Brazil and India: Sharing knowledge, bridging the gap

 

Sao Paulo

 

Almost 40 years ago when he arrived in Brazil, Kanavillil Rajagopalan was seen by most local people as a Brazilian. But when the professor of linguistics at Unicamp spoke, his accented Portuguese made people wonder where he was from. Very often he faced a question: “Where are you from?". When Rajan, as the professor is called by his friends, would say “India”, they would ask him: “Which tribe?”
 

The story shows how ordinary Brazilians knew little about India just four decades ago. Those days there were few Indians in Brazil, and very few Brazilians had ever travelled to India. There was a huge gap – geographical and information – between India and Brazil.

 

Today, things have changed. Brazil and India are still 14,000 kilometres away from each other, but the knowledge gap is getting smaller. The level of knowledge exchange between the two countries (both BRICS, IBSA, G-4 and G-20 members) has increased exponentially. Academics from both countries are increasingly sharing their knowledge. “We are in the century of knowledge. We have to realize the importance of being in a connected world,” said the ambassador of India to Brazil, Mr Sunil Kumar Lal, while inaugurating the I Day BrIndARC (Brazil-India Knowledge Networks Association), an organization that aims to bring together Brazilian scholars with expertise on different areas of knowledge about India. The event also was attended by the Indian consul-general in São Paulo, Mrs Abhilasha Joshi.
 

“Unity in Diversity” was the theme of the day-long seminar held on Wednesday, October 7, at FFLCH (Faculty of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences) at the University of Sao Paulo. The seminar was attended by a diverse group of scholars – all united in their passion for Indian studies. Regiane Ramos, who is pursuing PhD on Indian literature in English at USP, coordinated the event. She is the first president of BrIndARC.

 

Opening the seminar as the keynote speaker, Prof Rajagopalan spoke on “Collaboration between Brazil and India, prospects and potential”. That was followed by a roundtable on “Indian Studies at USP”, chaired by Prof Laura Izarra (USP Literature). In this session, Prof Maria Inês Nogueira (Biomedical Sciences Institutes of USP) spoke about the prospects of building Brazil-India knowledge networks through the university. As the last speaker in this session, Prof Lilian Gulmini (USP) described the prospects of research and studies in Indian language and Sanskrit literature in Brazil.

 

After the first session of the day, there was an exhibition of cartoons for the promotion of science between India and Brazil. The cartoons, made by Indian and Brazilian scholars, were on display in the hallway in front of the seminar room. Coordinated by Prof Antonio Carlos Teixeira (University Center), the exhibition attracted a good number of USP students who dropped by to see the interesting art work.

 

After lunch, there was another roundtable session on Indian cinema and Ayurveda. The session was chaired by Cebeli Aldrovandi, a professor of history of art with specialisation in Indian iconography. As the first speaker in this session, Shobhan Saxena, an Indian journalist based in Sao Paulo, talked about “Cinema as a vehicle of modernity in India”. He was followed by Juily Mangirmalani, a master’s degree student in cinema studies at UFSCAR who spoke on "Nationality and Melodrama in Indian Cinema". The last speaker in this session was Anaise Andrade, a professor of Traditional Ayurvedic Medicine at UNIFESP). She made a presentation on “Systemic View of Ayurveda and the concept of Deep Ecology”. The roundtable ended with an engaging question-answer session with the speakers.

 

The last session of the seminar was three mini-lectures. The first lecture was by Prof Rosana de Freitas, who teaches History of Art at UFRJ. She spoke on “India and Brazil: Academies, Schools and Traditions". In the field of sociology, Mariana Alves, a PhD student at Unicamp, gave a lecture on “Violence in India and excluded groups”. Finally, as the last speaker of the day was Prof Vera Hanna, who teaches literature at Mackenzie University. She spoke on “Immigration Literature: Bharati Mukherjee in Imagining Homelands”. This session too ended with an interesting round of questions and answers.

 

As the seminar ended at USP, the action moved to the Indian Cultural Centre in Jardim Paulista, with a classical Indian dance performance and a cocktail with samosa, accompanied by tangy chutneys. For dessert, there was traditional gulab jamuns, which sweetened the soul of everyone.

 

Florencia Costa