When then-Japanese Crown Prince Akihito (the current Emperor) visited India in November 1960, between banqueting at Rashtrapati Bhavan and visiting the Taj Mahal, he made a stop at the construction site of New Delhi’s India International Centre (IIC). The Prince laid the foundation stone for what would go on to become one of India’s leading cultural hubs. His interest in the IIC lay in the intimate, if little known, link between the Centre and its Tokyo prototype: the International House of Japan (I-House).
The I-House opened its doors in 1952 with assistance from the American philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller III. The idea was to provide a space for cultural and intellectual interactions as a pillar of international relations. In 1956 and 1957, the then-Vice-President of India, S. Radhakrishnan, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visited the I–House during their respective state visits to Japan. This piqued their interest in the creation of a similar institution in India.
The Rockefeller Foundation agreed to provide financial support for the project, despite the initial misgivings of Dean Rusk, the foundation’s president, who believed that what had worked in Tokyo could not be replicated in a “neutral, sensitive, inefficient India”. But when the Indian side pledged to raise 40% of the capital costs, he changed his mind and the IIC became a reality. In preparation for the Centre, a three-person team from India headed by N.K. Sidhanta, then-vice-chancellor of the University of Calcutta, set off for the I-House to report on every aspect of its operations, from administrative structure to programming. C.N. Deshmukh, later the IIC’s founding president, had already spent a month at the International House in early 1959 and come away inspired.
Striking resemblance
The resemblance between the two institutions is striking even today, from their architecture — typical examples of mid-century modernism — to their greying membership and hushed libraries. And in the first two decades of the I–House’s existence, Indians were surpassed only by Americans as the largest cohort of international visitors to its premises.
Indian mathematician P.C. Mahalanobis’s stay in 1958 led to a partnership between the I–House and the Indian Statistical Institute to translate documents about Japan’s economic development with a relevance for India. Over the next few years, several committees were established to exchange scholarship and share experiences. Eventually a book, Indo No Kokoro ( The Mind of India ), a collection of Japanese translations of 10 lectures delivered at I-House by distinguished Indians, was published. James Kondo, an I-House trustee, believes the current regional geopolitical landscape underscores the need for the kind of Track-2 diplomatic channels that these institutions were once central to. Both the IIC and the I-House rose to prominence at a time when the region was recovering from the devastation of war and grappling with the consequences of decolonisation.
The last few decades have seen a calmer time, but with an ascendant China and an unpredictable U.S., dangerous regional flashpoints are re-emerging. “At a time when government-to-government contact can be difficult for some nations, the need for informal channels of contact is crucial.”
Reviving its India connection is a priority for the I-House. The organisation counts a mere six Indians among its current membership. “Will you make it seven?” Mr. Kondo asked this writer.
Pallavi Aiyar is an author and journalist based in Tokyo
