New Delhi, 13 October (H.S.): Royal Enfield Social Mission, the Wikimedia Foundation and the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT Hyderabad) have signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) to digitally preserve the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of the Indian Himalayan region and make it accessible to people worldwide. The initiative will make material documenting the region's living cultural traditions, indigenous knowledge, skills and practices freely available on Wikimedia platforms.

Under the agreement, around 1,000 high-quality photographs, videos and research materials documenting more than 150 intangible cultural heritage practices from the Himalayan region will be made available on Wikimedia Commons. IIIT Hyderabad's Open Knowledge Initiative will provide technical support and training to help Wikimedia volunteers share the material on Wikipedia in Hindi and other Indian languages, as well as on other Wikimedia projects. The announcement comes ahead of the International Intangible Cultural Heritage Day, observed on October 17.

Intangible cultural heritage includes traditional knowledge, forms of expression, skills, customs and cultural practices that have been passed down through generations and form an integral part of Himalayan communities' identities. The documentation of more than 150 such traditions has been undertaken over the past four years through Royal Enfield Social Mission's flagship initiative, The Great Himalayan Exploration, a joint project of UNESCO and Royal Enfield. The initiative currently covers 11 regions, including Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Assam and North Bengal.

Bidisha Day, Executive Director of the Eicher Group Foundation, said Royal Enfield Social Mission had been documenting the intangible cultural heritage of Himalayan communities in collaboration with UNESCO since 2022. These traditions represent not only cultural identity but also valuable repositories of knowledge that can inform ways of life adapted to climate change, she said. The partnership with Wikimedia would enable communities to share their heritage with global audiences.

Praveen Das, Head of Regional Partnerships for South Asia at the Wikimedia Foundation, said preserving cultural heritage was not merely about safeguarding the past but also about ensuring that communities and their knowledge continued to have a place in the future. The living knowledge and traditions of the Himalayan region remained underrepresented in the digital world, and the initiative would help address this gap, he said.

Tanveer Hasan, Chief Architect of IIIT Hyderabad's Open Knowledge Initiative, said the partnership would bring together knowledge, technology and India's diverse linguistic communities. It would enable more people to access the material in their own languages and help present local heritage to a global audience.

The partner organisations said training programmes, workshops and edit-a-thons would be organised to ensure the initiative remained community-driven and sustainable over the long term. These activities would encourage volunteers and local communities to continue documenting and expanding the digital record of Himalayan cultural heritage.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar