The Indian Panorama Editor Indrajit Saluja interviews Ambassador Randhir Kumar Jaiswal, Consul General of India at New York 

Consul General of India at New York Mr. Randhir Kumar Jaiswal, a few days after joining the present position on 19th July 2020  in an interview with The Indian Panorama, had spelt out  in brief  his  priorities which included nourishing and  strengthening the already strong bonds between India and US, and exploring  new areas of cooperation and relationship in diverse fields of  economy, trade, technology, and   culture etc. Ambassador Jaiswal added  that serving the Indian Diaspora remained the primary focused concern of  the Consulate. The strengthening of multi-stake holders relationship will be another priority, he said.

The Indian Panorama interviewed him a couple of times, and each time, Mr. Jaiswal was forthcoming on all issues raised ,and questions asked.

Three days to the end of the year 2022, Mr. Jaiswal agreed to sit with the editor of The Indian Panorama to share for the readers of the publication his thoughts. It was a long interview in which Ambassador Jaiswal touched upon all the aforementioned areas.

In the present part of the interview, we bring to readers Ambassador’s perspective on community involvement in promotion of Indian arts, culture and values.

Here are some excerpts from the interview.

TIP: We are just about three days away from the end of  2022.  How do you feel? How was 2022 with you as Consul General of India at  New York?

Ambassador: Thank you.  It is always my pleasure and our pleasure here in the consulate to engage with you, to converse with you and through you to speak to the community. The wider Indian diaspora which is part of a larger family  I would say had its limitations in terms of pandemic but because of vaccinations that we were able to carry out in India, vaccination that happened here, we were able to, you know, take care of the pandemic. The highlight of course, for 2022 was that we celebrated 75 years of India’s independence,  like in the previous editions of India at 50, India and 60, which was celebrated in New York with great style. 75 years of India’s freedom rang a special bell here because this is America,  a democracy. There’s so much of connect between India and the United States in terms of what we share with them, and also strong people to people ties  we have with this great country. We had functions at Carnegie Hall.  We have the best of Indian musicians, best of Indian art being displayed, and art and music was just a medium. The idea was to bring Indian ethos,  Indian values,  Indian civilizational wealth and progress as a modern nation to our friends here in America. We also had a huge India Day Parade, which is an annual affair here. But this time, it was a far grander scale because it was 75 years of India’s independence Madison Avenue on 21st of August was packed to capacity. People from all walks of life, friends of India, the diversity of New York people from various quarters – they all participated in celebrating our independence.

In terms of delivering our services to our people, the consular services ran smoothly. We were able to do many things to the satisfaction of our people. We also carried out a lot of activities on trade side, technology side,  tourism site, strengthening India- US economic partnership, technology partnership and all that. We were able to reach out to all our students here. We have a large number of students here in the universities. We also had good engaging conversation with our political stakeholders to further strengthen our Indo US friendship and ties specialties that we have. So overall 2022 , as we bid goodbye to the year, we have very nice things to remember, beautiful associations to remember. And I’m sure we will continue with the same positivity and hope in 2023 as well.

TIP: How  was the community response in promoting the various plans,  schemes and  programs that came from government of India?

Ambassador: So, you know, our idea here was to celebrate Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav,  involving a community. That was very important. We got very strong response not just here in New York,  but in all the 10 states that we cover. We had programs with community members  in Albany, Vermont, Maine etc. We   celebrated  languages of India. Because through the languages we want to celebrate the diversity of India,  and when you celebrate diversity of India here in this country, where diversity has a special meaning, I think Indian diversity, Indian colors, they flower even more. So, we had celebrations of  Tamil language and literature,  Sindhi language and literature, Malayalam language. We will soon be having a program in Kannada. So that is one track on which we seek the support of our community members.

The  other thing which is very dear to all of us is, and we  want to celebrate as to how New York or this part of the United States or United States in general was linked to Indian freedom struggle. There have been many  Indians who played significant role in India’s freedom and they were  linked somehow to America. We paid tribute  to them all, from the Gadar Party to Lala Lajpat Rai to Dr. B R Ambedkar to Jay Prakash Narayan, and many more. In fact, in April when we celebrated Dr. Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, we had the presence of honorable External Affairs Minister of India. He joined us to pay tribute and to pay our  special respects and gratitude to Dr. Ambedkar  for being the architect of India’s constitution.

TIP: Have you have you been trying to promote various India based  faiths also?

Ambassador: We have celebrated Indian diversity in all its forms.We have regular fairs and festivals, cutting across all faiths. You know we had programs on Guru  Nanak Dev Ji. We  have celebrated Holi , Diwali Christmas Eve. So, we are doing our best to promote Indian diversity in all its forms

TIP: And how do you rate the involvement of the community  in promoting culture and Indian value system here?

Ambassador: I’ve seen that the community is pretty strong in terms of maintaining its roots. We have very accomplished singers here. We have very accomplished dancers of classical dances. In fact, with the Sikh community, I can say I was astonished, amazed to see the kind of Gatka performance that  young children do here. There are several groups here and  in New Jersey which focus on theater. They bring the best of theater. They perform the best of theatre here in the United States. We come from a very rich civilization and cultural history. So, it is natural that you will carry that identity,  that cultural richness along with you, wherever, whichever part of the world you go to. But here in United States the kind of cultural richness that the people demonstrate,  is very refreshing,  is very soothing. In fact, when I travel across I see that people are teaching karate;  people are teaching Gurmukhi to  children; people are teaching other languages like Telugu, Kannada, Bengali and so on, so forth. So, all that you know, people in one way or the other,  have left India but they all want to maintain  and nourish their cultural, emotional and familiar roots with the Motherland.

To be continued  next week