CSR Interventions in India Under State Invitation: An Artisans’ Perspective on ‘Adopt a Heritage’ Programme

Abstract

‘Democratising Heritage’ is considered to be a highly transformative approach to the concept of heritage, management of cultural property and its conservation worldwide. To deliberate on the emerging global approach and validate its multi-faced applications in diverse fields, experts drawn from a cross-section of the world by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) assembled in Delhi, India towards the end of 2017 and adopted the Delhi Declaration on Heritage and Democracy-2017. Though India continues to be the largest democracy in the world (which in fact was the reason for holding the event in the country’s capital), the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ programme of India launched in early 2018, under invited participation of corporate entities through CSR, is found to have missed the people-based approach to heritage management and conservation. Besides, the project provides no space for preservation, protection and promotion of traditional crafts/craftsmanship, which according to the views of UNESCO on intangible heritage merits equal attention in all programmes of intangible heritage management. Though the mandatory CSR activities approved by the Indian Companies Act, 2013 include ‘protection of national heritage, art and handicrafts’, the heritage adoption project may fail craftsmen—their livelihood, continuation of craft skills, identity and pride. In the above backdrop, the paper takes a holistic view of these concerns, in terms of an artisans’ perspective on India’s ‘Adopt a Heritage’ programme-2018.