HERITAGE

Heritage is a significant public good and is recognised as such in the Constitution’s Seventh
Schedule. It nurtures our collective memories of places and is a significant constituent in the
identity of cities. It has invaluable potential to contribute to our knowledge of not just history
and the arts, but also science and technology. Several buildings and sites throughout the
country, even entire areas or parts of historic cities, are examples of sustainable
development. They demonstrate complex connections of man with nature. Knowledge
gained from such resources can provide constructive ways to address development
challenges.

But the persistent oversight of the values of our heritage is one of the major paradoxes of
physical planning and urban development in post-colonial India. Conservation of heritage is
not seen as a priority to human need and development. Heritage sites are more often than
not seen as consumables and usually end up as the tourism industry’s cash cows and little
else.

Our country’s “outstanding universal value”

International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) [for cultural heritage sites;
offers advice toUNESCO on World Heritage Sites; this year meet in India)

 Theme: “Heritage and Democracy”

 4 ways to conserve heritage
 Involving communities in the task of heritage management
 Track II diplomacy
 Using digital media to “protect” and interpret cultural heritage
 The need to explore people’s relationships with natural landscapes.

WORLD MONUMENTS FUND (Fund means – it gives grant)

 A private (not under UNESCO), international, non-profit organization.

 It works in cooperation of UNESCO; but not under it

 Every year, WMF presents the Hadrian Award to international leaders who have
advanced the preservation of world art and architecture at its annual benefit dinner.
  Art: Visual, Performance, Literary
 Culture: Tangible, Intangible
 Dili Haat: Market for artisans and craftsmen

Shilpotsav

It does not help that the Ministry of Culture controls the Archeological Survey of India, and the
Ministry of Urban Development oversees “heritage”

What is the UNESCO Creative Cities Network ?-

(Use in 3 areas: 1. Heritage 2. Urban Development 3. Creativity and Innovation)

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was created in 2004 to promote cooperation
with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable
urban development. The 116 cities which currently make up this network work together
towards a common objective: placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of
their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international
level.
The Network covers seven creative fields:Crafts and Folk Arts, Media Arts, Film, Design,
Gastronomy, Literature and Music.

Khadi and handloom have transformed the lives of the poorest of the poor and are emerging
as a powerful means of empowering them. It is playing a very important role for gramodaya.

AYUSH

 Indian traditional medicine system and Yoga can play a prominent role in checking
Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).
 BIMSTEC Forum provides an ideal platform for fostering of Traditional Medicine

GI Act, 2000

ARTISANS AND WEAVERS/ HANDLOOMS

 India boasts of a rich tradition of hand-woven textiles and skilfully made handicrafts
that draws appreciation and buyers not only from within the country but also abroad.
Be it the intricately woven Ikats from Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, the Patan Patolas
from Gujarat, the fine Benarasi weaves from Uttar Pradesh, the gossamer-like
Maheshwari weaves of Madhya Pradesh or the figurines sculpted in wood or stone
from Tamil Nadu--India has this and much more to offer to the world in terms of
handlooms and handicrafts.
 Min of Textiles: ‘HastkalaSahyogShivir’.
 MUDRA
  Under the Hathkarga scheme, the government helps weavers buy new looms by
bearing 90 per cent of the cost. Importantly, the camps will also see the Pehchan
(Identity) cards being issued to weavers and artisans.
 In its efforts to eliminate the middleman, the Textiles Ministry has been assisting
weavers and artisans sell their products directly by helping them to participate in
marketing events both in India and abroad through funding under the National
Handloom Development Programme.
 ISDS: Skill Development Service
 Market Development Assistance
 Cluster based development e.g. The Chanderi Cluster Model.Handloom clusters preserve
traditional knowledge which is passed from one generation to another.
 Involvement of NGOs

Suggestions

 Like any other market, handloom is also required to serve three main functions:(1) matching
of demand and supply that involves identification of buyers and sellers, for which
matchmaking product offerings with needs, as well as price discovery is important; (2)
facilitating exchanges or transactions, for which logistics, payment mechanisms, and
facilitation of credit along with communication between buyers and sellers become
important; and (3) providing institutional infrastructure such as enforcement of legal and
regulatory mechanisms. These functions are already well-developed in formal urban
markets, but the active intervention of external agencies (i.e. NGOs) may be required in
poor, rural areas.

Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) to start Handicraft Technology

Mission

 Export Promotion throough Buyer friendly prices in competition era

 Market, Technology, Infrastructure, Capacity Building
 Raising Quality standards
 Raising income and living standards of artisans

Paintings on Railway Station: Madhubani; Bani Thani;= Tourism + Employment to local

artists + Cultural preservation and promotion. In many villages, they draw on their homes.

LANGUAGES

Sanskrit

 It’s one of the languages in the Eighth Schedule and is also an official language in
Uttarakhand.
 A 350 or so
 Most people will probably be aware of Kautilya’s Arthashastra (an ancient
Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy, and military strategy.), dated to the 2nd
 or 3th century CE. I wonder how many people know the manuscript disappeared. R.
Shamasastry, famous Sanskrit Scholar rediscovered it in 1904. It was published in
1909 and translated into English in 1915. Had Shamasastry not known Sanskrit, he
wouldn’t have known that manuscript’s worth.
 Note that knowledge transmission in Sanskrit was rarely in written form. Writing is of
recent vintage. Most transmission of knowledge was oral, and as the gurukul
systems and the guru-shishya tradition collapsed, that knowledge has been
irretrievably lost.
 Manjul Bhargava remind us of the sulba sutras.
 Amartya Sen: Sanskrit is not just a language in which "many Hindu and Buddhist
texts came" but also was a language of questioning. The Chinese mathematicians as
well as the pioneering Arab mathematicians had knowledge of Sanskri

National Mission for Manuscripts (Namami): This has a gargantuan task of listing,
digitising, publishing and translating manuscripts — a manuscript defined as a text
more than 75 years old.

TRIBAL LANGUAGE PRESERVATION AND PROMOTION

Language is not just a means of communication, but it is a carrier of culture. Loss of a

language = loss of culture.

During the colonial rule the first linguistic survey was conducted during 1894 to 1928
by George A. Grierson that identified 179 languages and 544 dialects

Census 1971 = 108 languages

Census 2011 data = not made public yet.

Why tribal languages on decline?

In Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the death of Boa, the last speaker of Bo language is one
of those instances that have lead to extinction of Bo language with the history of 70000
years.

Knowledge which is not shared is lost.

Reasons

Dominance of English- education, employability and the primary language of the

internet.

Intergeneration transmission failure-. Lack of native language educational content,

inadequate electronic accessibility tools coupled with poor enthusiasm among the new
generations have led to death-knell for languages like Eyak. Weak writing system due to
lack of native language content and the lack of electronic accessibility tools. Out of the 197
endangered languages only two languages – Boro and Meithei – have official status in India
while many others even lack writing system. Community's attitude of inferiority towards
local language as may be seen from the attempts to make English the medium of instruction
for all schools. Globalization has fostered homogeneity and international uniformity due to
which many Indian languages are losing oral literature and words related to culture like food
items, rituals etc..

 1835 Macualy’s minute on Education

 Globalisation and language shifts have encouraged the pace of death. –
Overpowering desire among parents to educate their children in English.
 With most of these languages spoken by tribes and lacking a script, it has been
particularly difficult to preserve them. Eg. Bonda tribe (CG)- ‘Remo’ language-
sans script.
 Decline in tribal population itself largely due to the decline in agriculture land, much of
which has been lost of afforestation.
 Television effect
 Tribal youth embarrassed to be seen speaking their mother tongues in public.
 Surprisingly, not being comfortable with speaking one’s native language is never
considered as challenge, unlike the inability to speak in English.

Impact

 Reorg. Of India on linguistic basis- languages having script were counted. Others
having not printed literature didn’t get their states.
 Loss of Language = Loss of culture = Why? As people migrate in such case
 Affects cognitive and emotive development of child
 Denies linguistic citizenship
 Threat to unity in diversity e.g. Gorkhaland stir (Imposing Bengali over Nepali)


Suggestions to prevent ‘phonocide’

 Conservation of languages need to be seen as significantly different from

conservation of monuments. Languages get impacted by contextual social

developments. Preservation of a language entails preservation of the community that

puts the language in circulation.

 Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore is charged with production of

education materials in marginalised and minority languages.

 Educated people from tribal communities should write literature in that language.

 Documentization, museumization of tribal literature

 Civil society actors: universities, literary academies, good-will societies, NGOs,

scholars, researchers and activists.

 Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India Scheme

(MoHRD): Documentation of all the mother tongues/languages of India

spoken by less than 10,000 speakers

 Digital media allows us their documentation in audio-visual formats now. Simply

recording audio or video of folk songs/folk tales in different languages can help

preserve not just the language/dialect but also the folk culture. In the same manner,

the traditional knowledge about sustainable living, medicines, farming and

architecture that tribals store in their memories can also be documented for

preservation and dissemination. (CASE STUDY: This is what motivated us to work

with the Sahariya tribe in Baran, Rajasthan, in 2007. Here, the Digital Empowerment

Foundation (DEF) established a 200 km community network and connected it to a

local server. This way, even if the Internet is down, the community can share content

and access content through the local server, thus creating an intranet or community

network. This has also encouraged the community over the years to create a
 localized database and archive its oral and traditional knowledge, art as well as

culture.)

 Mother tongue to be used as medium of instruction of primary education. The

Santhali language now a medium of 550 primary schools-has been revived in large

areas of Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj- A 350A

 Kurukh Language (Spoken by Oraon tribe in W.B.) classified as “vulnerable” in

UNESCO’s list of endangered langauages, got status of official language by W.B.

govt.

 Dance, theatre event to be held to promote Dogri language (Jammu)

 The problem needs to be addressed at societal level, in which the communities have

to take part in conservation of language diversity that is part of cultural wealth.

 A strong community driven movement can help tribal dialects survive.

 All types of literature be translated into regional languages

 Technology be used to make a record of endangered languages. E.g. Ganesh N

Devy documented 780 Living Indian Languages

Constitution

 A 29
  A 347

 A 350A

 A 350B
Conclusion

Mention F.D.; end with unity and diversity

2017 theme of United Nations World Mother Language Day “to develop the potential of
multilingual education to be acknowledged in education, administrative systems, cultural
expression and cyber space”.

Meity has initiated Technology Development for Indian Languages with the objective of
developing information processing tools and techniques to facilitate human machine
interaction without language barrier, creating and accessing multilingual knowledge
resources.

The Government of India under the vision of digital India has mandated the mobile phones
sold from July 2017 should support all Indian languages

Linguistic Heritage: Programmes like Special literary functions and Kavi Sammelans will
be organized to enable people of each region to appreciate the linguistic heritage of
other parts of India.
Indology

GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION