guest rooms in Villa Ocampo’s Museum in San Isidro.
The 60s will also witness the birth of Indian studies
in Argentine universities, with Dr. Vicente Fatone, Prof.
Armando Asti Vera, Fernando Tola, and Dr. Carmen
Dragonetti.
Ismael Quiles, a Jesuit priest fond of Indian culture and
yoga practice, in 1961 created the Eastern Studies Centre, 6
years later transformed into the School of Eastern Studies at
the Salvador University (USAL), the only college that off ers
a graduate course in Indian studies which enables students to
earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Eastern Studies in Latin America.
Moreover, outside university Indian culture and philosophy
were also assuming an important role for Argentine people,
always open to a worldwide view and eager to satisfy
their spiritual hunger with authentic Indian teachings. In
1962 presence of traditional Indian institutions added to
Ramakrishna Ashram another one: Swami Shivapremananda,
one of Swami Sivananda´s disciples, arrived in Buenos Aires
and founded the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre. He still
nowadays, in his 90s, keeps doing so.
In 1977, an Argentine Philosophy teacher Ada Albrecht,
came back from her second trip to India, where Vedantic
masters taught her, and inspired by Indian spiritual
universalism, founded Hastinapur Foundation to be devoted
to teaching spiritual philosophy. This institution has spread
from Argentina to several other Latinamerican countries.
In 1983, the revival of the democratic tradition in
Argentina, after years of military government, sees the Indian
embassy led by Dr. Lakhan Lal Mehrotra, who did hard work
to promote Indian culture in the country both in academic
arenas and popular locations. Along with Hastinapur
Foundation, he organized the fi rst Indian Festival in Buenos
Aires and invited President Raúl Alfonsín to travel to India
in 1985, as a special guest of the Republic Day Celebration.
Hastinapur Publishing House was founded in 1983 and
has been translating Indian classical texts for more than 30
years. Nowadays, is about to fi nish the complete Mahabharat
Spanish translation in 12 volumes. First full translation in a
western language, apart from English.
The latest three Indian ambassadors have changed the
way the Indian government is present in Argentina. In 2005
Amb. Rengaraj Vishwanatan renewed the Indian Festival in
Buenos Aires with the cooperation of the Export Promotion
Council for Handicrafts-EPCH at an important exhibition
centre in Buenos Aires downtown and includes the visit
of renowned Indian craftsmen along with performances of
music and dance, lectures, art exhibitions, and so on. The last
edition, in 2014, gathered over 30.000 people and accounted
for nearly a hundred events.
Former Amb. Amarendra Khatua decided to take India
beyond Buenos Aires in 2012, the fi rst time ever. Since then,
India has developed a federal relationship with the whole
28
country. The Indian Festival has been organized in many
provinces and cities outside Buenos Aires: Neuquén, Jujuy,
Tandil, Almirante Brown, Córdoba, and La Plata among
others. The governors of Mendoza, San Luis, Córdoba, and so
on, have been visiting India in order to promote commercial
relationships between the two countries, which has led to a
trade increase over 2 thousand million dollars.
Since 2016, present Ambassador, Sanjiv Ranjan,
continued this federal relationship to the Regional States
apart from National Government. Besides he has been
working hard to promote the commercial and touristic
relationship between the two countries. Just a sample of that
action, along with the last three years tourists travelling from
Argentina to India, have Increased more than 20 percent,
from 10325 to 12308.
An Indian poetry festival was organized on June 10,
2016, with distinguished poet and translator Yuyutsu RD
Sharma and diplomat Abhay Kumar which was followed by
a performance by Argentine Odissi dancer Anandini Dasi.
Two memorandum of understandings (MoU) were signed
in 2016 : one on cooperation in the fi eld of research and
education in Homeopathic medicine and the second one is
the establishment of an ‘academic chair’ in Ayurveda between
Central Council on Research in Ayurvedic Sciences, Ministry
of AYUSH and Fundacion de Salud Ayurveda Prema, from
Argentina.
Along this year the main representatives of the Indian
Government have been attending at Buenos Aires and other
cities of the country (Mendoza, Mar del Plata, etc) more than
80 working group meetings, apart from another 80 of Sherpa
and Finance meetings.
A few months ago the fi lm “Thinking of Him” has been
released at Argentine cinemas showing the mentioned
relation between Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo,
in an India-Argentina coproduction, directed by Argentine
fi lmmaker, Pablo Cesar.
Since 2012, at the Argentine Radio FM Radio Cultura,
directed by Gustavo Canzobre, is broadcasted weekly an hour
radio program, NIKETAN, dealing with to cultural, economic,
educational, touristic and consular news between Argentina
and India. Niketan is one of the few media permanent media
programs in Spanish Speaking Countries devoted exclusively
to India.
It is certainly clear that India has been very present among
the Argentine intelligentsia and has therefore signifi cantly
contributed to the growth of Argentina’s cultural framework
over the last 170 years. Not merely a cultural relationship;
it is also an enduring passion that has overcome apparently
insurmountable obstacles and thrived on each and every
opportunity in order to get closer to India.
* The author is Indologist, Director at Fundación Hastinapura