Sudip Bhui&Santosh Kumar Behera&Sujit Kumar Datta (eds.), Cultural Heritage of South Asia: Challenges and Opportunities Amidst COVID-19 (London: Red’Shine Publication, 2022). 

About this book

The course of life in before COVID-19 is gradually coming  in landscape of memories as pandemic has already touched and  transformed each and every aspect of life in global scenarios as  integrated perspective of regional facts, events and process. So, we  cannot confine in the pandemic situation but we have to analyze the  abridged situation and understand problems of transformation and  make effort to solve the problems with probing the roots and  causes. Here a compact team effort has been made by the editors as  well as the contributors across international and international  boundary beyond any core disciplinary area. 

Existence of the Mankind on the Earth remains as confluence  of society, culture and civilization commenced its journey since 5  Lac years in South Asia. Regular coherences in tradition and culture  among the countries of this region are continuing in spite of their  geopolitical and ethnic differences. Experiences, expressions,  influences and impressions create eternal chorus and tuned in to  cultural heritage. Communications among people over the time  promote heritage to conglomerate in civilization. Language as  vehicle of culture carries, connect and refracted ideas transcend the  barriers of unlimited obstacles of disparities.

The first significant move in regard to protect the cultural  heritage was dates back to 1954 when UNSECOs organized a  ‘Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property’ aimed to  conserve and preserve the monuments and art works. However,  there is an ongoing debate over the use of the term ‘Cultural  Property’ (Prott 1989). Scholars argued that, use of the term  ‘Cultural Property’ is linked with the legal framework (Prott and  O’Keefe 1992) and may not appropriate to achieve the social and  traditional values associated with the culture and separate its access and control from original ownership. Further, using of the term is  often promoting the idea of ‘commoditization of cultural artifacts’.  Against this notion, scholars argued that, there are many more  cultural heritages or tradition which are practice or expressed as  intangible culture. According to UNESCO, there are several  categories of cultural heritage-Tangible cultural heritage, Movable  cultural heritage (painting, sculptures, coins, and manuscripts),  underwater cultural heritage (shipwrecks, underwater ruins and  cities), Intangible cultural heritage (oral tradition, performing arts, rituals). Intangible cultural heritage includes all forms of traditional  and popular folk culture. These heritages are also including  landscape, sacred groves, oral tradition, ethno music, ceremony and  rituals, which are anthropologically more significant as these are wholly practices in a particular culture by a particular ethnic group.  South Asia exists on a highly valuable historic and geopolitical location covering the nations Bangladesh, Bhutan,  India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and parts of  adjacent states reflect continuous network of cultural rubric.  Currently south Asia contains 7.8 percent sites of the  World Heritage List belong to the one-fifth of the world's  population. The cultural heritage of South Asia can be traced from the  twenty five Lac year’s old stone tools like Potwar plateau is  continued to Bronze Age culture of Indus valley civilization via the  Neolithic sites of Mehrgarh. Rehman Dheri represents held the  largest Bronze Age culture of world having credits of uniformity of  script, ceramics, town planning and weights. This region has  enriched with a series of chalcolithic sites like Inamgaon of  Maharastra, Hastinapur of Gangetic plain bear the world heritage. The entire area evolved through consequences of Geo-political  tensions, orientations with their regional uniqueness. UNESCO's  1972 World Heritage Convention represents the region's most  important means of protecting a limited number of sites illustrating  its unique cultural heritage.

Pandemic COVID 19 is a severe threat to all aspects of human  civilization, people through their entire capacities are making  endeavors to protect cultural heritage. Artists, scholars, and other  benevolent group fight against COVID 19 with ideas, values and  knowledge from cultural heritage. The book has been edited with basically three aims: i) To accumulate varies dimensions, thoughts and ideas related to cultural heritage for providing clear visions to the researchers, policy makers, emerging professional field like  tourism. ii) To focus the enormous scope of hidden treasures, bring the  different categories of people relocate resources and their  proper utilization iii) To examine status and role of cultural heritage to  understanding challenges, potentialities of combating and  keep forward our traditions on the way of progress.

In general the volume will play heuristic role to bring interest  of scholars, critics, columnists and amateurs of core as well as  interdisciplinary field area. The articles have come from research and study area of several disciplines like anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, education, history, archaeology, indology, religions, political sciences, human geography, folk-cultures, language, sociology, performing arts, mass communications, journalism, international relations and diplomacy.  

The entire volume has been realized in five major interconnected sections. Respective sections are Situating Man in Cultural Heritage during Pandemic, Challenges of Cultural Heritage  during COVID-19, Indigenous people and Cultural Heritage on the verge of COVID-19, Economy, Health and International  Relationships, and lastly, Future and Prospects of Cultural Heritage  in Post COVID World. Earlier sections create perspective to  understand the later. Basic know how of people of South East Asia in terms of ethnic identity, mosaic nature, geopolitical location. The studies represent sections of indigenous population of focused geographical area along with modern people of megacities, in perspectives of society, religion, polity, economy and international  relationship and role of UN agencies. Importance of both cultural  heritages like tangible and intangible are discussed in reference to  main area. Cultural heritage of north east to southern, eastern to  northern, central part of India are discussed. The scholars of more  than five nations from interdisciplinary and recent most emerging  research areas have contributed in many controversial and burning problems. 

With respect to the scenario, Chokey Namgyal Bhutia  focuses on the need of proper understanding of the culture of North East India and removes the racial and cultural discrimination against the people. Rajanita Das Purkayastha casts light on problems of cultural heritage among the Chetty of Malacca. Riddhi Sanyal analyzes two periodic reports submitted by the South Asian countries of India and Bangladesh regarding the implementation requirements of the Convention and on the current steps taken by the governments to protect the elements inscribed in the  ‘Representative List’ on Intangible Cultural Heritage. Finally, the  paper takes an analytical position on the elements excluded in the list and problematizes the challenges faced towards the protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Adil Qayoom Mallah, Shabnam  Parween&Ashraful Islam Laskar attempt to understand the nexus between culture and globalization and unpack the nuances and repercussions it has brought to the greater edifice of culture and  heritage. Mahammad Robiul Awal highlights on the impact of  Modernization and Globalization, upon Cultural Heritage and its crisis. Chiranjibi Sabar describes various dimensions of social cultures and how these are affecting in education. C. Arulmugil focuses on how some the folks in the couple of centuries back in  Pondicherry and Karnataka come forward in protecting and saving water reservoirs for the benefit of the future. Goutam Majee&Mahamudul Hasan Gayen explore this cultural ethos which came out in the Raniganj coalfield area during colonial Bengal. Usharani Mahato&Sudip Bhui show the way for regional woman to retain their own culture and how to maintain it in the future. Muhammad Faridul Alam&Jiefeng Lu encompass the further understanding of the ILSs and the real practice as well as  interpreting the issue from the perspective of Covid-19. Sugiarto  Pramono discusses on the effect of covid-19 on the realization of The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Jayshree Borah explains the reasons behind China’s and India’s mask diplomacy and vaccine diplomacy. It explains how other public diplomacy factors such as China-Taiwan, Xinjiang and China’s global image building also plays significant role behind China’s public health diplomacy. Kamruzzaman Bhuiyan tries to unravel the challenges and opportunities South Asian countries face to reinstate this potential sector-tourism. Tarak Mohan Hazari&Sudip Bhui&Rajnarayan Poddar unearth the role of traditional lifestyle of rural society in the emergence and development of Chhau dance. Ayush Mazumdar&Mazhar Shamsi Ansary&Santosh Kumar Behera highlight on how  the new normal created by the pandemic creates a stress upon the  intangible cultural heritage of India by forcing the performing artists to re-modify their way of livelihood and even making it unviable in the current context. The paper also seeks to understand how far the virtual platform can compensate or replace the real-world live  performance in terms of sustainability and viability both economic  as well as in terms of artistic sensibility. The paper also seeks to  understand the effect of the pandemic upon different classes of the  artist both rural as well as urban. 

The efforts has been made by contributors in this pandemic periods reflects their most valuable experiences as they were not  free from any turmoil of most measurable global time. Editors made their tasks to make coordination with authors beyond their problems by keeping tenacity. All the lapses are bestowed to editorial teams concerning to editing but authors reflects their personal opinions to  express and illustrate. Success and efficacies of this entire work  depend upon consideration of readers, critics and people who want to do something in this urgent research and area of activists. Publisher has great role and understandings to bring this contribution in front of literary world. Success will be credits of  reflects all moments, memories and thoughts of all the stakeholders. 

Editors and Affiliations

Dr. Sudip Bhui

Department of Anthropology&Tribal Studies, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, West Bengal, India. 

Dr. Santosh Kumar Behera

Dept. of Education, Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol, Paschim Bardhaman, West Bengal, India.

Dr. Sujit Kumar Datta

Research Centre for Asian Studies(RCAS), Haikou, China.

Department of International Relations,  University of Chittagong, Chattrogram, Bangladesh.