Welcome to the new look Punjab Heritage site, complete as you can see with blogs from a wide variety of experts in their field, know-alls, and generally Punjab heritage-lovers of one sort or another. What we all share is a passion for Punjab, its history, its rich culture and our shared heritage.
The previous site was I think probably the finest site of its kind anywhere relating to that shared heritage. It stands today as a marker of the growing awareness to document and cherish that inheritance. I hope you will enjoy the new site, including the blogs, and will find that it builds on the successes of the old one and continues to inform, stimulate and hopefully motive.
Unlike some of the more professional and knowledgeable contributors I will be blogging less on the specifics and detail of heritage but looking rather at the broader issues of heritage, culture, society, geography and how these all interlink – or sometimes don’t.
Heritage landscape
As the new website takes shape – a new look and web 2.0 technology – this seems an appropriate time to take stock of what the landscape of Punjabi heritage looks like.
The new site launches at a time when in many ways the prospects for the aims of UKPHA – to Discover, Conserve, Enlighten and Treasure – are to some extent being met to a greater degree than ever before.
If there could be any criticism of the old site it would be this. Given the continual neglect and loss of Punjabi heritage the stories tended by default to be negative. There seemed to be a never ending number of stories lamenting the continual often very physical crumbling away or complete destruction of that heritage compounded by a lack of care or ability to save it.
However, the emerging picture, now becoming more apparent is, yes, a still often miserable lack of knowledge or awareness let alone conservation of that heritage on the sub-continent, but also one of greater awareness of our unique cultural inheritance, and the need to indeed preserve, share, enlighten and educate ourselves and the wider world to its beauty and importance.
A Punjabi Renaissance?
Ten years ago the imperious Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) held a landmark exhibition. On the tercentenary of the establishment of the Sikh Khalsa, The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms was a turning point in Sikh and Punjabi heritage. A truly international collaboration, masterfully curated and coordinated by Susan Stronge, it heralded a new era of appreciation, especially for diaspora Punjabis and Sikhs and the wider world of the existence of this glorious inheritance.
The roots of this awakening awareness were of course much deeper and I am doing a disservice to the countless organisations and individuals who had been working in the field for years before. But 1999 stands as a cultural ground zero for the new awareness.
Today there is flowering of websites dedicated to Sikh heritage, history and religion, some it has to be said better and more credible than others. However the new Punjab digital archive project (www.PanjabDigiLib) and others point to the future path being now trod with greater certainty.
Such professional and long term ongoing projects led by experts in their fields promise solid tangible long term resources that will enable scholars, educationalists, and the humble heritage lover such as myself to learn and appreciate the beauty and unique nature of these objects for generations to come.
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