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Halting the erasure of cultural heritage: the role of international institutions and NGOs
Halting the erasure of cultural heritage: the role of international institutions and NGOs
In 2001, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan was destroyed by the Taliban. Its destruction was an effort to erase the country’s pre-Islamic history, which drew international condemnation after two Buddhist statues that possibly dated back to the 6th century were destroyed and other acts of vandalism and looting of archaeological treasures in the province were carried out as part of the Taliban’s cultural cleansing activities against the Hazara people.
Such explicit destruction of cultural heritage continued in other parts of the world. Most recently, warnings emerged from UNESCO after the Russian invasion of Ukraine that Ukraine’s ‘whole cultural life’ was at risk of ‘disappearing.’ The Dutch government, in 2024, observing the events in Ukraine, said, ‘Russia denies Ukraine’s right to statehood. Everything that embodies Ukrainian identity, from art to language, is being destroyed.’
Sadly, this phenomenon is not only observed in countries in conflict; in India, the demolition of houses of worship belonging to religious minorities is widely used to erase the cultural heritage of minority groups. In 1992, Hindu nationalists extrajudicially demolished the 16th-century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, alleging it stood at the birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama. Elsewhere, Hindu nationalist groups contest or demand probes into the ancient sites of religious minorities in efforts to reclaim the sites for themselves. These developments are part of the attempts by Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) groups to transform India’s history to fit their ethno-nationalist ambitions, which posit religious minorities like Muslims as ‘invaders’ or ‘outsiders’.
Despite such shocking developments, the destruction of cultural heritage in India receives little attention. Elsewhere, these attacks proceed without sufficient deterrence, and their after-effects are not sufficiently recognised. Given this urgent situation, we convene in Brussels and online to talk about the devastating effects of destroying cultural heritage, the state and non-state actors that carry out this destruction, and how the law and NGOs may be able to intervene in the destruction of, preserve, and restore cultural heritage.