India uses cultural diplomacy to strengthen global ties with 98 countries

By R Anil Kumar

Bengaluru, August 10, 2026. India is strengthening its cultural diplomacy and international engagement through a comprehensive framework aimed at showcasing the country’s civilisational heritage, cultural diversity and contemporary creative traditions across the world.

The Ministry of Culture promotes India’s cultural relations with other countries through the Global Engagement Scheme (GES), an umbrella initiative designed to expand structured bilateral and multilateral cultural cooperation.

The scheme supports a range of activities, including cultural exchanges, heritage conservation, documentation, capacity building and engagement with international cultural organisations.

GES comprises four major components: the International Cultural Exchange Programme (ICEP), Project Mausam, Brihattar Bharat and the Scheme for Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage and Diverse Cultural Traditions of India.

Under the International Cultural Exchange Programme, the Ministry organises Festivals of India, facilitates cultural exchanges and deputations of artists and cultural groups, and implements Cultural Exchange Programmes, memoranda of understanding and other bilateral cultural cooperation initiatives.

India currently has valid Cultural Exchange Programmes with 98 countries, providing an institutional framework for cooperation in areas such as culture, museums, heritage and performing arts.

The Ministry also uses the framework to facilitate India’s participation in major multilateral cultural forums, including BRICS, G20, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BIMSTEC.

The Ministry said cultural diplomacy forms an important component of India’s wider international engagement by creating avenues for people-to-people contacts and showcasing India’s cultural diversity beyond formal diplomatic channels.

The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of External Affairs, complements the Ministry of Culture’s initiatives by promoting Indian culture overseas and strengthening people-to-people ties through its network of Indian Cultural Centres and cultural programmes abroad.

ICCR facilitates artistic exchanges and organises international cultural festivals in India, where artists from other countries are invited to perform. It also conducts visual arts exhibitions and hosts art residencies aimed at showcasing India’s civilisational heritage and contemporary artistic traditions.

The council also organises programmes in foreign countries to commemorate national and international occasions, including the International Day of Yoga.

The Ministry said these initiatives collectively seek to deepen cultural understanding and strengthen India’s international partnerships by creating sustained engagement between artists, cultural institutions and communities across countries.

The International Cultural Exchange Programme (ICEP) is a sub-scheme under India’s Global Engagement Scheme managed by the Ministry of Culture. It maintains active cultural agreements and partnerships with 98 countries, organizing Festivals of India abroad, funding grants-in-aid, and working alongside the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) to boost global ties.

Bilateral Ties: Establishes formal Cultural Exchange Programmes (CEPs) and MoUs with nearly 98 nations.

Global Forums: Coordinates India’s participation in international platforms like G20, BRICS, SCO, and BIMSTEC.

Festivals and Art: Facilitates Festivals of India abroad and hosts foreign artist showcases or art residencies locally.

Funding: Provides financial support to Indo-Foreign Friendship Cultural Societies via global Indian missions.

Key Implementing Bodies

Ministry of Culture: Oversees policy frameworks, the Global Engagement Scheme, and governmental agreements.

ICCR: An autonomous wing under the Ministry of External Affairs handling on-ground international artistic exchanges and cultural centres abroad.

National Archives of India: Coordinates archival cooperation clauses outlined in bilateral agreements.

Project Mausam isatransnational initiative launched by the Government of India on 20 June 2014 at the 38th session of the World Heritage Committee held in Doha, Qatar.

The Ministry of Culture is the nodal agency, with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) in New Delhi serving as the principal coordinating body, supported by the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Museum.

The project’s full name—”Mausam: Maritime Routes and Cultural Landscapes across the Indian Ocean”—captures its dual scope.

The word mausam, derived from the Arabic mawsim (“season”), refers to the monsoon winds that for two millennia governed the rhythm of sailing across the Indian Ocean, enabling the seasonal voyages that bound East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia into a coherent commercial and cultural world.

The initiative is conceived simultaneously as a research programme on this maritime heritage and as a vehicle for transnational UNESCO World Heritage nomination.

Procedurally, Project Mausam operates on two interlocking levels. At the macro level it seeks to document and reconnect the cultural, commercial, and religious interactions that the monsoon winds facilitated across some thirty-nine countries of the Indian Ocean rim. At the micro level it studies discrete cultural landscapes and maritime settlements—ports, shipwrecks, sacred sites, and trading communities—linking individual sites to their wider oceanic context. The operational sequence begins with IGNCA convening scholars, archaeologists, and partner institutions to compile documentation, followed by collaborative research, exhibitions, and seminars. The eventual objective is to file a transnational serial nomination to UNESCO under the World Heritage Convention of 1972, whereby a single inscription would encompass linked sites across multiple states, each contributing component properties to a shared narrative of maritime exchange.

The project’s intellectual architecture rests on the concept of cultural routes, a category recognised by UNESCO and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) since the late 1990s, exemplified by inscriptions such as the Silk Roads corridor.

A cultural route binds geographically dispersed properties by a shared history of movement and exchange rather than by contiguity.

Project Mausam adapts this framework to the maritime sphere, treating the Indian Ocean itself as the connective tissue. Thematically the project engages textiles, spices, ceramics, the diffusion of religions including Hinduism,Buddhism, and Islam, and the architectural and culinary syncretism visible from Lamu and Zanzibar to Kerala, Sri Lanka, and the Indonesian archipelago. This makes it as much a programme of soft power as of preservation.

Contemporary milestones cluster around its launch and early implementation. The Doha announcement in June 2014 coincided with the new government’s articulation of a maritime-centred foreign policy, later crystallised in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s SAGAR doctrine —“Security and Growth for All in the Region”— enunciated at Port Louis, Mauritius, in March 2015. IGNCA has since hosted seminars and exhibitions and signed cooperative arrangements with partner institutions across the littoral. Progress toward the actual UNESCO transnational nomination, however, has been incremental, and the project has been repeatedly cited in the foreign policy literature as an instrument of cultural diplomacy more than a completed heritage inscription. India’s External Affairs and Culture ministries have treated it as a long-horizon endeavour.

Project Mausam is frequently and usefully contrasted with China’s Maritime Silk Road, the oceanic component of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The two are easily distinguished: the Maritime Silk Road is an infrastructure-and-investment vehicle directed at ports, logistics, and connectivity finance, whereas Project Mausam is a culture-and-heritage initiative without comparable capital flows.

It is distinguished from the Cotton Route or “spice route” diplomacy India has pursued bilaterally, and from SAGAR, which is a maritime security doctrine rather than a heritage programme; Mausam furnishes the civilisational vocabulary that SAGAR’s strategic logic draws upon.

The Brihattar Bharat Initiative is a cultural and research program by the Government of India. It explores India’s historical, civilizational, and cultural links across Asia and the world. Managed through bodies like the IGNCA and the Ministry of Culture, it highlights shared heritage and boosts India’s global soft power.

Key Goals

Research Links: Study historical, artistic, and archaeological ties between India and regions like Central, East, South, and Southeast Asia.

Global Platform: Build international networks, book projects, and joint UNESCO listings.

Cultural Diplomacy: Present a Bharat-centric view of shared traditions at international forums and exhibitions.

Core Focus Areas

• Multidisciplinary research on ancient trade and cultural routes.
• Annotated bibliographies and shared heritage documentation.
• Public exhibitions alongside initiatives like Project Mausam and Gyan Bharatam.

(With Inputs from Ministry of Culture and Ministry of External Affairs)