A world of culture: A look into the Indian Institute of World Culture's history

Located in the bustling streets of Basavanagudi, the quaint Indian Institute of World Culture (IIWC) has thrived for longer than the country has been independent. In fact, the institute, which recently celebrated its 80th anniversary on August 11, was opened in the midst of World War IIs conclusion. It so happened that on August 10, there was news that Japan had laid down arms. So World War II was ending the previous evening, when the Indian Institute of World Culture was born, says secretary Arakali Venkatesh. A fitting start for an organisation, whose founder, BP Wadia, envisioned it to be an academy not only for scholars, but for ordinary people, universal brotherhood was the foundational pillar. He wanted to introduce people here to art and culture across the world, notes Venkatesh. BP Wadia and Annie Besant under house arrest in Ooty Bizman-turned-freedom fighter Born into a merchant family, Wadia inherited his fathers textile business after his passing in 1900, only four weeks after he began working there. By 1904, the business was thriving, but when he was introduced to the writings of Madame HP Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society, a larger purpose captured his spirit. He sold his business to offer his services to society, dedicating himself to the cause of universal brotherhood and later working closely with Annie Besant. He also became a trade union pioneer, starting the first labour union in the country The Madras Labour Union. He was house arrested in Ooty along with Besant and GS Arundale for his involvement in the Indian Home Rule Movement. In the 1920s, he represented India at labour conferences, which used to happen in the US at that time, and was a known face in the freedom movement. In 1938, he moved to Bengaluru and started a theosophical lodge. He was also a prolific writer who wrote 30-odd books and a columnist on various subjects from family to world peace and music, explains Venkatesh. The old IIWC library (left) Early days Located on a large campus, its hard to imagine the institute housed in a small shed, but thats how it started off a few hundred metres away from its current location. Before 1949, the institute was in a rented space of a bungalow owned by a US-based couple. They had 300 books accessible to the public and held book discussions, explains Venkatesh, adding that today, Tenbroeck Academy stands in its place. Recalling a story told to him by 96-year-old former Chief Justice of India MN Venkatachaliah, who chairs the advisory committee of the IIWC, Venkatesh shares, He talks about this British gentleman named Ct. Lal Kaka. He used to organise at least one world music listening session every month on a gramophone. He stayed back in Bangalore even after 1947. He adds, Back in the day, only the affluent had gramophones at home. People used to travel just to hear the recorded music. Martin Luther King Jr. at IIWC Kings, Musicians and Monks Martin Luther King Jrs crucial leadership in the American civil rights movement, and his admiration for Mahatma Gandhi is common knowledge but his visit to Bangalore in February 1959 isnt. Justice Venkatachaliah, who was there at the time, recalls that the Wadia Hall could only accomodate 200 people, so they used to put up a speaker in the 30-acre park (KR Rao Park) opposite the institute and over 500 people gathered to listen to him, he says. There is a common thread between the civil rights movement and the Indian freedom movement he spoke on those lines. Our visitors book even has a signed note by him saying the experience was wonderful, he adds. Another guest who drew a crowd as large as Kings was Pandit Ravi Shankar in 1960, when he was touring the world. The Panchen Lama, the second spiritual authority in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama, also spoke here in 1956, three years before the latter had to flee to India in the wake of Chinese persecution and the Panchen Lama was placed under house arrest. In the decades since it was founded, the whos who of the cultural world came here. Nobel laureates, like Donald Glaser visited, and so did Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and S Radhakrishnan, states Venkatesh.