Iranians spent a lot of their time, money and energy in preserving their heritage and art. In terms of protecting anything related to history Iran is among the three countries in the world. Iran takes pride in its history stretching back to three thousand years. The Islamic Revolutions of 1979 has not dented the spirit of heritage preservation but has given it a new dimension.
Across the Hindukush, let us talk about a valley know as “Iran-i-Sageer”, little Iran-we are talking about our own Kashmir. For a river civilization that is continuous for a period of about two thousand years historical monuments should have ubiquitously pimpled our landscape. Unfortunately, however, we very few to show as successive regimes brought down what their predecessors had built. Add to that the indifference of the starving population in preserving the past heritage and art. In downtown Srinagar there were hundreds of historical monuments which were present even during Afghan, Sikh and Dogra rule. With the fast expanding population these monuments were felled and encroached upon. Of what is left now there are serious efforts to encroach from different quarters.
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Having said that, most of our history is what we call our oral renderings. For example, we know that Budshah Zainul Abideen was a great king, probably one of the greatest administrators that South-Asia ever saw. But, where are his palaces, his secretariat, the bridges he built (except for Zaina Kadal Bridge) , the temples he repaired. Our language is our history. As is the food we eat and the songs we sing. We have to assertively protect it because we do not have enough physical proofs of our glorious history.
It is amazing that our own school and college going youth is not made aware about our glorious history. Our youth have no idea who Budshah, Shihabuddin or Lalitadatiya were? The curriculum is designed as such so as to keep the youth as far away from history as is possible.
We hope all this changes soon.
