Kevalaodhi Buddhist And Jaina History Of Deccan Vol 2

Author(s): Aloka Parasher Sen, B Subrahmanyam, E Siva Nagi Reddy
Publisher: Bharatiya Kala Prakashan

Page 153

India's Cultural Heritage and Public Education
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3. Holding special exhibitions of archaeological material as part of the kisan agricultural fairs
and special events such as those associated with conferences in history and museum and college celebrations. So far such displays have been held at places like Pune, Bangalore, Ahmadnagar, Sholapur and other small and big places. These exhibitions were visited and
appreciated by many thousands of people. 4. Helping schools and colleges in preparing permanents displays of archaeological and historical
material. 5. Encouraging village panchayats to take interest in the archaeological sites in theirs respective
revenue jurisdictions and even create permanent displays of cultural materials in the panchayat halls. The displays created at Hunsgi and other places in Karnataka, under the guidance of the Deccan College staff, have proved to be very effective in spreading the message of the past because people spontaneously show a lot of interest and also take pride in the archaeological and historical sites around them. Professor G. L. Bhide, Head of the Department of Ancient Indian History and Culture, Dayanand College, Sholapur motivated village people and collected from them a sum of one lakh rupees for exposing an important Late Chalukyan period temple (10th - 11 th centuries AD) buried under river deposit at Sangameshwar near the confluence of
the Sina river with the Bhima in the Sholapur district of Maharashtra.
Steps like the ones mentioned above need to be redoubled; these also need to be adopted by other institutions engaged in historical and archaeological studies. The Election Commission could be requested to discontinue both the use of names of kings and rulers of regions and cultures, drawn from the common past, for naming political parties and the manipulation of cinematographic portrayals of gods and kings and queens for electioneering purposes. Likewise, the Ministry of Rural Development could be persuaded to include education of the village people about their local heritage and its upkeep as part of the development of the rural landscape. As Gandhiji would have liked it, village folk should be treated as trustees of their cultural and historical age. As heritage education and its upkeep could be made a part of environmental preservation movement. In this connection it is also good to recall the efforts being made by enlightened advocates like Shri M. C. Mehta of New Delhi in drawing the attention of the courts to the neglect of the upkeep of our monuments. He filed public interest litigation suits in the Supreme Court to highlight the threats of pollution caused to the Taj Mahal and also filled suits in the Delhi High Court to draw its attention to the neglect of monuments in Delhi associated with the Urdu poet Ghalib.
Measures like the ones mentioned above serve to reassure the common man that our past is a nonrenewable resource belonging to one and all and that it is a sacred entity that cannot be used for any partisan purposes. Furthermore, these steps will create in the common man a good feeling that the past, far from being a burden on him, is an object of positive appreciation.
I would further like to suggest that ancient Indian thought should be made an important element of liberal education in the country at school, college and university levels. This component could draw from our ancient and medieval past important concepts and ideas such as the Upanishadic principles of all-pervasive Brahman and complementarity of spiritual and material aspects of life, Dharma and Laxmanrēkha of the epics Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, ancient Indian conception of scientific method and the Buddhist principle of multiple causality, welfare state of the Mauryan rulers, and the principle of toleration and positive appreciation of other faiths and ways of life advocated by Aśoka and Akbar.