Thousands of students turned a ribbon-cutting into a cultural statement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, 1 August 2026, expressed deep admiration for the performance of over 13,000 students who staged the vibrant Dhimsa dance during the inauguration of Bhogapuram Airport in Andhra Pradesh — a moment that fused infrastructure ambition with tribal heritage on a single stage.

What Dhimsa brought to a runway inauguration

The Dhimsa is no ceremonial afterthought. Rooted in the Araku Valley and the surrounding tribal belts of Andhra Pradesh, it is one of the most distinctive folk dance traditions of the region's indigenous communities — performed in sweeping, rhythmic circles, often at harvest or communal celebrations. Staging it at an airport inauguration, with more than thirteen thousand students in formation, transformed a civic event into something closer to a cultural proclamation.

Prime Minister Modi described the gesture as reflecting 'the warmth of the people of Andhra Pradesh and the richness of the state's heritage, especially that of the tribal communities' — a line that did double duty, acknowledging both the scale of the performance and the communities whose traditions it carries.

Bhogapuram: Andhra Pradesh's new international gateway

Bhogapuram Airport is a greenfield project designed to serve as a new international gateway for the Visakhapatnam region, expanding air connectivity in a state that has long pushed for stronger infrastructure investment since its bifurcation in 2014. The expansion of airport capacity through greenfield projects in tier-2 cities has been a sustained central government priority, and Bhogapuram represents one of the more significant additions to that pipeline in southern India.

Commercial operations are the next milestone to watch — the inauguration marks the project's physical arrival, but flight schedules and international route approvals will determine how quickly the airport delivers on its connectivity promise for the region.

A Modi inauguration signature: development meets cultural recognition

This is not the first time the Prime Minister has used the inauguration of infrastructure to spotlight a state's performing arts. Across multiple project launches — airports, highways, stadiums — local dance and music traditions have been woven into the ceremony, a deliberate pattern that frames development not as a disruption of local identity but as an extension of it. The Dhimsa performance at Bhogapuram fits squarely into that playbook, and the Prime Minister's public acknowledgment amplifies the cultural signal beyond the ceremony itself.

Thirteen thousand students in motion is a number that speaks for itself. The kicker is what comes next: whether Bhogapuram's runways fill with the flights that make the symbolism real.