By Atanu Biswas
As Kolkata’s Durga Puja has now been named the 14th entry from India in Unesco’s ‘Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity’ that comprises about 500 elements, there is huge enthusiasm and buzz in Bengal this year, amid the first Durga Puja celebration after the honour. Reasonably so. But, is that just an international honour that to keep in the showcase, or does it include some hidden economic prospects that can be unleashed as well?
The history of the ICH tag can be traced to a letter dated April 24, 1973—from the minister of foreign affairs and religion of the Republic of Bolivia to the director general of Unesco. One of the suggestions made in this letter was that a convention should be signed “to regulate the aspects of folklore preservation, promotion and diffusion” and an “International Register of Folkloristic Cultural Property” should be established. The letter was prompted by the success of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s 1970 world-music mega-hit El Cóndor Pasa—an indigenous folksong from the Andes. To this day, it’s still one of the highest-selling albums of all time. However, as seen from the Andes, this must have looked less like a celebration of indigenous traditional music and more like exploitation in the form of rich Americans ransacking the musical tradition of poor people in the Andes and making millions of dollars without paying a dime to the rightful owners. Economic consideration, thus, is at the core of the establishment of the ICH tag.
Also Read: How to tame inflation
In a 2016 research paper, Tudorache Petronela of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies said: “Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage is a valuable source of the economy.” But, how? For example, Durga Puja is certainly a gigantic event and an opportunity for millions to earn almost their annual livelihoods. Not only the local idol-makers, people including marginal folk artists engaged in designing and decorating the thousands of pandals (marquees), the dhakis (traditional drummers) from rural Bengal, but also millions of small and medium scale businesses in numerous markets of the state fall in this category. Millions of people spend considerable money on shopping, eateries, home decor, and travel. Presumably, there is little room to excel in this aspect of the festival.
However, there is still one aspect in which the splendour of the Durga Puja can flourish—that is in the number of tourists—both from India (outside Bengal) and from abroad, apart from the non-resident Bengalis, of course. In 2017, tennis legend Leander Paes, who hails from Kolkata, said the grandeur of Durga Puja should be marketed globally to make the event as big as the Rio Carnival. For that, one needs to effectively market the ethnic glitter and the irresistible attraction of the world’s biggest street festival to the external world. Being a native of Kolkata, I have been overenthusiastic about our Puja culture—not without reasons, though. For years, whenever I mentioned Puja to any of my acquaintances abroad, I always cite an old piece by Vir Sanghvi (shar.es/17VbFe), widely available on the web, which illustrated Puja magic with utmost passion.
But now, the ICH tag has become an additional tool—an easy reference point. In fact, the ICH tag can be used as support for economic well-being, community health, and drawing strategies for cultural tourism contributing to the uniqueness of a destination. In fact, in some parts of the world, the strategy of tourism development focuses on the most intangible of cultural elements. “The global wealth of traditions is the principal motivation for travel, with tourists seeking to find out about new cultures and to experience the global difference of performing arts, handicrafts, rituals and cuisines,” Petronela wrote in her 2016 paper.
Studies on tourists’ tendency towards intangible cultural heritage as an attraction are being done in different countries. Interestingly, in her 2019 PhD thesis at the London Metropolitan University, Stefania Cardinale studied the relationship between intangible heritage and livelihoods in the context of the ‘Chhau dance’ (a 2010 ICH entrant) of the Purulia district of West Bengal. Cardinale concluded that the intangible heritage performance and festival experience for tourists may establish a new kind of relationship between the artist and the visitor as art-sales relations, characterised by a direct, personal, and economic-based exchange.
However, I failed to find any detailed study of the impacts of the ICH tags on the 13 entries from India (Kolkata’s Durga Puja didn’t get enough time to test the impact yet). Understandably, every intangible heritage is different in its dynamics, and the effects of such Unesco honour may not be the same on gigantic events such as Kumbh Mela (a 2017 entry) or Durga Puja in Kolkata as that is on events and cultures such as ‘Traditional brass and copper craft of utensil making among the Thatheras of Jandiala Guru, Punjab’ (a 2014 inclusion), ‘Sankirtana, ritual singing, drumming and dancing of Manipur’ (a 2013 inclusion), or ‘Kutiyattam, Sanskrit theatre’ (a 2008 entrant).
One should understand that the ICH tag only is not enough to attract tourists. We need to facilitate unleashing the hidden opportunities within such intangible heritages. Thus, one needs to create a tourist-friendly infrastructure to make rupees full of the soft essence of nyctanthes of Puja days, for example. That’s a daunting task, indeed.
The author is Professor of statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata
