Culture as heritage and Commerce of Culture

India’s ‘nationalist’ intelligentsia in effecting the transition from a British colony to a nation-in-making imbibed the Keynesian postulate on the ‘seminal necessity and effectiveness of public intervention in managing the economic system’. These ideas laid as Sukhamoy Chakravarty points out, “… the foundations of a ‘strongly interventionist and reformist nation state’, whose primary aim …was acquisition of economic strength and …grow much faster to bridge the initial gap of per capita income… to avoid neo-colonial domination”.In underdevelopment’ as the cognitive foundation of signing a ‘tryst with destiny’, the Indian bourgeoisie had to invent traditions, forge symbols and construct creation myths for the new nation.

The chosen few, especially those who as Kapila Vatsayan points out, “…went through the long, arduous and devious journey of being steeped in Western civilization only to travel back to their cultural roots, richer and deeper…” were entrusted with this task of crafting what could be presented and patronized as a legitimate version of Indian culture. This concern for creation of a package of national culture / past to ground Indian national identity selectively drew from a repository of cultural continuity stretching back to five thousand years ago, was at ease in placating the feudal cultural paraphernalia of different princely states, duly acknowledged the debt of the colonial masters in their efforts at ‘discovery of India’, was cautious enough in creating meta-narratives of Indian history with syncretism and pluralism as key values, was astute enough in integrating Khadi as a nationalistic symbol and the living traditions of folk / tribal art / craft were appropriated as ethnographic curiosities or handicraft exotica in the national wonder cabinet that had foreign exchange value. Culture as heritage was to play an important role in foreign diplomacy, in representing the ethos of the uniqueness of Indian civilization in creating and maintaining relations with other countries.

A perusal of five- year plans suggests that ‘culture’ continued to be planned for as ‘cultural heritage’, which ‘had to be promoted by drawing up plans for the preservation of monuments and sites of historic and national ’. This was to be complemented by the ‘setting up of cultural institutions in the field of Archaeology, Anthropology, Ethnography, Archives, Libraries, Museums, Art Akademies etc’. The foundations of cultural diplomacy were firmly laid by setting up of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in the seventies. Since 1970’s, culture as heritage was linked to education and attention was “…given to increasing the cultural awareness among the students by strengthening the cultural content of the curriculum at various stages of education…” to help in building up the cultural and social identity of the nation.

It needs to be pointed out that the meta- discourse around culture as heritage does concern itself with development as welfare of the ‘economically underprivileged’ and ‘illiterate’ communities, at best only in a tangential manner. Development has been a by- product of what has been called ‘commerce of culture’ to refer to the exports of handicrafts that go hand in hand with the ideals of cultural diplomacy and market interests of the rich. To the Handicrafts were added other ‘cultural products’ created with the raw material of the cultural practices of the marginal communities notably the performing arts.

The articulation of culture as heritage survives as a dominant refrain in development planning to this day. Most of the assumptions from the nation-in-the-making era have continued, although the defining context of much of the contemporary discussion is increasingly being dominated by market culture. The Ministry of Culture (GoI), defining cultural heritage ‘as a resource for growth and identity rooted in the past’ floated the National Culture Fund in 1996 as an innovation in the patterns of funding for cultural issues primarily for protection of historical monuments in India. The approach paper of the eleventh five year plan mentions ‘culture’ as “…a very important integrating force’ and stresses that ‘conservation and promotional activities of cultural heritage call for ensuring dissemination of our composite culture, promote all regional languages, to sustain the folk and traditional art, and to maintain, document, research and propagate dissemination of the intangible cultural heritage.

While communities are mostly seen as subjects of development welfare and political manipulation, they are seldom seen as human beings with creative potentials inherited orally through traditions that were generations old. What is unfortunate is that most attempts at documenting and constitution of knowledge on these performing communities continues to be impelled by folkloristic concerns or ethnographic desires having colonial and pre-colonial roots or sentimental nostalgic narratives about changing times from the idyllic and rustic rural landscape to urban metros, of tales of ‘vanishing traditions’ inscribed in tropes of inevitability of modernization.

Photos: Paradise Lost: The Palamu Fort, Jharkhand

Anada ram, a puppeteer from Nagore, Rajasthan (By Swasti Singh)