‘Government keen to promote intangible cultural heritage’

DIMAPUR — The Ministry of Culture, Government India, in collaboration with the Sangeet Natak Akademi, organised a capacity building workshop on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in conjunction with the ongoing three-day event known as ‘The Listener Nagaland – a festival of orality’ at Tetso College in Sovima on Friday.

In his video message during the event, the secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Govind Mohan, stated that through the ongoing initiatives, the ministry aspires to enhance awareness and involvement in India’s intangible cultural heritage and related UNESCO conventions by tapping the potentials of all the states and regions across the country.

Mohan mentioned that living heritage is an embodiment of social practices, traditions and knowledge passed down through generations that reflect community’s history, identity and values. He added that living heritage serves as a social capital for communities, providing a sense of shared identity, fostering social cohesions and promoting cultural continuity across generations.

The secretary further stated that the vision behind the training programme was to familiarise everyone with the technical intricacies of the UNESCO programmes and conventions related to intangible cultural narratives, to which India is a signatory.

While delivering the vision statement on intangible cultural heritage capacity building workshop, the joint secretary of (UNESCO), Ministry of Culture, Lily Pandeya, said that they have gathered for the first workshop series capacity building programme to strengthen India’s safeguarding efforts in the North eastern region, which is truly a treasure trove of diverse cultural heritage.

Pandeya stated that their aim was to build the capacity of multiple stakeholders for safeguarding, identification, documentation and inventorying of intangible cultural heritage starting at the grass root level.

She stated that hosting the workshop in conjunction with the ‘Listener Nagaland’ is also an opportunity to showcase unique example of living traditions that has continued over a period of time.

During the first session of ‘The Listener Nagaland,’ Banwang Losu, executive director of Wancho Literature Mission, shared his insights on the creation of the Wancho script.

Losu explained that in 2001, they embarked on the journey of developing Wancho script adding that after nearly 12 years of dedicated research, they successfully formulated 44 letters.

Losu informed that the first book on Wancho script was published in 2013 and subsequently introduced Wancho language in schools in 2016. He informed that Wancho script is the only script developed by the indigenous community in Arunachal Pradesh.

He shared that there are 187 endangered languages in India out of which 64 are in Northeast. He further stated that Wancho script was designed for tonal languages with an aim to document, protect and promote spoken indigenous language.

Also read: ‘The Listener Nagaland’ underway at Tetso College