dances, puppetry, concerts, exhibitions, seminars, and screening of Bollywood movies and documentaries from India.

“We are trying to work with all of these programs that bring them in a way that we can share our experience and bring them to Indonesia,” the ambassador said. “So in fact there will be one big exhibition called Digital India. Similarly we are trying to create a message of a clean India.

“And we are going to bring ‘Make in India’ by getting Indian investors to come to Indonesia to also to manufacture here and to contribute to a ‘Make in Indonesia’,” he said, referring to a program by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make India a global manufacturing hub.

Esti Andayani, the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry’s director general for information and public diplomacy, said: “India and Indonesia have enjoyed strong bonds of friendship, and cooperation not only based on shared history and common cultures, heritage, but also our common ideals of peace, stability and progress for all.

She added she was hopeful that the “Festival of India” would serve to strengthen those ties even further and lead to deeper exchanges.

The start date of the festival is significant as the anniversary of the day in 1950 when India’s constitution came into force.

BeritaSatu Media Holdings, which is affiliated with the Jakarta Globe, is a media partner of the “Festival of India.”

For more information on the events, go to www.indianembassyjakarta.com.