Holistic conservation

Amareshwar Galla is working out ways to conserve cultural heritage

HIS WAS the prominent Indian, and specifically, Andhra, face behind the organisation of the recently-concluded International Symposium on Cultural Heritage Disaster Preparedness and Response, held at the Salar Jung Museum between November 23 and 27 . Professor Amareshwar Galla, who hails from Amaravati, is the first Australian to be elected President of the Asia-Pacific Executive Board and the founding Chairperson of the Cross Cultural Taskforce of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), which had organised the symposium in collaboration with the Salar Jung Museum.

In the midst of coordinating the symposium, Amar Galla spent some time discussing his views on the importance of sustaining and preserving the history and heritage of people. He highlights the need to re-view the concept/idea of museums. "Governments are putting money into tourism marketing, and not into heritage conservation; they are selling dead museums and people are forced to look at the rusted blue boards of the ASI. We need to link up to the grassroots. China and Vietnam are doing it successfully. We have to build our own capacities; when donor money is involved (and there is `tied-aid') there are conditions with it. In Asia and Africa, local people feel at a loss with donor countries imposing their expertise. With such countries - in transition - there is this breed of an upper middle class category of consultants and public servants; and there is the problem of corruption, too. There are other global challenges - less than 50 per cent of the money reaches the poor in a context of poverty constructed by the West and the dominant countries. Donor systems need to be really re-thought in the post-colonial context. We have to get out of the nature versus culture paradigm - a dominant paradigm of the West. Here culture is intrinsic." "My first priority is to intervene and stop illegal traffic in cultural property. The dollar movement in this traffic is higher than that in drugs. One has to raise awareness about this problem. We need regional groups to develop cooperative efforts to curb illicit traffic and demand countries in the West to step up efforts on the same." The two other major concerns he lists are - to integrate culture in poverty alleviation programmes and capacity building and training in the field of cultural property preservation," says this Chairperson of the Asia-Pacific region and Director of Studies, Graduate Studies for Sustainable Heritage Development, Research School of the Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University, Canberra. Prof. Amar, points out, `poverty is a challenge' when it comes to conservation and preserving heritage - especially in third world countries. But he believes that, like his work in Vietnam locating culture and heritage in poverty alleviation in Ha Long Ecomusuem project, countries like India can actually develop their museums and tourism more creatively. But he warns against what he calls `souveniring' in the name of tourism promotion. "Poverty is the issue; and unless local people do not take ownership of their cultural property, India will continue to be raped of its heritage to souvenir mongers." Amar developed in the Hal Long Bay project, the idea of `eco museum' which views "human activity, past and present, as fundamental components of the total environmental resource; and that the culture, history and traditions of the human population are as much part of the heritage as are the caves and plants on the islands." His book tentatively titled Bringing Cinderella to the Ball which looks into the idea of culture and the development discourse in a multi-cultural context is to be released in England next year.He is also planning a book on the Buddhist sites in Andhra which he promises is sure to ruffle up some feathers.

R. UMA MAHESHWARI

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