On Dr. Jamshed Bhabha’s 111th birth anniversary, a memorial lecture and an exhibition of never-seen-before artifacts from his personal collection honour the legacy of the visionary founder of the NCPA.
Snigdha Hasan
The National Centre for the Performing Arts came into being in 1969, but the idea of India’s premier cultural institution had been born much earlier. It was as though the vast knowledge that Dr. Jamshed Bhabha had acquired during a lifetime of exhaustive reading, listening to classical music, visiting art galleries, travelling in the pursuit of art, making sound business decisions, chairing various boards and trusts, and guiding foundations in matters of philanthropy was meant to be distilled into the creation of something that had never been attempted before. The identity of a newly independent India, Dr. Bhabha believed, must be inextricably linked with its rich artistic heritage, and an organisation in the cultural nerve centre of the country to preserve, promote and propagate its music, dance and theatre was the need of the hour.
This sense of urgency to support India’s performing arts and their great masters—many of whom found themselves faced with adversity in the absence of erstwhile patronage by royalty and aristocracy— and to maintain the oralaural guru-shishya tradition of learning, which too was dying out in the wake of modernisation, was not shared by many. Dr. Bhabha spoke in many a forum and wrote numerous proposals with great erudition before he was granted permission by the government to reclaim land from the sea at the southern tip of Marine Drive, which was to be the address of the NCPA. This was an enormous undertaking in which Dr. Bhabha received steadfast support from JRD Tata, his senior colleague at Bombay House, who, as Chairman of the Tata Group and a passionate promoter of the arts, convinced fellow trustees on the group’s philanthropic boards of the far-reaching impact of this cause. “One day, perhaps, the NCPA’s work may be more important for the country than the work of the steel company,” he had famously said of Dr. Bhabha’s labour of love.
Dr. Bhabha kept good company; he believed in surrounding himself with great minds to be challenged and advised. ‘The anxiety to utilise hard-won financial resources in the best possible way prompted me, soon after the establishment of the National Centre, to form a Board of Advisers,’ he wrote. This was a powerful board of such luminaries as M. S. Subbulakshmi, P. L. Deshpande, Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan, Satyajit Ray, Yehudi Menuhin, Zubin Mehta, S. Dillon Ripley, George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Jean-Louis Barrault, Kesarbai Kerkar, Dr. Narayana Menon, Gian Carlo Menotti, Karl Böhm, Igor Moiseyev, Musiri Subramania Iyer, Shigeo Kishibe and André Malraux.
The tradition continued with the eminent personalities he invited to helm the NCPA over the decades— Dr. Narayana Menon, Mr. P. L. Deshpande, Dr. Vijaya Mehta and Mr. Khushroo N. Suntook. Together with Dr. Bhabha, they have led the organisation towards artistic excellence, while coping with a perennial paucity of funds.
Dr. Bhabha breathed his last in 2007, secure in the knowledge that his centre was in capable hands. On his death anniversary in May 2018, a permanent exhibition on his life and contribution to the artistic landscape of India was inaugurated at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre. The following year saw the launch of a series of memorial lectures in his honour, a fitting tribute to a man of ideas.
Every year on Dr. Bhabha’s birth anniversary on 21st August, an eminent speaker from diverse disciplines is invited to speak on art and culture and allied fields. The inaugural lecture was delivered by Mr. Jawhar Sircar on ‘What Ails the Arts in India’. Dr. Farokh Udwadia and Justice Rohinton Nariman have taken the lectern to eloquently address scholarly themes. The 2025 Jamshed Bhabha Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Senior Counsel, Mr. Darius J. Khambata. He has been the Advocate General for Maharashtra and Additional Solicitor General of India. Honoured by the Government of Maharashtra for his distinguished service, he has appeared in numerous significant constitutional, corporate and commercial matters and domestic and international commercial arbitrations. Widely travelled and well-regarded for his knowledge of music, Mr. Khambata is a member of the NCPA Council. He will address a timely subject in his lecture, ‘War and Peace: Unlearned lessons from the 20th century’.
‘All the great arts,’ wrote Dr. Bhabha, ‘have a profoundly stirring effect on the human mind and spirit, and transcend the limitations and barriers of race, nationality, class and creed.’ In a world torn apart by strife, it is the arts that hold out a beacon of hope.
This article was originally published in the August 2025 issue of ON Stage.
