Mumbai Festival is designed as a ‘bear hug’ model, will be a cultural ambassador for the world: Anand Mahindra

Mumbai is all set to be showcased to culture enthusiasts with the launch of the Mumbai Festival that is scheduled to take place between January 20 and 28, 2024. Industrialist Anand Mahindra is the chairperson of the festival’s advisory committee. 

Through this festival, the Maharashtra government wants to boost tourism in Mumbai and make it an international destination to foster growth and inclusivity, and promote culture and tourism. 

Anand Mahindra said such a festival showcases a city’s essence to the world. “This festival will help Mumbai become a cultural ambassador. It’s not just about tourism but it also makes a city vibrant economically. We’re going to use the bear hug model. We’ll embrace the already created events in the city which need to be recognised like the Kala Ghoda festival and Mumbai Marathon,” Mahindra said. 

The Directorate of Tourism (DoT) is contemplating conducting all popular festivals such as Kala Ghoda, Bandra Fair, Banganga, Worli Mahotsav and Mumbai Marathon as a part of the Mumbai Festival. The festival hopes to have more than 100,000 target points of retail outreach and touch more than 100 million people in person, on TV and digital platforms. It will include music fests, walks, beach fest, cinema fest, shopping fests, etc. 

Talking about the festival’s back story, Mahindra said, in 2006, Member of Parliament Sudhir Sawant approached him to start a festival of India. “I had said no I’ll do it if it’s a Mumbai festival which we eventually did. It was like a franchise model where stakeholders, sponsors etc. would replicate it in other cities as well. It was a resounding success but a lot of individual political interests took over in 2008 and it petered out,” he said. Mahindra added that when he was approached by the state government earlier this year to revive it, he insisted that they create an environment that ensures that the festival will endure. 

The Mumbai festival is going to be a section 8 company, which means it will be a non-profit organisation that aims to promote charitable activities, art, science, education, sports, etc. “It’s an incredibly promising start. Mumbai has a history of using festivals for larger causes. For example, for Ganpati festival, Bal Gangadhar Tilak had a larger purpose,” he adds. 

Members of the foundation also include the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Harsh Jain, Amitabh Chaudhry, Ronnie Screwvala, Parth Sinha, and Neerja Birla.

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