Policy Update
Asmeet Kaur
Background
The cultural relationship of India and Aotearoa New Zealand is an important aspect of transnational engagement in the South Pacific. The interaction between Māori communities and the Indian diaspora represents a deeper cultural exchange that rooted values of respect for ancestry, communal ties and a spiritual connection to the natural world. These shared values provide a real grounding for dialogue and partnership.
Actual Māori-Indian contact can be traced back to the late nineteenth century when Indian traders and sailors first arrived in New Zealand, and broader cultural exchanges emerged over time, particularly following the changes to immigration policies in the 1990s, and India’s global positioning. It is also worth mentioning that Māori language ,identity and presence in New Zealand’s bicultural narrative was also concurrently revived.
Māori-Indian linkages have particularly been highlighted recently through cultural festivals, academic institutions as well as artistic practices supported under the banner of community institutions and diplomatic institutions. There has been a wider conversation about multiculturalism, indigeneity and postcolonial identity that Māori-Indian linkages form a dynamic and on-going aspect of today’s cultural diplomacy.
Functioning
The Māori-Indian cultural link operates through several interconnected processes involving community-led activity, arts participation, state-led facilitation, and educational activity. This is not a single program, it is multi-faceted community participation and targeted state-led facilitation.
1. Community festivals and religious observances:
Public festivals, for example, Diwali and Matariki, have become important intercultural events and spaces for dialogue. Indian festivals sometimes feature karakia (Māori prayers), waiata (songs sung in te reo Māori) and performances that feature Māori stories and/or use Māori signs. The inclusion of Māori in Indian festivals acknowledges in part the role of ethnicity and an evolving civic discourse that is re-imagining what New Zealand is in a pluralistic landscape.
2. Performing Arts Collaboration:
Dance, music and theatre have been important platforms for cross-cultural interaction and exchange. Community organisations or cultural troupes have innovative fusion performances which feature Indian classical, folk or Bollywood dance styles with kapa haka (Māori dance from the North Island) and Māori narratives. Often funded by community organisations, public grants, or schooling initiatives, these community-based arts explore themes related to migration, displacement, or belonging, while representing the culture’s shared experiences of continuity or resilience.
3. Institutional and diplomatic forums.
Cultural diplomacy has been an important mechanism for maintaining long-term engagement within the Māori-Indian relationship. High commissions, educational institutions, and cultural institutions provide platforms for Māori engagement in trade and cultural delegations and seek out Indian participation in cross-cultural exchanges in New Zealand. This inserts Māori cultural groups (iwi and kapa haka roopū) into the structural presence of representation in formal delegations, which signifies policy recognition of the relevance of Māori culture to New Zealand internationally.
4. Research and public memory.
Maintaining and developing these connections depends on the support of educational institutions, ethnic councils, and NGOs. They document, exhibit, and conduct academic research that map historical connections and suggest a framework for collaborative engagement. The Māori-Indian cultural engagement remains both evidence based and socialised by establishing reciprocal relationships between academic, mainly research based, and community based practice.
In conclusion, the operationalisation of Māori-Indian linkages can be understood as a multidimensional model of cultural collaboration that enacts community-generated creativity and institutional acknowledgment which is increasing respect and understanding across cultural dimensions.
Performance
In recent years, Māori–Indian cultural connections have become visible, active, and supported by institutions. In what started as initiatives initiated by communities, the past few years have witnessed the evolution of (institutionalized) partnerships across art, education, and diplomacy. The time represents the formalization of earlier informal exchanges into recognized platforms for intercultural collaboration.
1. Cultural festivals and joint events:
Recent Diwali and Matariki festivals in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch have overtly and overtly embedded Māori ideas into Indian celebrations, and vice-versa. For example, Indian stages of cultural festivals often now include Māori karakia and waiata, while Māori festivals feature Indian dance and music performances on their stages. Māori inclusion into Diwali celebrations, or Indian dance performing at Matariki is no longer a ceremony, but actually displaying a curated sense of mutual recognition – it’s a developing tikanga of intercultural partnership.
2. Collaborative Performing Arts and Exhibitions:
Over the next couple of years from 2023–2025, productions and exhibitions further highlight this threaded practice. A recent example is Wairua Paani which will be presented by the Hawke’s Bay Indian Cultural Centre in 2025. Wairua Paani presents Indian classical and Bollywood dance pieces performed in the Te ao Māori storytelling framework, and vice-versa. Dance and theatre workshops in arts and sustainability explore artistic migration, identity and belonging, and use the vocabulary of both makers. These intentional, collaborative arts opportunities could exemplify how the arts become a space for negotiation and conflict resolution and reconciliation over issues related to cultural appropriation or cultural colonialism.
3. Institutional and diplomatic engagement:
New Zealand has included Māori cultural representation as part of its ways to engage internationally. Cultural delegations to India and elsewhere in Asia now often include kapa haka performers, or Māori artists, as cultural ambassadors. Matariki celebrations and Indo-Pacific cultural forums, for example, have been hosted in India with the support of New Zealand’s High Commission, signifying, amongst other things, the value of cultural diplomacy in bilateral relations. Initiatives such as these are integral not only to contribute to New Zealand’s soft power, but also to provide supporting structures to sustain cultural visibility.
4. Educational and community linkages:
Universities and knowledge institutions have begun to expand the areas of Māori–Indian studies in discussions about the diasporic, multicultural, and Indigenous collaborative framework. Student exchanges, research partnerships and community workshops have encouraged young participants to reframe alternate narratives alongside comparing and contrasting experiences of colonisation, wellbeing, and resilience.
The enhanced network of festivals, initiatives in the arts, and support from institutions indicates that intercultural engagement can evolve into a stable and sustainable form of cultural diplomacy and social cohesion.
Impact
In recent years, the strengthening of Māori–Indian cultural linkages has produced straightforward social, cultural, and diplomatic outcomes. Further, this is not just an impact of artistic collaboration, as it has implications for intercultural understanding, national identity, and soft power. The relationship now functions as a model of how Indigenous and diaspora communities can positively engage within a multicultural framework.
1. Promotion of social cohesion and mutual respect:
Significant in the promotion of social harmony, joint festivals, bilingual performances, and community events, have collectively supported social cohesion and mutual respect. The visible use of te reo Māori and Indian languages within public festivals (festive occasions) tacitly endorse a sense of collective belonging and respect for difference. Indirectly, they promote a degree of cultural literacy in younger generations and help normalize intercultural exchange within civic life in New Zealand.
2. Renewal and invention in the arts:
Cross-cultural artistic collaborations have broadened the boundaries of creative vocabulary for both Māori practitioners and Indian practitioners. The crossing of narrative traditions, music, and movement has generated hybrid expressions that artists recompose cultures in contemporary ways. The hybrid artefacts generated through this process operate not only as a renewal of art forms, but also as a genre disruptiveness for Indigenous and migrant forms of creativity.
3. Cultural diplomacy enhancement:
Māori-Indian collaborations have contributed to the enhancement of New Zealand’s cultural diplomacy. It presents New Zealand abroad as a society that demonstrably embraces both bicultural and multicultural. The presence of Māori performers and cultural leaders in trade missions and diplomatic delegations to India manifest New Zealand’s Indigenous partnership commitment as part of its international identity. Engagement with Māori traditions simultaneously is an expression of goodwill, as it grows the goals of people-to-people contact in bilateral relations.
4. Contributions to Education and Economy:
By inviting visitors to festivals and cultural events, collaborations stimulate economic activity and bolster other local creative enterprises. In educational projects, exchange activities facilitate comparative analysis, intercultural engagement, and build new academic foundations for interpreting Māori and Indian life experiences in wider global discussions on migration, identity, and postcolonialism.
In sum, the contribution of Māori–Indian linkages goes beyond cultural recognition. It is a generative model of inclusive engagement driving national cohesion, creative innovation, and the projection of both countries’ soft power in the Indo-Pacific.
Emerging Issues
Although Māori-Indian cultural connections continue to develop, there nevertheless exist some risks related to critical reflection, and efforts towards policy consideration. Such risks identify the complexities involved with sustaining intercultural relationships negotiating authenticity, equity, and cultural integrity.
1. Authentic representation:
With Māori and Indian cultural expressions increasingly finding common ground in festivals and performance opportunities, concerns around authentic representation have become ever clearer. Unpacking sacred or traditional iconographies across cultural contexts, without cultural protocols and reciprocal consent from communities, may already present some risk of cultural appropriation! It is difficult to undertake a collaborative project that is respectful, but also accurately represents the cultural particulars of the collaboration.
2. Power dynamics and institutional access:
Despite the growing number of partnerships, access to funding and representation remain decidedly inequitable. Larger organizations located in urban centers are still able to capitalize on funding, visibility, and resources to interact with their communities, which raises concerns for the invisibility of iwi collective and Indian community groups who have limited resources. When inequitable participation becomes an accepted practice, cross-cultural engagement becomes a mechanism for addressing structural inequalities, rather than addressing it.
3. Commodification and tokenism:
The sheer number of multicultural events that happen sometimes promote the commodification of culture for tourists or specific diplomatic purposes. Because when Māori or Indian culture is used specifically for a performative experience, they can risk being symbolically “Indian” or “Māori” without a genuine intercultural connection. In the arena of sustainable collaboration, we are hoping to move from being tokens, into being culturally-based partners for the long haul.
4. Gaps in institutions and policy:
Many Māori–Indian projects have developed as community or cultural linkages and have taken place in a context devoid of policy or institutional support. This has produced a reliance on short-term funding, as well as voluntary community participation, which limits accountability as well as ongoing sustainability. A more definitive multi-ethnic cultural policy, along with Indigenous leadership and mechanisms for bilateral responsibility, is vital to ensure ethical engagement or exchange and equitable sharing of benefits.
In short, while Māori–Indian cultural connections herald promising opportunities for intercultural solidarity and engagement, sustainable change is reliant on historical, consequential aspects. Future work must attend to authenticity, appropriateness of shared resource allocation, and decision-making in a community-led process to ensure intercultural dialogue leads to respect, inclusion, and sustainability.
Way Forward
The harmonization of Māori–Indian cultural connections requires a set of ideas that proactively consider ethical collaboration, institutional support, and mutual engagement. The sustained nature of the connections will rely on community led, secure funding, and steady policy level acknowledgement.
1. Establish community-led agreements:
Future arrangements must consider Māori and Indian community leadership in the approach, process, and execution of cultural practice. To ensure transparency, consent, and following cultural practice, new forms of written agreement (e.g.: Memorandum of Understanding, MoUs) need to be produced between iwi authorities, Indian cultural associations, and institutional/ government organizations.
2. Institutionalize cultural policy support:
Both governments should create a distinct cultural policy framework, within their cultural diplomacy agendas, to support Indigenous–diaspora exchange. Such thinking would see longer-term funding models embedded into national arts councils or bilateral funds to provide longer periods of community and institutional capacity building rather than on short-termed, and even short-sighted, project-based resourcing.
3. Ethical and educational frameworks:
Practical guidelines or frameworks can provide artists, educators, and institutions with ways to safeguard the integrity of culture. Guidelines should encompass intellectual property, permission to perform for dancers, and culturally sensitive depictions. Also important is a clear role for educational institutions. In collaboration with Māori and Indian Studies, universities could establish observations, courses, workshops, and events addressing Māori-Indian studies considering the context of broader discourses of multiculturalism and postcolonialist partnership.
4. Supporting research and sharing knowledge:
It’s important to acknowledge the potential of collaborative research between universities, think tanks and community organizations to document ongoing processes, evaluate results, and assemble a bank of best practices. This type of scholarship will point the way for future cultural diplomacy and make contributions to evidence-based policy advice.
5. Developing reciprocal cultural diplomacy:
Cultural exchange needs to move beyond symbolic acts to permanent, reciprocal engagement. Bilateral delegations, artist residencies, and cultural festivals that are co-curated by Māori and Indian representatives can enhance mutual understanding and increase the presence of both cultural traditions within the Indo-Pacific region.
Ultimately, the future is to institutionalize what has been informally achieved until now: so that Māori–Indian connections can thrive in the long term as an ethical partnership, a coherent policy, and an experience of shared cultural stewardship. This further does not only protect cultural integrity but elevates these connections as examples of compassionate, people-centered diplomacy within a globalized world.
References
- “Aotearoa & Bharat” – new manuscript on historical Indian-Māori links. (2023, May 22). RNZ Here & Now . Retrieved from https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/herenow/549703/aotearoa-and-bharat-new-manuscript-on-historical-indian-maori-links
- Booth, A., & Johnson, H. (2021). Diwali in Dunedin: A case study of festivalization and intervention in Indian cultural performance in New Zealand . New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 23 (1), 1-20. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355480358_DIWALI_IN_DUNEDIN_A_CASE_STUDY_OF_FESTIVALISATION_AND_INTERVENTION_IN_INDIAN_CULTURAL_PERFORMANCE_IN_NEW_ZEALAND/download
- Fries-Wardlow, L. (2020). The Indian diaspora in New Zealand . In P. Oesterheld & S. Müller (Eds.), Diaspora and transnationalism: Concepts and models (pp. [pages]). Brill. Retrieved from https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/9789401211710/B9789401211710-s008.pdf?srsltid=AfmBOorlhfkuDnwRDVs5_JSiT5LEFFKWNqYxLhCAT
- IndianWeekender. (2024, October 23). Multiculturalism on display at Auckland’s Diwali celebrations: Indian & Māori cultures come together on stage . Retrieved from https://www.indianweekender.co.nz/features/multiculturalism-on-display-at-aucklands-diwali-celebrations
- Pio, E. (2023). Aotearoa & Bharat: Māori-Indian [Book]. Wellington: Ministry for Ethnic Communities. Retrieved from https://www.ethniccommunities.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0026/63962/mec_2022_aotearoa-bharat-maori-indian_digicut.pdf
- Swarbrick, N. (2007). Indians . In Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved from https://teara.govt.nz/en/indians/print
About the Author
Asmeet Kaur is a researcher at IMPRI and an undergraduate student at Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi University, with a keen interest in Public policy and administration.
Acknowledgement: The author sincerely thanks Ms. Aasthaba Jadeja and the IMPRI team for their valuable support.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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