Situated on the riverside of the mighty Brahmaputra, Vivekananda Kendra Institute of Culture is a research forum that works on the development of society through culture. The sole purpose of VKIC (Guwahati) behind all its works and activities is ‘to seek the common grounds and rebuild the society through culture’. Of late, VKIC has emerged as the intellectual fountainhead of Northeast India by its very basic service of ‘man-making’ and ‘nation-building’. Kanyakumari-based Vivekananda Kendra established VKIC, Guwahati as a part of its project in 1993.

Founded by Eknathji Ranade in 1972, Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari is centred on the noble thought of ‘service to man is worship of god’ and is guided by the national ideals ‘renunciation’ and ‘service’. This Kendra is a logical sequel to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial of Kanyakumari. It aims to strengthen and nurture its roots by establishing branches like VKIC. At present, the Vivekananda Kendra has 225 branches in 21 states.

At the toddler stage, the Guwahati VKIC was in a small room at Dr Akon Duwara’s residence. During these days, the activities were restricted to yoga, meditation and ‘Bal Barga’ — a forum for children. From 1993 onwards VKIC started to conduct seminars involving the states of the Northeast. VKIC had no infrastructure of its own till 1996. The present building housing the VKIC is known as ‘Pandit Hemchandra Goswami-Bamasundari Goswami Bhawan’ and it was inaugurated in on January 31, 1996.

Apart from seminars, VKIC has conducted many guest lectures, workshops, symposia where a number of significant activities were taken up. As a research forum, VKIC undertakes documentation and research on the culture of different communities of the Northeast. Meanwhile, VKIC has completed documentation projects on ethnic tribes of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh like Rabha, Dimasa, Adi, Nyishi, etc, besides on religious shrines like Buddhist monasteries of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, Kamakhya temple, etc. VKIC also has plans to do research on Singphow community.

Moreover, VKIC has different developmental organizations of which Vivekananda Kendra Arunjyoti and Vivekananda Siksha Prasar Bibhav are the most significant. Arunjyoti is a sociocultural development organization set up in Arunachal Pradesh to look after the social work, while Siksha Prasar Bibhav is a department of education. Besides these, VKIC has three vocational centres; one in Assam while two in Arunachal Pradesh. VKIC also works in Tripura and Meghalaya. Though VKIC gives prime importance on research and documentation, the core activity of VKIC is yoga with the number of interested people to join such course increasing every year.

Thus, VKIC can be termed an epicentre that nurtures the roots of culture through its various activities. In fact, VKIC publishes a newsletter every year and tries to compile and bring out books about all its works and activities, and till now more than 15 books have been published. On its fourteenth foundation day on January 31, 2009 in the Williamson Magor Auditorium of the institute, VKIC released its journal Quest and presented a draft report on the survey it conducted on the satras of Assam. It needs mention here that on October, 24, 2009 Dibrugarh University recognized VKIC as a research institute.

In conclusion, we can quote the words of Prof AC Bhagabati, former vice chancellor, Arunachal University (now Rajiv Gandhi University) and member of research council, VKIC: “VKIC combines conventional methods of investigation with participatory research... People become researchers of their own tradition to identify their own genius. They themselves evolve the methodology for continuity.”

Parismita Saikia