Heritage Management

I happened to hear Anand Kanitkar speak over the past two days, at various conferences.  Now working with UNESCO, Anand  has been looking at various aspects of heritage management, and had shared his views . I thought of compiling the points and putting it across so that we all could benefit from his ideas. Have also added some of my own, and will welcome more thoughts on the same.

Points for Heritage Management from other countries that India, especially Pune can incorporate :

1. Salvage Archaeology.
There should be a policy made for salvaging heritage artifacts.
Maintaining and Showcasing these artifacts in a proper manner is also important.

2. Visibility.
India has many world heritage sites, but not listed. We can create a global presence through heritage if properly channelised.
Accessibility to these sites is very important and must be encouraged at all levels.
Heritage can create the right economic turnover, if given enough exposure and visibility.

3. Create Awareness.

- For locals – creating pride, awareness and sensitivity. Starting with schools.
- Local authorities
- People staying around heritage sites
- Heritage property owners. (there should be an incentive for the heritage property owners from the State Govt. wrt their property taxes and maintenance)
-  Celebrating the heritage week, with free entries for people from all walks of life to come, see and even touch. This will encourage people to come more often. Like in Italy, events can be created specially at all times of day and night for people to experience their heritage differently.
- Involving the young generation, especially school children, so that they can know their history as well help educate others.
- Creating multi-sensory experiences

Tools that will help heritage management:

- Creating Conservation Centres for experts to come from all over the world.
- Study centres for locals and foreigners to know more about our heritage.
- 3D Scanning of Projects
- Creating physical and virtual museums.
- Using heritage sites for public events, so that people also take notice of these structures and feel the pride too.

I hope the people who want to bring in a positive change in this city are listening…and reading this post. And I hope we can work towards giving our heritage more respect and a place of pride within our daily lives.

Take pride in your heritage, preserve it.

As part of a lecture series organised under the banner of Virasat Pune’s Heritage Week here in the city, Prof. MK Dhavalikar talked about the way heritage and its value has changed in India, over the past few decades.

India is a treasure trove of artifacts, still found abundantly in various areas, a lot of them by the road side with vermillion applied to give them religious connotations. Many such wonderful antiques have been smuggled out of the country and some yet are part of private collections, kept away from public eye.

The first Ancient Monuments Protection Act was passed in 1882 by the British, recognising the need for a governmental administration on the protection of ancient monuments. Most of our monuments are protected by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. The Government of India passed the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act 1972, in order to curb the smuggling of art treasures from India. This Act also helped establish ownership of antiques.

In spite of all this, very few people register their antique pieces, mostly due to lack of awareness.

The State Government should be adding museums to help relocate these treasures, but in the past 60 years, there have been hardly a handful of museums set up in Maharashtra. And by and large, there are only 2 official museums that house antiques – the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai, and the Nagpur Museum. But both have not been set up by the State. And the elected MPs and MLAs are doing very little to help.

It is this lack of responsible action and the increased want to own antiques by people from world over, that is causing the deterioration of our heritage.

For which, Prof. Dhavalikar suggests that public participation is necessary.  Preservation of heritage without giving it a religious symbolism is also important. The participation will happen only when there is awareness. And most importantly, when there is pride.

Prof. Dhavalikar quotes and emphasises, ” The quality of a civilisation depends on the respect it gives to it’s heritage.”

Happy World Heritage Day!

 

- The Heritage Week is being held in Pune from 15th April -22nd April 2012, under the umbrella of Virasat Pune.  For more details, see www.janwani.org

Heritage callings…

If I had not become an architect, I would have perhaps been an archaeologist.  I have a huge fascination for history and am constantly eager to know more. Because of which, in the past year or two, I have been enrolling in various workshops and courses on history, archaeology, architecture and heritage.

One such course that I am currently doing is a four-day workshop at the Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth (TMV) . Conducted and organised by Manjiri Bhalerao and Saili Palande-Datar for TMV and  Samvidya Institute of Cultural studies, this short exercise is being carried over two weekends, for the entire day. Called ‘Olakh Pune ani Parisarachi’ , this intense course is on Pune and its Environs, and tries to reveal different facets of Pune and its Environs, such as Geograpy, Biodiversity, Archaeology, Ancient and Medieval History, Traditions of Art; Architecture and Sanskrit Studies, Traditions of  Literature; Music; Theatre; Dance and Films, Pune in 19th Century, Independence Movement, Post Independence Pune, etc.  Many eminent experts from various fields have been brought together to lecture at this course.

Rangoli pic courtesy Manjiri & Saili

I have completed the first weekend and although have read and known about many of the aspects talked here, I have got a new insight and discovered many other facts unknown to me before. And it is a beautiful process this, to be able to keep learning and relearning. In the next post, I will share with you some of the interesting points I learnt.

I look at the history of thousands of years and I see the need of preservation and conservation of the tangible (built) and the untangible (natural, cultural to others) aspects of heritage, and at the same time I know that in 50 years into the future, what will be termed as heritage will also be the legacy we leave behind- based on our actions now.  Are we prepared for that? Or will we wait for time to tell?