Times of Destruction

As the International Museum Day was commemorated on 18 May, and with the World Heritage Day just gone by, what comes to the fore are enlightened issues of cultural heritage, challenges of preservation and conservation, of institutions and individuals becoming custodians of global heritage and hanging on to every shard of pottery, every scrap of papyrus, prehistoric rock excavated, and building bridges across historical time and geographical space

- RAJU MANSUKHANI The writer is a researcher-author on history and heritage issues, and a former deputy curator of Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya

In the second calendar year of the third millennium of our Common Era, that is in 2001, our world witnessed two acts of destruction which have, since then, set the trajectory of global politics, foreign affairs, security and defense, and the continuing struggle for human rights.

By early March 2001, armed forces of the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, used artillery and dynamite to destroy the two Bamiyan Buddhas, the most monumental of statues glorifying Gautama Buddha. On 9 September 2001, twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York were destroyed when commercial planes were hijacked and crashed into the towers by fundamentalists owing allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

The two global events – one in the ancient lands of Afghanistan, amidst rocky mountains and dry dusty terrain and once the hot-bed of trade and commerce across Asia, and the second, in the heart of global capitalism with its glittering towers signifying the triumph of modern free market economy – had the entire world community up in anger, horror, disgust and hatred; debating, discussing and violently thrashing out issues even before the dust could settle. It seemed as if the 'clash of civilizations' had become a gory reality with these well-planned acts of destruction; and, soon enough, in the name of tightened security norms, every human being was a suspect-bomber or hijacker and every aeroplane or automobile was a possible bomb-loaded missile which could kill thousands. In the span of a few months, our modern world seemed to be going through a dark tunnel with little or no light at its end.