about the legitimacy of perpetual ethnic groupings. Kulbir Natt and Supriya Nagarajan wrestle with the vexed question of funding for the arts from the public and private sector and whether this affects artistic integrity and independence. Using the different traditions within Islam as an example, Naz Koser is emphatic about how the arts ignore a deep and complex internal diversity at their peril. Sanjeevini Dutta writes with conviction about how disciplined study and intensive practice lays the foundations of classical art forms that bind the performer and the audience in a special and mutually enriching relationship. Savita Vij warns about the limiting forces of ‘professionalism’ and exhorts future practitioners to explore new fields. Clayton Shaw reflects, with insight, on the need to emphasise the transformational power of art that derives from its ‘intrinsic value’ even as funding regimes are beginning to make their decisions more narrowly on its ‘functional value’.
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Taken together, these writings amount to a serious ‘South Asian’ contribution to the current debate about re-imagining the national culture, and to modern notions of ‘Britishness’, that serves to rebalance the impact of ethnicity, language and religion against the equally powerful determinants of economic and social status in a rapidly changing landscape. The fact that they are based, in virtually every instance, on personal engagement in pioneering arts projects that have engaged increasingly diverse audiences, is a measure of the leadership potential that lies part hidden, part exposed in the Aarohan group. It will not be long before it is fully recognised.
Ranjit Sondhi chairing an Aarohan Ahead meeting at the Nehru Centre, London Photo, sampad