07 June 2023, Mumbai: The gatekeeper of the spectacular was last seen on a talk show speaking about “ why Indian culture and sustainable development have not been able fructify in their real means ”. A Fulbright scholar with a reputation of delivering large scale policy interventions has the credit of increasing the vote percentage share by 2% in elections. Navina Jafa is a cultural brand that that started her career way back in the 90’s. Cultural technocrat and classical dancer Navina Jafa was featured in ‘Tejaswini,’ a flagship programme produced by the Doordarshan News to highlight women who have distinguished themselves in taking up challenges and realising high aspirations. Navina Jafa defined a cultural technocrat as someone who approaches culture from different knowledge streams and documents human responses to geographical variations. These responses, explained Navina Jafa, are manifested in buildings, customs, local dresses, cuisine, crafts and much more. Navina Jafa, as a cultural technocrat, works to create sustainability for local creative communities through innovations by linking new audiences/consumers to these cultural expressions. Jafa described how she has applied her understanding of culture to various sectors such as Heritage tourism, heritage education, development communication and cultural diplomacy. As an expert on Heritage Tourism, Navina Jafa said in Tejaswini’ that sustainability of culture can come when strategic planning goes beyond one-time events. She described her recent curated tour to the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, where she took a group of visitors to experience the marginalised culture of the nomadic Fakrani Jats. Jafa spoke about the pastoral community rearing swimming camels, singing extraordinary Sufi music and the women having a distinct embroidery skill. Jafa said, “After the heritage tour, I have, for instance, recently sent children’s books to the community library. It is all about creating trust and guiding the community to conserve their culture innovatively. My interaction does not end with a heritage tour,” said Navina Jafa. On Doordarshan, Navina Jafa spoke about Virendra Singh Jafa born in Badayun, Uttar Pradesh. Navina Jafa’s father was a part of multiple “ High Power Committees ” ( HPC’s ) which was confidential in nature. A very simple and straight-forward personality was said to offer self made coffee and raw sliced mangoes while someone visited to oblige his power and authority at his residence. His simplicity and quickness to understand the mind of the visitor was very quick to his trained eye. Navina Jafa told that he always taught an altruistic path to his children. He made them work without getting glamourised and influenced between the weighted and powerful. Navina translated his advices into her career giving her contributions in culture and sustainability. Navina was last seen on a national prime time show on Doordarshan for her body of work in cultural intervention in performing heritage. She made her own ways as taught by her father and his experiences. Virendra Jafa was a member of the Bhoothalingam Committee on Depreciation. It was about the business entities which are permitted to reduce their gross profits by depreciation allowances which are granted on certain specified assets. The objective was to provide for replacement of a capital asset. Depreciation was computed by applying prescribed rates to the written-down value of an asset. The law also allowed accelerated depreciation in the form of an additional “extra-shift” allowance in the report. When the presenter Mamta Chopra asked what it means to make heritage perform, Jafa responded that a heritage monument is situated in ecology about the people and their practices. She gave the example of the Kailash Temple in the world heritage site of Ellora in Maharashtra, where at the entry of the monument, she includes the Nath kirtankars – roaming mystics singing devotional songs, and while they perform, she dances. “I have created a hashtag #dancebeyondstage. I bring my dancer’s avatar to make the sculptures come alive,” said Navina Jafa. Recently, Jafa proposed launching Pastoral Rural tourism to the tourism ministry. She conducted a capacity-building programme among the Raika/Rabari community in the Pali district of Rajasthan and planned tours. “I am also working to creative experiential border pastoral tourism in different areas,” said Navina Jafa.
Navina hinted about her upcoming book on Doordarshan under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. The book is a result of conducting heritage walks and tours throughout India in the last three decades. When I started my career in this field, I needed a template to follow a guidebook on creating and executing heritage walks, but there was no such model. Therefore, through this book I hope to contribute to the capacity building of many professionals and agencies engaged in tourism, cultural and historical studies and those addressing the conservation of cultural and natural heritage. Nevertheless, Exhibiting India took on a fascinating journey marked by research, engaging with local communities, and working to open minds to empathise and absorb cultures different from one’s own. My Fulbright experience helped me to comprehend the idea of heritage at the Smithsonian Centre for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Washington DC and later to research and teach culture and development as a Feldman Scholar at the Brandeis University, which enhanced by perspective to contemplate methodologies to exhibit and to conserve heritage through public outreach. Heritage tourism today plays an essential role in creating immersive experiences and serves to create sustainability of cultural practices and heritage ecologies. Endowed with various geographical topographies, India forms the largest area in the Indian subcontinent. These include long coastlines, mountains, plateaus, deserts (both hot and cold), plains, rivers and other varied geographical and geological features. Each geographical context has distinct historical trajectories and human responses expressed as diverse cultural expressions. Since ancient times, India endowed with rich natural resources, has attracted warrior-kings, traders and migration of social groups vying for territorial power and control over the resources. The chessboard of the stories on ‘power’ in historical frames is defined by a visual just as a drone presents the aerial view of the palimpsest cultural heritage tapestry of diverse India. The multiple, multilayered heritage-scapes as exhibition spaces become the ground to perform the heritage walks. These heritage-scapes contain built heritage, natural heritage and intangible heritage. The book constitutes six chapters, beginning with the seminal concepts related to heritage, exhibiting traditions and cultures of people. The first chapter introduces the idea of heritage and tradition from the Indian point of view. It also touches upon the challenges of changing consumer demand in the post-covid-19 era and the growth of virtual armchair travel with the development of technology. The second chapter introduces heritage walks as a form of a dynamic living exhibit. In this context, the chapter critically investigates the historical context, formats and intentions of previous exhibitions on India, such as the Colonial and India Exhibition of 1866 in London, and the ‘Festivals of India’ and ‘Apna Utsav’ in the 1980s and their impact on heritage-skilled communities. The third chapter scrutinises the heritage-scapes as a concept of exhibition space to enact the walks, and introduces methodologies to engage and perspectives to interpret different heritage-scapes. Chapter four is about the method of conducting heritage walks. Chapter five is on the making of the curator/guide called a Study Leader. It discusses the challenges and tools the heritage tour presenter requires to develop as part of skill enhancement to create effective heritage walks. The last and final chapter presents ten case studies of heritage walks by different Study Leaders in various parts of India. This chapter displays the application of methods of heritage walks discussed in the previous chapter and offers a wide range of intentions that heritage walks can address, such as identity representation, peacebuilding and creating responsible, sustainable tourism.