From a ₹23.67-Lakh Deficit to 15,000 Visitors: How Alliance Française de Bangalore Found Its Pulse Again

By: Karnvir Mundrey

At its 54th AGM, the 55-year-old institution showed how close it had come to disappearing, how it came back to life, and why its next challenge is turning growth into community.

Four ideas from the floor

When the floor opened to members at the 54th Annual General Meeting of the Alliance Française de Bangalore on Saturday, I stood up with three ideas. None of them cost much.

The first was name badges that show the year each member joined. One member in the room had joined in 1977, which is nearly half a century of memory, and nobody could see it. A badge that says “Member since 1977” is a conversation waiting to happen.

The second was Alliance merchandise. It turns membership into identity and members into ambassadors. When I said we wanted to take the Alliance home with us, the committee smiled and told me a specially made memento was already waiting for every member at reception.

The third was heritage journeys tracing French influence across Bengaluru and Karnataka, starting with city walks and perhaps a trip to Puducherry. Director Jean-Marc Dépierre offered to explore the idea. President Dr Chinmaya P. Chigateri added a fair caveat: the proof of the pudding is in the execution.

In one frame. Consul General of France to India in Bangalore Mr. Marc Lamy, Mr. Jean Marc Depierre, Director of Alliance Francaise #Bengaluru, and Dr. Chinmaya Chigateri, President of Alliance Francaise Association. And me!

After the meeting, I would add a fourth. The Alliance already teaches staff at large French firms. It should also deliberately reach founders, SMEs, independent artists and students, the people who will shape the next chapter of Indo-French ties.

All four ideas come down to turning an audience into a community. They also assume there will be a next AGM. Later that morning, I learned how close there came to not being one.

The Managing Committee of Alliance Francaise Association

The quietest bombshell

Treasurer Abhishek Iyengar delivered it in the flat voice of someone reading a compliance checklist. The Alliance’s AGM minutes had not been filed with the District Registrar of Societies since 2017. One more year of default, he said, and the Alliance could have been derecognised. It would have stopped existing in law, and nobody in the room would have been a member of anything.

Mr. Abhishek Iyengar, Treasurer.

For more than half a century, this institution has shaped Bengaluru’s cultural life. It came close to vanishing, and the cause was not scandal. It was forms nobody had filed.

Vice President Dr Anuj Solomon Joy captured the clean-up best in his vote of thanks. He described roads full of potholes and officials sitting inside loopholes, behaving like black holes. The Treasurer, he said, had made his way through all of them without falling into any. A tax filing from the pandemic years had also been missed, and it had grown into a demand running into crores. This committee took responsibility for a lapse that was not its own, and it filed the form and cleared the rest of the backlog.

The finances followed. A ₹23.67-lakh deficit became a surplus of about ₹35 lakh, and the Alliance now carries no debt. Over lunch, a retired senior revenue officer congratulated the Treasurer. Iyengar laughed and admitted that every time he read out a number, he had been watching that officer’s face.

With Juliette and Sivapriya, the cultural and communications team at Alliance Francaise.

One hour became three

The more surprising story is how the place now feels.

Marc Lamy, Consul General of France in Bengaluru, called it one of the best Alliances in India, “if not the best.” Then he told a story that said more than the praise. He had planned to drop in on this year’s Fête de la Musique for an hour, and he stayed for three.

The Fête grew from a single evening into a month of weekend events, ending with three stages and about 2,000 people. Dépierre joked that his cultural team needs July off to recover from June.

The clearest sign of revival arrived as a complaint. A theatre lighting designer, speaking with obvious affection, said he simply could not get a date anymore, because weekends were always booked. Dépierre’s reply got the biggest laugh of the day. “We are beautiful, we are sexy, and we are cheap,” he said, so of course everyone wants the space. An online booking system is due within about three months. A few years ago, nobody would have described the Alliance as a place with a queue.

Mr. Marc Lamy, Consul General of France, Bangalore.

A library that became a living room

The physical heart of the revival is the renovated library, which France’s Ambassador, Thierry Mathou, inaugurated in April. It now opens into a cinema lounge of about 70 seats, named after the Kannada novelist S. L. Bhyrappa, and the Saturday Ciné Club usually plays to a full house. The library itself hosts concerts. One evening, a Carnatic band played while a French artist drew live beside them. The architect said her greatest satisfaction was watching a single-purpose room become something people use in ways nobody had planned.

Campus France, the French government’s student mobility office, also returned to the campus. A student bound for France can now find classes, certification exams and pre-departure guidance under one roof.

Mr. Jean Marc Depierre, Director of Alliance Francaise, Bangalore

The under-30 problem

Mr. Dépierre was frank about the gap. Almost everyone in Bengaluru over 40 knows the Alliance Française, but far fewer people under 30 do. For a 55-year-old institution, heritage is an asset, but nostalgia is not a growth strategy.

So the campus now runs on rhythm and participation. Exhibitions come with workshops and meetings with the artists. There are a philosophy circle, a monthly contemporary dance evening, a sold-out opera night before Bastille Day, and a grand piano back on campus for the 55th anniversary. Kannada classes have begun too, a sign that this bridge is meant to carry traffic both ways.

The results show up everywhere. Cultural programmes doubled, and footfall rose from under 4,000 to more than 15,000. Student registrations grew by nearly half.

Vice President Ramya Bharadwaj wants to build habit into the calendar with a Thursday series of music, talks, theatre and dance. She also described the August tribute to Bhyrappa. Afterwards, several listeners wrote to the speakers to say they had gone out and bought his novels. That is what a cultural evening is for.

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The members who haven’t come back yet

The meeting also revealed one blind spot. Very few members use their 50 per cent course discount, membership income fell, and turnout was modest.

Ayub Khan, a newer member, admitted he felt embarrassed when someone spoke to him in French and he could not reply, and he asked for a phrasebook. The President’s answer was kind but firm: enrol in A1 online, at half price. The room applauded.

Moments like these are why the badges matter. The Alliance has won back the public. Its own members, many of them unsure of their French and unknown to one another, are the next people it needs to win back.

The real measure

Before lunch, members approved new air conditioning and a rehearsal room for the city’s artists. Two years ago, even that modest vote would not have been possible, because it needs clean books and a society that still exists in law.

In my own work in communications, I often watch organisations try to repair their reputation from the outside in. The Alliance did it the other way round. It filed the missing forms first. Then it opened its doors, and the city came in.

The next test is harder. Can it become as familiar to a 25-year-old in Bengaluru as it is to someone who walked through its gates in the 1970s?

Dr Joy opened his vote of thanks with a saying: gratitude that is felt but not expressed is like a gift wrapped and never given. The committee’s gift is one many members may not fully see. It kept the institution alive, and once again it is a place to learn a language, discover an artist, question a leader and make a friend.

Then someone called lunch, in the Alliance’s cheerful mix of languages: bon appétit.

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Karnvir Mundrey is a narrative strategist and media entrepreneur who helps founders, institutions and international businesses turn complex ideas into influential public stories. He is the Founder of Atharva Lifesciences Consulting Pvt. Ltd. , Atharva Marcom and Founder Editor of TheFutureOfPR.com. He has also authored a book on Nutraceuticals (available on Amazon). Karnvir Mundrey is also the producer and host of 4 YouTube channels. Finest Fintalk brings you the latest in Finance, LitInMin for Books, The Health Tips Podcast for health and Atharva Marcom for leadership talks He is also recognized as India’s longest running podcast host, continuously running since 2006!