The country’s oldest think tank, the United Service Institution of India (USI), is organising the first Indian Military Heritage Festival (IMHF) later this month, which, it said seeks to address the gap in the “national discourse and cultural calendar.”
“Its [IMHF] activities will be driven towards enhancing our understanding of the country’s rich military heritage and traditions; contemporary security and strategy concerns; and the push to achieve self-reliance in military capability through the Atmanirbhar Bharat programmes of the Government of India,” the USI said in a statement on Monday. It is scheduled to be held on October 21 and 22.
“Despite having a long and glorious military history and strategic culture going back to many centuries, the general public is largely unaware of the different facets of India’s military history, heritage, and security concerns,” the statement said. Through informed sessions, ranging from discussions on indigenous historical knowledge systems, India and the world wars, post-Independence challenges and understandings of war and conflict, analysing war through the lens of fiction and media, the IMHF will definitely be one of its kind, catering to audiences from all walks of life, it stated.
Despite a new-found interest in military history amongst a broad cross section of society in India today, there is a “huge deficit” in knowledge about Indian military systems, customs and history, the USI said, and the festival “seeks to bridge these gaps in our understanding of the interplay between war, the armed forces and society.”
Project Udbhav
Recently, under Project Udbhav, the Army has taken up an effort to rediscover the “profound Indic heritage of statecraft and strategic thoughts” derived from ancient Indian texts of “statecraft, warcraft, diplomacy and grand strategy” in collaboration with the USI and the festival is part of that effort. The Army said Project Udbhav “endeavours to explore India’s rich historical narratives in the realms of statecraft and strategic thoughts. It focuses on a broad spectrum, including indigenous military systems, historical texts, regional texts and kingdoms, thematic studies, and intricate Kautilya studies.”
The Army has stated that in line with this, the USI is conducting the IMHF with the aim to acquaint “future thought leaders” with the dynamics of comprehensive national security with special emphasis on “India’s strategic culture, military heritage, education, modernisation of security forces and Atmanirbhar Bharat.”
The statement said that over the course of two days, through panel sessions, discussions will cater to how we understand our military history, contemporary security and strategic concerns, social and welfare issues being faced by the armed forces, analysing the role of Atmanirbhar Bharat in the defence sector, India’s culture of gallantry, and how “we can develop an indigenous strategic vocabulary rooted in our culture and history, moving into the future.”
As part of the event, an exhibition to highlight and celebrate select milestones and achievements in the nation’s “long and illustrious” military history is being organised in collaboration with the National Museum, the statement added.
