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Conference throws light on cultural diversity

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI MAY 21. Asserting that education should promote awareness of the positive value of cultural diversity, the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Najma Heptullah, today said that cultural rights are an integral part of human rights.

``Undermining the cultural identity of a group would lead to their marginalisation,'' she said while inaugurating a conference celebrating the UNESCO World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development here.

Remarking on the coincidence of the conference with the death anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, she added: "He had a great belief that cultural interaction would foster goodwill and amity in the global society and projected Indian culture abroad through festivals. Cultural diversity, dialogue and development will form the future metrics for a democratic order.''

Earmarked by the United Nations as the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development as per the UN General Assembly resolution on "Culture and Development'', the conference was an effort to raise public awareness on the wealth of cultural diversity and promoting "the fruitful diversity of cultures'' as identified under the UNESCO Constitution.

Chairing the conference, former Secretary of Culture, Government of India, B.P. Singh, said: "It is important to preserve the cultural strength of a country. However, not all heritage is worth preserving and it is important to recognise what things should be preserved.''

Questioning why diversity should be preserved, the Professor of Philosophy and Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, said, "it is not enough to take diversity as a free-standing value that should be preserved for its own sake. Instead, taking it as a derivative value, we should situate concerns about diversity within a framework of justice and freedom. Protection of diversity should be aimed at the protection of these values.''

Cultural diversity is about empowerment and should be aimed at expanding an individual's creativity and innovativeness, he argued. Expressing concern about the role of the State, Prof. Mehta added that institutional forums are as much a threat to cultural diversity as the forces of modernisation: "In certain cases, the State itself undertakes certain projects to create particular cultural identities. By linking politics with culture, the State threatens culture''.

Voicing his concern on the role of the State, Shantum Seth added, "culture is a collective phenomena and implies interdependence.

Thus it is important to talk of universal values''.

Emphasising the interconnection between culture and sustainable development in the elimination of poverty, former Secretary of Culture, Kapila Vatsyayan, said: "Taken together, the two contribute to eradication of poverty and raise more basic questions in regard to the distribution of resources, systems of governance and not only levels of economic poverty but the nature of poverty''.

Addressing the conference, Prof. K.G. Saxena of the School of Environmental Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University spoke of the need to adopt national policies that recognise the contribution of traditional knowledge: "This is particularly important with regard to environmental protection and management of natural resources, fostering synergies between modern science as local knowledge, that is essential to cultural, economic and physical well-being of indigenous people and their communities''.

Also present at the conference were the Programme Coordinator for Culture, UNESCO (New Delhi), R.P. Perera; Director, Crafts Revival Trust, Ritu M. Sethi; President of the Indian Women's Press Corps, Shanta Serbjeet Singh; and Sanjay Mishra of the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia.

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