NGO Cultural Diversity for Peaceful Future and the Embassy of India in Georgia will open Namaste Sakartvelo to the public on 15 August at Mziuri Park from 17:00, marking India’s 80th Independence Day with joint performances and street food. The free festival arrives just days after the embassy’s own morning flag ceremony for the diaspora.
Organizers frame it as two nations, two cultures, one celebration. Behind the music stands a longer story of people who stayed.
What Visitors Will Find at Mziuri
The evening mixes Indian and Georgian artists on stage. Guests can sample authentic dishes from both countries at an Indo-Georgian street food festival. The park’s amphitheater and open lawns give the event room to breathe.
- Cultural performances showcasing traditions and heritage of India and Georgia
- Indo-Georgian Street Food Festival with dishes from both kitchens
- Open public access starting at 17:00 on 15 August
- Stated aim of cultural exchange, friendship and unity
Mziuri itself sits as a family green space with walking paths and a central stage that regularly hosts concerts. The choice of venue keeps the day casual and city-center easy.
The Organizers Who Stayed and Built
The driving force is NGO Cultural Diversity for Peaceful Future, known as CDPF or NGOCDPF. Its chairman, Darpan (Darispan) Prasher, has lived in Georgia since 2002. He first arrived with a business idea that did not pan out. The hospitality kept him. He founded the group in 2017 to strengthen cultural, educational and friendly ties.
India and Georgia are my two eyes.
Prasher said that in a July 2026 interview with Georgia Today. The same organization received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award from the President of India in 2021, the highest honor for overseas Indians or groups. Over the years CDPF has run Holi and Diwali festivals, International Yoga Day events that now draw thousands, blood drives and youth programs. It has sent roughly 450 Georgians, including theater and folk groups, to experience India firsthand.
That record turns the 15 August date into more than protocol. It is the latest public face of work that began long before the embassy opened its doors.
Numbers That Changed the Atmosphere
People-to-people traffic has surged. Georgia welcomed about 124,335 Indian visitors in 2024, a 46.8 percent jump from the year before. Direct IndiGo flights between Delhi and Tbilisi, launched in August 2023, helped. India now ranks among the faster-growing source markets.
Prasher puts the Indian student population near 30,000. Many study medicine or other degrees and later return home as informal ambassadors for Georgia. Local streets already show the footprint in food delivery apps and university halls.
| Indicator | Figure | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Indian tourists to Georgia 2024 | 124,335 | +46.8% year on year |
| Indian students in Georgia | ~30,000 | Per CDPF chairman 2026 |
| Bilateral trade 2022-23 | $432.35 million | India exports $265.31 m, imports $167.04 m |
| Major Indian investments | Tata Power Shuakhevi HPP, Geo Steel, Jindal Petroleum | Hydro, steel, oil exploration |
Trade remains modest next to the human flow, yet the direction is upward from earlier years. The India-Georgia bilateral brief details list pharmaceuticals, machinery and fertilizers among leading goods, plus infrastructure projects already on the ground.
Ancient Threads Still Visible
Literary and historical links run deeper than modern diplomacy. Shota Rustaveli’s 12th-century epic The Knight in the Panther’s Skin features an Indian prince as a central hero. Panchtantra fables shaped Georgian legends. Queen St. Ketevan, martyred in 1624, has relics that reached Goa; India returned a portion as a gift in 2021 during External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s visit.
- 26 December 1991, India recognizes Georgia’s independence
- 28 September 1992, Formal diplomatic relations established
- March 2010, Cultural cooperation agreement signed (expired 2020, renewal under discussion)
- July 2021, Jaishankar visits, hands over Ketevan relic portion
- August 2023, Direct Delhi-Tbilisi flights begin
- 2025, Embassy of India fully active in Tbilisi; first Independence Day on new premises
These layers give Namaste Sakartvelo its texture. The festival does not invent friendship. It stages what already exists.
Embassy Era Changes the Daily Rhythm
Until recently the Indian ambassador in Yerevan held concurrent accreditation. The resident mission in Tbilisi changed that. Consular services opened at 3 Irakli Gamkrelidze Street from 3 October 2025. The 2025 Independence Day ceremony, the first on the new premises, featured Chargé d’Affaires Subbu Ramesh unfurling the flag and community performances.
This year the embassy invites the Indian community and friends of India for a morning program starting 09:00 at the same address, with registration required. Namaste Sakartvelo then opens the evening to anyone who walks into the park. The split keeps the official and the public lanes clear yet complementary. The Embassy of India Tbilisi official page carries current notices and service updates.
CDPF works in direct partnership with the mission. That partnership now has a permanent local anchor rather than a visiting one.
Students and the Integration Question
The large student presence draws occasional public comment in Georgia. Prasher calls the common fear of demographic change a misunderstanding. Most come for degrees and leave. While here they join cultural events, charity drives and local life. CDPF’s student programs aim at exactly that integration.
The same group that stages Holi color festivals and yoga mornings also fields volunteers for blood donation and community outreach. Those practical habits build the goodwill that a single diplomatic reception cannot. The NGO Cultural Diversity for Peaceful Future site lists its ongoing work and open calls for sponsors or participants.
In that light the street-food stalls and dual dance lineups on 15 August function as open invitation rather than closed diaspora party.
Why the Park Date Matters Now
Georgia marks its own independence pressures in a complicated neighborhood. The calendar of national days can sharpen or soften identities. A free evening that lets Georgians taste Indian food and watch shared stages softens the edges. It also gives Indian residents a public stage that belongs to the whole city.
The venue helps. Mziuri Park amphitheater and paths already draw families for ordinary weekends. Placing Namaste Sakartvelo there folds the foreign celebration into local leisure. No ticket barrier, no compound wall.
Earlier cultural agreements expired and await renewal. Foreign Office Consultations continue. Trade talks on a free-trade study finished years ago without final negotiation. Against that slow official track, the NGO calendar of festivals, yoga days and student exchanges keeps the relationship warm and visible. One recent Georgia Today profile of Prasher and the group’s two-decade arc shows how personal commitment fills the gaps.
Readers tracking Georgia’s own national day debates can see the parallel in how public festivals carry weight beyond protocol. The Georgia’s own Independence Day pressures piece maps those domestic currents. Namaste Sakartvelo sits on the other side of the same coin: a foreign day claimed as shared city life.
On 15 August the lights will come up at Mziuri around five in the afternoon. Dancers from both traditions will take the stage. Food stalls will open. The organizers who have spent years stitching the two societies together will watch the crowd fill the grass. That is the stake they hold.
