‘Virasat’ The Heritage Village, Kurukshetra, IndiaMechanization and urbanism has changed the village culture of India in the light of which it was considered necessary to preserve objects and artifacts of utility and aesthetic value that significantly represented as relics of older practices, ways and manners of doing things and life-styles. With many of these endemic practices and perishable objects it becomes pertinent for resourceful organizations and individuals to consider investing intellectual and financial resources and utilizing specialized, trained manpower towards creation of space and institutions that would fulfil the objective of preservation of the objects and articles in an appealing and aesthetic manner. The objective is to collect and preserve the tangible and intangible heritage objects of the village communities in Haryana and surrounding States of the Union of India and reorganize the materials in an aesthetic and orderly sequence to communicate the importance of continuation of the culture of the people of the agrarian and pastoral communities. A worldwide interest in Indian agricultural heritage has come to be recently noticed whereby both Indian and foreign connoisseurs have launched systematic efforts to collect and display them in museums of civilization. The importance of this effort could be realized through noticeable literature generated about preservation and conservation of vernacular heritage objects of our people.
The proposal envisages setting up of ‘Virasat’ –The Heritage Village, on the Grand Trunk Road (NH 44), in close proximity to the religious city of Kurukshetra in Haryana for which a piece of land of appropriate size has been acquired. The projections are to develop the ‘village’ in four phases; initially only basic facilities are to be proposed for creation with scope of expansion into the areas from the category picked from the list attached to this note. The necessity of creation of this ethnic heritage ‘village’ has been motivated by great change in both life style and agricultural operations by the rural communities that have stopped practicing traditional methods and manners of doing things and discarded a large number of objects and tools that were considered ‘obsolete’. Unless these objects of yore are collected, documented, preserved and also selectively published in a scientific manner the loss to the anthropological heritage would be irrecoverable. It is also planned that the ‘Virasat’ – a Heritage Village, becomes a hub of cultural activities and resource center for academics and scholars that wish to pursue research. Its location on GT Road is ideal for connectivity to all parts of the country would be available all year round. It could be stopover for tourists to J&K, Himachal and Uttrakhand from Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. It would eventually be financially self-supporting Centre after initial investment and take off.
Major initial focus of the Centre would be on promotion of folk culture, view of the traditional objects of the heritage of the village communities, peasant art and crafts, entertainment with folk music and literary endeavors.
Mechanization and urbanism has changed the village culture of India in the light of which it was considered necessary to preserve objects and artifacts of utility and aesthetic value that significantly represented as relics of older practices, ways and manners of doing things and life-styles. With many of these endemic
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To provide a platform to the culture lovers/ promoters/ conservators/ writers/ musicologists of Folk Culture and Heritage governmental and non-governmental agencies for the saving of culture and heritage.
1.For the promotion of Research Oriented Projects, workshops, festival, publication, research journal, magazine for Folk Culture and Heritage.
2.To create Awareness, Unity, Harmony, Strength in Society for Folk Culture and Heritage.
3.To put in efforts for social, educational, monumental and monetary improvement in the trust as a Cultural Heritage Trust.
4.To bring in the Socio-Cultural awareness in the society. To promote development in Cultural sphere and to inculcate brotherhood among the trust.
5.To arrange folk sports festival, folk food festival, folk religious festival by the trust.
6.To work for the welfare of youth and people in the trust and to inspire the
7.trust for donating artifacts related to archives, archaeology, folk culture and heritage through collection.
8.To set up a heritage village and museum for the promotion of cultural heritage.