Prior to her maiden visit to India, Carola Lentz was already familiar with the country’s cultural, social and political landscape. Despite that, the president of Goethe-Institut and a distinguished anthropologist, admits to finding India “overwhelming” initially.
After a quick tour of the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan centres in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram later, she laughs that India would be best called a subcontinent. “India has been on my intellectual map for decades. With my work as an anthropologist in West Africa, it is fascinating to see how India has set the model for so many things,” she recounts.
“When colonial officers from the Indian civil service were sent to West Africa, they tried out the durbar format for ceremonial gatherings. For many events, whenever I researched about memory politics, independence processes, independence politics etc., India has always been in the picture, but I never visited. My first fieldwork was in Ecuador and then since 1987, Ghana. Now the opportunity has come to finally engage with India.”
Knowing India
Carola credits the works of authors such as Kiran Desai, Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Chandra and others for her knowledge about India. She is still taken aback by the energy that drives the crowds through its cities. She adds Vikram Seth to the list with a laugh, “A Suitable Boy prepared me for the relevance of the extended family and the role of mothers.” But the architectural tours through Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi, and the crowds mainly, brought Carola upfront with the diversity she had long read about. “Particularly in Mumbai and Kolkata, it was amazing how closely the social strata exist and interact in one physical space.”
With hardly two days in Kerala, she spent the morning interacting with students at Goethe-Zentrum, Thiruvananthapuram. Thoroughly impressed by the Centre, reimagined by Syed Ibrahim, honorary consul of The Federal Republic of Germany in Thiruvananthapuram, and his team, she notes how the environment is conducive to the learning experience. “It was started on a modest scale and is now exploding in numbers. The building itself, sends a message; with good use of space, intelligently built, and green considerations, it enhances learning and builds an attitude towards treating one’s environment with respect.”
When the Goethe-Institut was started in Thiruvananthapuram in 2008, students enrolled at the centre with an intent to pursue their masters in Germany. Cut to 2023, Syed says there were 6,000 Plus Two students who had enrolled for a bachelors programme. With the new immigration law for skilled workers that came into effect last year, almost 70% of admissions at the Institut comprised professionals from across sectors such as management, hospitality, the arts and more.
Understanding German society
Carola says Germany needs “Incoming human resources who find their place in the work process as well as social life, who feel welcome and intend to stay for some time rather than come on a hit-or-miss basis. Germany, like any other society, is not simple. While employers handle recruitment, the Goethe-Institut is focused on providing good interactive language training, so that they can engage in simple conversation from day one.” She explains that the institute also functions as an integration centre, providing guidance primarily in areas such as medicine, education and legal aid. The orientation includes culture and food preferences.
But in a style that now seems to be her distinguishing trait, she forthrightly warns, “It helps to have a realistic management of expectations. So we have to talk about aspects like racism in Germany, the whole bureaucratic procedure…it’s not that the Goethe-Institut can prepare them for every challenge. But what our courses do is inform people about which place to turn to in case they encounter a problem so that they are not overwhelmed.”
She refers to the reality of remigration promoted by right wing voters, adding that while they make up 20-30% of the population, Germany is much more diverse than it was 30-40 years ago. The hope is that migrants find the life they want, come back here and talk about it, serving as multiplicators.
Promoting culture
The Goethe-Institut has long been an active promoter of cultural harmony, the sixth edition of the March Dance Festival held in Chennai earlier this month, being an example. The dance festival is a collaboration between the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai and Chennai-based artistes’ collective Basement 21. Considering the polarised times one lives in, she poses a far more basic question. “Can we start with respect and mutual understanding? How can we promote curiosity and an exchange of ideas? If it ends in harmony, very well, but in some cases, we may end up someplace controversial, or have to agree to disagree but can we still then co-exist, respecting each other’s values?”
Across India, the Goethe-Institut collaborates with other European institutions every year. The March Dance festival this year itself was, for the first time, co-sponsored by Alliance Francaise. The travelling exhibition Critical Zones In Search of a Common Ground is co-produced by the ZKM | Karlsruhe and the Goethe-Institut/ Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai, taking up contemporary issues such as climate change and inviting artists to interpret select topics.
Rather than impose a cookie-cutter structure of modules, the vision of the Goethe-Institut is rooted in practicality, honouring the needs of the host region. “For instance, a huge library of German language books wouldn’t do much in a locality but perhaps translations of German children’s literature in local languages, in cooperation with publishers there would be effective. We don’t start from the top in a one-size-fits-all format but build from the ground up, depending on what is needed.”
The institute has also kept pace with the evolution of technology, employing digital formats, more so since the pandemic. Lessons are conveyed using social media apps apart from programmes that emphasise media literacy, mainly to help young people recognise fake news.
Carola is sure that she will be back in India very soon, “hooked” by the powerful interactions with thinkers, artistes and the dedicated staff at the Goethe-Institut centres, just like the first time she visited Ghana.
