‘Promoting Indian culture is important for our children’
FORMER BHAVAN CHAIRMAN JOGINDER SANGER RECALLS HIS TIME AT THE ORGANISATION
JOGINDER SANGER has explained why he has given over 40 years of devoted service to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the Indian cultural centre in London.
“To me the Bhavan became more important than my own business,” he told Eastern Eye in an exclusive interview.
Senior members of the Indian community, among them Lord Swraj Paul, Gopi Hinduja and the Labour MPs Virendra Sharma and Seema Malhotra, met recently to thank Sanger for all the work he has done for the Bhavan, including putting the organisation’s once-precarious finances on to a sound footing.
His association with the Bhavan began in 1980. He was its vice-chairman from 1993 to 2011, and chairman from 2011 until earlier this year.
Sanger is a successful hotelier whose portfolio includes the Courthouse just off Regent Street, the Bentley in South Kensington and the Washington in Mayfair.
In recent years, he has taken a back seat in the business, as more responsibility has been assumed by his daughter Reema and son Girish.
The UK branch of the Bhavan was established in 1972 and moved to its present premises in 1978. Its core activities are the teaching and promotion of classical Indian arts, yoga, languages and culture.
Every week around 800 students walk through the Bhavan’s doors. It offers classes in more than 23 different subjects “which allow for great cross-fertilisation across the art forms”.
Sanger came to Britain, aged 19, “from a village in Punjab”, initially to study engineering. He talked of how the perception of India has changed over the decades, and how an organisation such as the Bhavan was needed to prevent young Indian boys and girls from going astray.
He remembers a trip he made to Rotterdam in 1964, when he got into a conversation with a Dutchman who did not speak English too well.
“He asked me, ‘Where are you from?’ I said India. He did not know what India means. They have a different word in the Dutch language for India. When I explained about India to him, he said in his limited English, this was where ‘people starved to death’. That was India’s reputation among ordinary members of the public in Europe.”
In the decades since, there had been a transformation in how people now think of India, said Sanger. “And today, I feel so proud of India. We are among the three or four top economies of the world. Some of our politicians (in India) have been good, others bad. But they have raised India to this level.
“One of my principles is that mistakes are made by people who try to work and do something. But a person who doesn’t work, what mistake will they make?”
Sanger described the contribution of Indians across the globe: “Not only in England, but in America, in fact, everywhere, they are the backbone of society.”
He connected the development of the Indian community in the UK with an organisation like the Bhavan.
Back in 1980, when Sanger was working as a GSA (general sales agent) for Air India, he received an urgent summons one day from the late Maneck Dalal, a Parsi and then the highly regarded regional director of India’s national carrier.
Sanger rushed to the meeting with Dalal,
thinking something had gone wrong with a flight. Instead, he discovered Dalal had been dealing with Mathoor Krishnamurthy, the then executive director of the Bhavan. The latter, who was in a despondent mood, was flying to India to talk about the problems of the Bhavan with the organisation’s leaders in the country.
Sanger admitted modestly: “I had come from a village. I had never heard of the Bhavan. At first I thought it had something to do with religion but it was my ignorance. I was wrong. I realised this institution is important for future generations of our children.”
With the first generation of immigrants, husbands and wives went out to work, often leaving children unsupervised after school. “There was a risk they would become teddy boys,” he said.
At Dalal’s request, Sanger took up the task of helping the Bhavan, initially financially. The Bhavan had been given a donation of £256,000 by the Birlas, one of India’s premier business dynasties, with the stipulation that only the interest from the capital could be used as expenditure.
Sanger used his contacts with the Bank of Baroda and offered to use his own bank accounts as collateral to steady the finances of the Bhavan. His intervention paid rich dividends. When people would not pay £250 for a table of 10 for a Bhavan dinner, he reduced the cost to £100. He felt “promoting Indian culture is a must”.
By and by, the Bhavan had a healthy bank balance and was able to expand.
With the passing years, Sanger’s commitment to the Bhavan grew. Five years ago, he appealed to the Bhavan’s executive director, Nandakumara Mattur, and members of the governing committee, to find his successor as chairman “while I am still in good health. But they wouldn’t let me go.”
Now that he is 80, the Bhavan has at last agreed to let him step down. His successor is Subhanu Saxena, a managing partner in a business who is also “a lecturer and teacher of Sanskrit and Vedanta”.
Sanger has a very Indian view of charitable work: “If you put £5 into good work, God gives you £50. My business success is not because of my wisdom but due to God’s kindness.”