Tribes of Hazaribagh in Ranchi Struggle to Preserve the Traditional Paintings on Mud Huts

RANCHI/HAZARIBAG, November 9,2016: The Mud huts with the beautiful traditional paintings on the campus of Sanskriti are soon going to disappear. Sanskriti is the regional head office of the Hazaribagh chapter of INTACH, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.

Here, the huts display the exquisite paintings of Khovar and Sohrai. These huts will be hidden behind the walls to be built by the new owner of the properties. Bulu Imam, Founder and curator of Sanskriti is running from one official to another to save the priceless art of the tribe, mentioned TOI report.

The paintings were made by the Tribal women who are also the members of Tribal Women Artists Cooperative (TWAC). Tutu Imam, the owner of the property has sold a part of the area.

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The huts cannot be viewed by the public due to the new boundary wall screened by the new owners. Sanskriti- apart from the paintings, has hundreds of tribal art, artifacts and Paleolithic and Mesolithic tools on display in the museum. Many students have completed their doctoral research at this university.

Imam started a campaign and got around 350 signatures to make an appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to preserve the museum and save the tribal heritage. In his letter addressed to the Chief Minister of Jharkhand, Raghubar Das, Christian Reiser said that GEL Church was among the first settlers in Chota Nagpur and since then, they have worked for the benefit of tribes of Jharkhand. He asked the government to protect Sanskriti.

According to the TOI report, many other experts from different fields like philosophy, art, culture, and religion have expressed their concern regarding the cause. The state convener of INTACH in Rajasthan, Maharaja of Jodhpur, Gaj Singh wrote a separate letter to the chief minister.

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MP and Union minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha has assured Imam that the museum will be preserved, mentioned TOI report.

Leading experts from all over the world are appealing to the Prime Minister to protect the tribal heritage of Hazaribagh. Architect-Photographer, Deidi Von Schewen from Berlin has worked closely with the tribal artists for her photography project and her works are currently exhibited in Paris. She also made an appeal to the Prime Minister of India for the preservation of the huts. Retired Professor of Indian history, philosophy and religion at the University of Sapienza in Rome has made a similar appeal as well.

– Prepared by Diksha Arya of NewsGram. Twitter: @diksha_arya53