An interview with Arshiya Sethi

Bhoomika: When and how did your association with JNU begin?

Ms. Sethi: I joined in 1980. I came from Lady Shri Ram College for Women after completing graduation. My main reason for coming here was that my mentor Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath (now the Principal of LSR) had also been here. Secondly, I hate being confined to boxes and JNU gives you the freedom to cross the borderlines of subjects. So despite being in CPS, I took up courses in SIS. I credited some very off beat courses like one on Arab politics in which I was the only girl in the class. Those were very busy and productive days. I was also working on television, anchoring the quiz show ’Watchword’ and the ’National Programme on Dance and Music’. 

Bhoomika: How would you describe your years at JNU?

Ms.Sethi: By far I grew the most mentally in JNU. This was a very intellectually stimulating period of my life. I belonged to the centre that had great minds but no sense of fashion. We would look very poor in comparison with the smart and beautiful girls of SL. However, I had always been a very Spartan person, and so did not want to keep up with the Joneses’! I was also deeply inspired by Gandhi, and thus, I mostly wore khadi in those days. My mother used to find me very dowdy. When I came to JNU, I found so many people like me. It was a relief. Everyone was a jholadhari here! Then there was the hostel life sans enough water, electricity and medical facility. At that time, dengue fever had just been discovered and we did not even know how to pronounce the word. Many students would get dengue in the post-rainy season. I was the Florence Nightingale of the campus, because I had a medicine kit of my own and a will to help out anyone in trouble. My aim was simple - not to let the fever rise, until morning came, when the patient could be taken to AIIMS.

Bhoomika: Were you actively involved in students’ politics?

Ms. Sethi: Well, I was a member of the Free Thinkers. But I never quite got the hang of JNU politics because I believed that improvement and development should begin from within, from one’s own surroundings and then grow outward. But people in JNU thought the other way round. They raised slogans about the distant issues related to Brazil, Poland and Afghanistan but had no time to address the very immediate issues like telephone lines and quality of food in the mess. So I was generally accused of bringing down the level of discourse when I raised such banal questions…The political life just completely freaked me out. I was never meant for it.

Bhoomika: Tell us something about your work on Sattriya.

Ms.Sethi: JNU has left an indelible mark on my conscience and intellect. Thanks to JNU, when I look at a problem, I read many levels in it. As the interlocutor of the National Programme on Dance and Music, I had introduced 3 or 4 Sattriya performances and at that time I must admit that no one knew any thing about it till then. There was really a very limited pool of knowledge around this Assamese dance form. But all of a sudden in 2000, it was recognized as a classical dance! As a Sattriya admirer and scholar, I was almost shocked by this extra-ordinary development. It instantly set me thinking. Why suddenly, a traditional dance form is given such recognition in a disturbed state like Assam? I have studied Sattriya from very close quarters in the heart of Majuli for my Ph.D. Sattriya is a fully living form. It is a living and pulsating part of the lifestyle in the monasteries. It has a religious base and it can not be simply uprooted and brought on to a secular stage. The government’s step totally de-contextualized the form! I think it was a disservice to the form which was deeply rooted in a specific milieu.

Now, in India it has been a practice to look at the world of art not in conjunction with politics. Art and politics are bedfellows but art scholars prefer not to acknowledge this in India. During my Fulbright year, I realized this more and more. Scholars there had such powerful tradition of questioning that they could not but look at politics while talking of art. I changed tracks from then on and started looking at presentation, representation, patronage and the means of production of dance rather than looking at the dance itself. So when in 2000 suddenly Sattriya was found to be Classical dance form, I started asking myself some uncomfortable questions such as whose dance was it and whose idea of classical was it. Why does Sangeet Natak Akademi commission some forms and not some others? Does an art form have to necessarily wait to become a languishing art form before being finally recognized? What is the reason behind the recognition of Sattriya as a classical art form? I found that it had nothing to do with the form itself. It was just a placatory device to divert people’s attention from the real issues; to push into the background the paucity of infrastructural and financial investment aimed at a comprehensive development. I wouldn’t like to say any more at this stage. Wait for me to complete and publish my doctoral dissertation. 

Bhoomika: With such a background and way of thinking you could have easily gone into academics…

Ms. Sethi: I regret at times that I did not. My decisions were dictated by my family background. Marriage was supposed to be the end result of all pursuits of a girl. You were at the most allowed to work for a year or two after finishing your studies. When I was packing up from JNU, my family already had plans for my marriage. I used to take all sorts of competitive exams for jobs frantically. Finally I got a job with SBI. For fear of the eventuality of marriage I grabbed that job though I had no temperament at all for it. Yet I survived 4 years. After marriage, I did enroll for a Ph.D in JNU. But it was not possible to handle studies and babies simultaneously. So I gave up. Some years down the line, in 1995, I enrolled again but again it did not work out. This is for the third time that I have enrolled for Ph.D (in the mature students programme at IIT). So you see, I never could go into academics. I regret it because I love being with young people. But then there is another aspect- I am free from the regimentation of the academic field where you need to take so many classes and teach so and so course and take exams on such and such syllabus, etc. I am happy the way I am because I do not need to fear in this line. God chose the correct line for me. Then I have found ways of being with young people. I have set up and now mentor, the Youth Parliament, a very strong youth body in Delhi. They’ve just been called to meet ex-President Clinton and make a presentation there.

Then I was offered a chance to head the National Programme on Drugs and HIV when my ex-husband Dr. Harinder Sethi died. He was a pioneer in the field of de-addiction, drugs studies and HIV and he was working with the UN when he died. After his death, I was offered this post. Initially I refused because I had no idea how I could handle this. But they waited for me for six months and I think this is a singular honour. They insisted and after six months of Dr. Sethi’s death, I joined the UN to carry forward his work. Apparently they wanted someone who had a way with young people and my work for the youth had attracted their attention. So for three years I lived the life of Dr. Sethi, working for the UN. 

When I left it in October 2007, I did it to reclaim my life and my first love-the Arts. But I did gain a lot of knowledge from that period of my life. And since I love children and since the target group of the Drug and HIV Prevention programme was roughly the age of my own children, I embraced all the children as my own. I continue to meet, interact and speak with children, teachers and parents, every month in an effort to cast a protective net for young people. I would hate to loose any one to drugs and its consequences. This gives me a sense of quiet achievement. I have the satisfaction of knowing that I set up the India Habitat Centre. So I have my foot print at least somewhere in this world…I also have the satisfaction of knowing that I fulfilled my long-cherished dream of going on a Fulbright Fellowship, though late in life. You know, when I walked in for the interview for Fulbright, the entire board stood up. It was an honour and I am proud of the fact that I had made a place for myself which commanded such respect. So despite the regret that I could not go in to the academic field, I feel content and happy with whatever I have been able to accomplish. 

Bhoomika: How difficult was it to reach so far, being a woman?

Ms. Sethi: It is not only about being a woman. It is about being a particular kind of a woman. There are women who take short cuts. If you are not one of those women, if you have pride and self respect, then it becomes hard. An unsuccessful marriage can make things worse especially for a woman who has ambition and ability and who is born to fly. Being a visible face, one in the public arena almost consistently, allowed me no privacy in which I could lament about all the things that went wrong, or opportunities that were lost. In the final analysis, all I know is that I lived life on my terms, not taking the easier way out, taking full responsibility for my actions, and still finding something to give. If you ask me, to name my big achievement, I would say I'm proud today that I don't have just two children but hundreds who love and respect me. 

Bhoomika: Tell us something about Kri Foundation and the Delhi International Festival of Arts.

Ms. Sethi: In 2004, I felt that I was probably at the mid-point of my life and it was time to give back something to the field of arts. So I set up Kri Foundation. It is a foundation that works for the promotion and integration of Indian arts in a world context. A logical extension of the idea behind Kri, which by the way is the Sanskrit root for the verb 'To do' was the association with Delhi International Festival of Arts. When I was returning from the Lincoln Center (where I had been on a Fulbright Fellowship), every body said why do you want to go back to India, stay in the US, you have a great future here. But I felt India could use me better. In October 2007, Prathibha Prahlad, my friend and a very accomplished classical dancer, called me to talk about a festival that she had in mind where artists from all over the world could gather and perform- a world class international festival in India, to make a big impact globally. Why has no one thought of or dreamt of making India the unparalleled centre of arts in the world? Why are we so diffident about projecting ourselves as a deserving claimant to the position of a global arts destination. India was being recognized as a global economic power, but equally strong was her claim as a global soft power. These were some of the questions that we animatedly asked each other and then decided to do something about it.

So we joined hands on creating the Delhi international Arts festival. It is so big and such a big challenge, that we were literally on our toes for the entire year to put together, India's Signature International Festival that is multi arts and multi venue and is built on Public Private partnership, a model that has gone beyond all previous paradigms for presenting culture.

Bhoomika: Which aspect of your life would you like to dedicate to JNU?

Ms. Sethi: The capacity to think in different directions, to think multi-dimensionally and at multiple levels. LSR taught me to speak well, write well and understand well but to think in a way that takes in to account various dimensions of the subject has been the contribution entirely of JNU. It has never left me since then and I think this multi-dimensionality is the most exciting thing about JNU.

Bhoomika: Which aspect of JNU did you love the most when you were a student here?

Ms. Sethi: Well to be honest, while I was a student here, I never even managed to go and see the PSR. I used to work like a dog. I had no time for any thing other than studies and my television and radio assignments. Much later, I took to bird-watching and it was then that I started coming back to JNU and looking at it more carefully because this campus has some very beautiful birds and even animals. 

Bhoomika: If you get a chance to come back to JNU as a student, what changes would you like to see here?

Ms. Sethi: I would like to see a more secure environment. Today when I'm a parent whose child studies and stays in another city, I know how frightful it is to have a child away from home. Phones, security and health facilities should be up-to-the-mark in educational institutions. In our times, JNU was lacking in some of these aspects and had  a remoteness to it. I hope things have changed now and I hope it keeps changing for the better. 

Bhoomika: What message would you like to give to the Students of JNU?

Ms. Sethi: Make the most of all the opportunities. I have one message for life. It applies in every situation- live life 100%. Live every experience 100%. I feel that I lived out my JNU experience only 20%. If ever I come back, I would like to live out the remaining 80%

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