Bangladeshi artistes perform at Kumbh
While politics and diplomacy struggled to mend the bridge, faith seems to have pulled off the job with elan.
In what looked to be the first official cultural exchange between India and Bangladesh since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in August last year and the subsequent unrest in the neighbouring nation where minority Hindus were allegedly targeted, a group of Bangladeshi artistes were partly sponsored by the Muhammad Yunus regime to perform at the Maha Kumbh.
A six-member dance troupe from Bangladesh performed at the Kumbh’s 13,000-seater Ganga Pandal, the makeshift central cultural hub, on Saturday evening at the inaugural session of the 10th India International Dance and Music Festival. The event was hosted jointly by the UP government and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), which works under the Ministry of External Affairs.
The participation followed Bangladesh’s absence from key cultural events in India, such as the recently concluded International Kolkata Book Fair 2025 and the 30th Kolkata International Film Festival in December last year.
Bangladesh had been a consistent participant in these events until recently.
The troupe, part of a 107-member delegation of foreign artistes representing 10 nations, was led by Rachel Priyanka Persis, an assistant professor at Dhaka University’s dance department.
The troupe showcased the Gaudiya dance, a Vaishnava form based on religious stories, poetry and music.
Following their two-day performance at the Mahakumbh on February 22 and 23, the delegation is scheduled to perform in Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam and Meghalaya before their final show in Delhi later this month. “I feel fortunate to be able to perform amid this sea of humanity. The Maha Kumbh carries a spiritual legacy of 144 years. I would thank the Indian High Commission for its invitation. We had no problems in obtaining our visas,” Priyanka said and introduced the other members of her team — Mousumi, Laboni, Rini, Raisa and Pinki.
Participating alongside India and Bangladesh were artistes from Russia, Mongolia, Rwanda, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Africa and Fiji, officials said.
The event was part of the Cultural Exchange Programme Agreement (CEPA) between India and several nations, aimed at promoting Indian culture abroad and exposing local artistes to international art and culture, they said.
“According to CEPA, the ICCR shoulders the financial burden of the visiting artistes in terms of their accommodation, local transport and visa arrangements. The respective foreign government, on the other hand, pays for their airfare. The arrangement was honoured by the Bangladeshi government like all the other foreign nations,” said ICCR Director General K Nandini Singla.
