MISSION & History

Indian Heritage & Cultural Association (IHCA-NJ) is a volunteer based non-profit organization established in

New Jersey in 2013. The Indian Cultural and Heritage Association-NJ (IHCA-NJ) is devoted to promoting local

talent and bringing all communities together through the performing arts to dscuss various social issues

including women empowerment, mental health, immigration, human trafficking, LGBYQ+. etc. Our first stride

towards this goal was the 2016 Natya Darpan, a multilingual short play festival which was a project not only to

fulfill this mission statement, but was a collaboration between local theater groups to show the power of the

arts despite linguistic barriers. Each Natya Darpan festival features many plays built to showcase intra-

community struggles.

Our goal is to build bridges between people through performing arts. Every year Natya Darpan became more

and more popular among theater communities throughout NJ. In the seven years since, over 500 local artists

have presented at Natya Darpan. Because of the consistent high quality of the show, we are proud that the

last five Natya Darpan shows were "Sold Out".

All our events highlight social causes relevant to not only the language groups that performed them, as well

as showcased the idea that these issues and problems are felt on a multi-cultural level. Our future projects will

continue making way for this goal and we at IHCA will work tirelessly to promote the immense talent of local

artists