Herald Café: What do you mean by ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’? Moe Chiba: Everybody understands heritage in the form of big monuments like Taj Mahal, the Stupa at Sanchi, etc, but apart from these physical heritage pieces, there are those that are not material, like traditional expressions, knowledge, local dialect, performing arts, knowledge of how to make a craft, knowledge of how to make a boat,
farming, etc. All these things are classified under Intangible Cultural Heritage. These are equally important. HC: So what are your tasks as far as this exercise is concerned? MC: We are trying to draw the attention of the government through UNESCO adopted international conventions on Intangible Cultural Heritage so that the governments in the world are more conscious about the importance of this type of heritage, and then try to do something in their respective countries. Another task is to put into place safeguarding plans and policies in their
respective countries to make sure that this precious knowledge and traditions are transferred to the next generation.
HC: How has your experience been so far?
MC: The implementation in India has
been a little slow, partly because it is
a very big country and it tries to do
everything through the Union Ministry of
Culture, which is obviously not a good
idea. At the same time, they haven’t come
up with a very effective decentralisation
mechanism either. This is why UNESCO
decided to go state by state to sensitise
them to start the process at their level
rather than expecting for something to
happen from the Centre.
HC: What was the workshop about?
MC: The purpose of the workshop was
to introduce to the participants what
the UNESCO convention on Intangible
Cultural Heritage is about. One of the
key obligations of the convention is to
have an inventory of Intangible Cultural
Heritage which is the very first step in
promoting and protecting it. You have to
know what you have and what condition
they are in. Who are the people who are
involved in the various art forms, etc. So
you have to have the data of all these
things.
HC: What are the challenges in making
this inventory?
MC: Often, this information is scattered
and lying in different institutions without
coming under any one government
department in a consolidated format so
that they can use this data to put strategic
planning into action. You have to know
what kind of an inventory of data you
want to collect so that an action plan
can be developed afterwards. In this
workshop, we gave the audience a teaser
of what things one has to think about
before making an inventory.
HC: What is the next step?
MC: The next step is for the government
to put a safeguarding plan. Once a name
is on the inventory, the department has
to decide whether it is going to benefit in
the form of some subsidy or if it is an art
form, do they get to perform at festivals
…or if any kind of support mechanism
is there. What to do exactly is up to the
Department of Art and Culture to decide.
HC: Can you give an example?
MC: The government of Japan has
a national scheme called ‘Japanese
Scheme for Living Treasure’. Under
this scheme, master craftsmen and
performers of excellent skills receive an
annual subsidy from the government and
get their work promoted internationally
in different fairs. In exchange, the artist
has to transmit the art form/tradition to
a set of disciples/students. If Goa wants
to do something similar, then in their
inventory exercise, they should make
sure that the masters are documented
properly. So what you want to do next
influences what kind of inventory you
want to make.
