The Asiatic Society, Kolkata to mark its foundation day
The Statesman | 18 January 2026
The Asiatic Society, Kolkata, one of Asia’s oldest and most prestigious centres of learning, founded in 1784, celebrated its 243rd Foundation Day.
The celebration was graced by Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of Culture & Tourism, as the Chief Guest, while the Foundation Day Oration was delivered by Dr Sarita Boodhoo, Mauritius-based social activist, writer and journalist, and Awardee of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman – 2025. Her address on “Geet Gawai – The Chord and Spirit of the Girmitiyas” highlighted the deep cultural links between India and its global diaspora.
A central feature of the foundation day programme was the formal national unveiling of “Anukriti & Vidhvanika”, two next-generation heritage platforms being developed jointly by The Asiatic Society, IIT Kharagpur and C-DAC Kolkata.
Unlike conventional digitization, Anukriti seeks to restore the physical experience of manuscripts, enabling museum-grade replicas to be created so that fragile originals can remain safely preserved while their form and appearance are made accessible for scholarship, exhibitions and education.
Vidhvanika, in parallel, is being developed as a national AI-powered manuscript intelligence platform. It will enable automated transcription, transliteration, translation, metadata generation and scholarly search across a wide range of ancient and medieval scripts. Together, Anukriti and Vidhvanika form a complete civilisational pipeline, from scientific recovery and physical reconstruction to AI-driven interpretation and global digital access, placing India at the forefront of international heritage science.
The foundation day programme also witnessed the exchange of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between The Asiatic Society, Kolkata and IIT Kharagpur, Visva Bharati Santiniketan & CDAC Kolkata, formalising long-term collaboration in heritage science, digitisation, artificial intelligence and interdisciplinary research.
There was also the launch of the new website of The Asiatic Society apart from the release of the book “A Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Collection of The Asiatic Society, Vol. IV; Philosophy Manuscript”, further strengthening the Society’s role as a leading centre of classical scholarship.
Dr Sarita Boodhoo also highlighted India’s cultural diplomacy and diasporic connections, focusing on Geet Gawai, the Bhojpuri-derived musical and ritual tradition of the Girmitiya communities in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean world. The oration underscores how India’s languages, music and social traditions have travelled across continents, becoming a shared global heritage.