Context: 

The article analyses the performance of ‘Adopt a Heritage’ scheme and suggests the path to be followed.

Image Source: The Hindu

About ‘Adopt a Heritage’ Scheme:

• It is a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Tourism, Ministry of Culture, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), and State/UTs governments.
• Aim: To develop synergy among all partners to effectively promote ‘responsible tourism’.
• It was launched on 27 September 2017 (World Tourism Day) by the President of India.
• Private firms, companies, and public sector units can enter into agreements with the Union Ministry of Culture to adopt and maintain State­ owned archaeological sites or monuments. 
• Businesses that enter such agreements are going to be known as Monument Mitras. 

Objectives: 

• Developing basic tourism infrastructure.
• Inclusive tourist experience for heritage sites/monuments or tourist sites.
• Promoting cultural and heritage value of the country to generate livelihoods.
• Enhancing the tourist attractiveness in a sustainable manner through world class infrastructure at the site.
• Businesses may use their Corporate Social Responsibility funds at select sites to construct and maintain ticket offices, restaurants, museums, interpretation centres, toilets, and walkways. 

Issues with the Scheme:

• Giving businesses, rather than trained professionals, a chance to build museums and interpretation centres and develop their content threatens India’s understanding of its own past.
• It will undermine local communities and their relationships with historical sites as guided tours led by employees of large businesses may endanger their livelihoods.
• There are some monuments selected for the scheme that are not protected by the ASI and are in States without Archaeology Directorates. 
  • It is feared that businesses that sign agreements with the Union Ministry of Culture to adopt these monuments will be able to alter their historical character without much opposition.

Measures needed:

• Use of CSR Funds: Businesses can help citizens understand why monuments matter. This can be done by earmarking CSR funds for grants for researching, writing, and publishing high quality textbooks, and developing imaginative and effective ways of teaching history. 
• Engaging Students: Traders and shopkeepers can give funds to school libraries for collecting archival materials including books, maps, and old photographs relevant to monuments in their vicinity that will lead students to establish the value of monuments.
• Liasoning with Corporates: Corporates can give a new lease of life to humanities and social sciences departments at some universities by instituting fellowships, endowing professorships, and supporting research training programmes. 
• The private sector’s resources and expertise may also help the ASI and State Archaeology Directorates to secure monuments from dams, mining projects, defacement, and looting.

Case studies:

• Tata Sons, ONGC, and other companies have regularly contributed funds to organisations training individuals in much needed restoration skills and creating jobs for them.
• Corporates might also follow the lead taken by Sudha Murthy and N.R. Narayana Murthy in giving gifts to organisations such as the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune to continue their missions of writing history by rationally coordinating the textual record and the archaeological evidence.

                                                                                                                              News Source: The Hindu

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