Living Heritage: Preserving, Transforming And Reinventing India’s Heritage In The 21st Century – OpEd
Living heritage, that encompasses traditional knowledge systems and cultural practices, can help achieve environmental sustainability as well as improve economic well-being; salutations on World Heritage Day
On March 14, 2014 during the inaugural of the sculpture gallery at The City Palace Museum, Udaipur, Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar said, “We take pride in sharing our ‘living heritage’ with today’s audiences through this extraordinary collection of sculptures…Our endeavour to develop Udaipur and Rajasthan, and to institutionalize excellence, is bearing fruit today. The city of Udaipur is gaining its identity as a centre for excellence in heritage management, hospitality, education, performing arts, fine arts, environment and sports.”
Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar, who passed away on March 16, 2025, was Chairman and Managing Trustee of Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation (MMCF), and spearheaded the concept of ‘living heritage’ with relentless zeal. He explained, “through pioneering the concept of ‘living heritage’ we have developed a constantly evolving model of managing heritage and keeping it alive, dynamic and relevant to the changing times. Heritage management had always been witnessed as inflexible, rigid and pertaining merely to preserving historic monuments. With ‘living heritage’, there is dynamism which facilitates further development of modern facilities in ancient environments, as we have demonstrated at The City Palace, Udaipur.” The sculpture gallery titled ‘Divine Gesture: The magnificence of Mewar spirituality’ was inaugurated by Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to India, Bernhard Wrabetz.
In commemoration of World Heritage Day, it is worth recounting that Udaipur and Rajasthan have, over the last five decades, become epicentres of heritage tourism, heritage hospitality, which have opened up new vistas for entrepreneurial growth, employment generation and contributed hugely to the government exchequer. Almost 15 per cent of the Rajasthan State revenues are derived from tourism and hospitality. Heritage cities like Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, besides Kumbhalgarh, Chittorgarh, Nathdwara are witnessing phenomenal growth; museums, galleries, hotels and restaurants, boutiques and shops are thriving with thousands of visitors arriving week after week, month after month. Ancient temple-towns, places of worship are becoming part of itinerary of people from far and near. Exponential growth in airlines, railways, roadways have largely contributed to this cross-country travel.
The Maha Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh through January-February 2025 attracted pilgrims, according to government estimates totaling over 600 million, obviously setting new world records not just in pilgrimage tourism but within the context of spiritual heritage, sacrosanct for the pilgrims in India.
In January 2025 Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated: “The effect of the Triveni, the glory of Venimadhav, the blessings of Someshwar, the land of penance of Rishi Bhardwaj, the special place of Lord Nagaraj Vasu ji, the immortality of Akshayvat and the grace of God – This is what makes our Teertharaj Prayag.” The Maha Kumbh Mela, a sacred congregation that unfolds every twelve years, is more than just a vast gathering—it is a profound spiritual journey rooted in ancient Hindu mythology. This sacred festival, the world’s largest collective act of faith, symbolizes self-realization, purification, and the eternal quest for enlightenment. Millions of ascetics, saints, sadhus, and pilgrims from diverse backgrounds unite in devotion, embodying the essence of human spirituality, said the Government of India press note.
Government agencies collaborated to provide world-class facilities, including: Accommodation at Maha Kumbh Nagar, a temporary city with thousands of tents and shelters, included super deluxe accommodations; security and crowd management with advanced surveillance, drone monitoring, and a well-coordinated law enforcement presence. Security measures were ramped up, with over 50,000 policemen (including para-military), 14,000 home guards, and 2,750 AI-based CCTV cameras deployed. A state-of-the-art multi-disaster response vehicle was deployed. Key projects included 14 new flyovers, 9 permanent ghats, 7 new bus stations, and 12 kms of temporary ghats. Over 200 roads were newly constructed or upgraded. Health services featured 6,000 beds in 43 hospitals. Additionally, 10,200 sanitation workers and 1,800 Ganga Sevadut were deployed to maintain cleanliness during the mega-event.
Culture, heritage and museums
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) definitions make ‘world heritage’ a fascinating domain. UNESCO stated: Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations. Our cultural and natural heritage are both irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration. We seek to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. This is embodied in an international treaty called the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972. What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.”
When it comes to cultural heritage, museums play a vital role in maintaining a continuity, building bridges between the past, present and future. In 1959 C Sivaramamurti, Keeper of National Museum of India, New Delhi was assigned the task of preparing the Directory of Museums in India. Humayun Kabir, the minister of scientific research and cultural affairs, wrote in the foreword to the Directory, modern museums should develop in India without any perceptible break from the past.
Today’s readers may not be aware that in India the earliest museum in the modern sense came into being in 1814 when the Asiatic Society of Bengal brought together a collection of geological, botanical, zoological, anthropological and archaeological exhibits. In course of time, the Indian Museum Calcutta grew into perhaps the largest museum in Asia. Humayun Kabir emphasized that the new nation must have museums of many types – arts museums, science, museums of technology, health and hygiene, agriculture, forestry, industry, archaeology, geology, zoology, botany and anthropology.
“The Department of Archaeology has to put up site museums in which the exhibits in important sites can be shown. Universities and educational institutions must also have their own museums for educating the growing generations in the history of Man, growth of science and development of technology,” he said, adding “By evoking interest and supply information, museums along with libraries, have become today the truest universities of the modern age.”
UNESCO and G20 agenda
When fast-forwarding to the post-pandemic present, India’s Ministry of Culture is conscious of the UNESCO global mandate on culture and the power of culture for the achievement of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “Culture is being increasingly recognized as a cross-cutting dimension that may foster a paradigm shift to renew policy making towards an inclusive, people-centered and context-relevant approach. At the global level, culture has been recognized as an enabler of growth and sustainable development,” UNESCO has been underscoring, adopting a Declaration which affirmed culture as a ‘global public good’.
Recognizing the synergies between heritage, culture and other policy areas, and considering its impact on various dimensions of development, culture was integrated into the G20 agenda as a Culture Working Group in 2021. CWG meetings during India’s Presidency of G20 were focused on four priority areas – Protection and Restitution of Cultural Property, Harnessing Living Heritage for a Sustainable Future, Promotion of Cultural Industries and Creative Economy, Leveraging Digital Technologies for Protection and Promotion of Culture. What has emerged is the core principle that “living heritage, that encompasses traditional knowledge systems and cultural practices, can help achieve environmental sustainability as well as improve economic well-being.”
The G20 Summit in India, through 9-10 September 2023, set new benchmarks in public diplomacy and brought India’s culture and heritage onto the global stage, like never before. An example was set by ‘Roots & Routes’, a major exhibition at National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi, inaugurated on 10 September 2023 by the First Ladies and spouses of G20 leaders. “It was truly an unique occasion to showcase the width and depth of our antiquities, ensuring due coverage and representation to diverse genres and regions that make up Indian, pan-Asian heritage,” said its curator Raghvendra Singh, former Secretary, Government of India. “To think of it, what we shared were India’s civilizational expressions. The curatorial team worked on the themes of inter-connectedness of our cultural marvels. No longer was archaeology being separated from literature or painting, history through coins and sculpture were woven into a rich and diverse narrative,” he highlighted.
Wrote Ms Mugdha Sinha, Joint Secretary, Museum Section, Ministry of Culture, Government of India in the Directory of Museums in India released at the International Museum Expo 2023: “In 1936 the first Survey Report on the state of Museums mentioned 105 Museums in the country, set up over the last 140 years. In the last two decades alone, as result of the interventions of the Ministry of Culture’s Schemes for Development of Museums, namely the Museum Grants Schemes and the Scheme for Promotion of Culture of Science, we have managed to set up 383 or approximately one third of the total museums in the country, which is more than three times the number we had at the time of Independence. In a country with close to 1200 museums, it is indeed heartening that as part of the International Museum Expo 2023, we are bringing out a Directory of Museums in India as a first step towards introducing the other ‘D’ of Data Analytics and evidence-based policy making in the domain of Museums.”
“In today’s time of peace and prosperity, preservation of cultural heritage has to become a top priority for UNESCO, governments of different countries and civil society too,” said Dr Sabyasachi Mukherjee, director general of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, emphasizing, “I strongly believe that the power of culture can change the world as it unites people, countries, religions, and customs. It works as a healing tool in our broken societies.”
He referred to ‘The Lost Stupa’, an in-house publication where the centuries-old history of the Buddhist stupa at Kahu-jo-daro in Mirpurkhas (now in Pakistan) was detailed. Buddhism, as a religion and way of life had found adherents in Sindh. “It is very important for global citizens, especially the young, to understand that Indian sub-continent was always part of the globalized world,” said Mukherjee, referring to the present era of globalization which most netizens feel is a historic unique one. On World Heritage Day 2025, it is time to honour and respect those working for the cause of heritage preservation and keeping alive our respect for the collective heritage.
