Question

India has many historical monuments, but people don't realise their importance. Do you think it is our duty to preserve and protect our historical monuments? Why/ why not? *​

Answer 1

Answer:

History of any place reflects upon the rich/ bland past it once had, long before we were born. The monuments are a reflection of how rich the heritage and culture of those era were. Not only this, you get to learn so much just by beholding a single monument- the style represents the era of construction and designing, the beautiful motifs represent the quality of craftsmanship as well as the hardwork they put through, to cut each and every stone and carve them to some beautiful pieces of art, long before technology made it easier. The tremendous amount of planning represent how able the architects were, even without major softwares that aid today’s design, and the scale of the monument represents the possible importance and wealth of it, or the owner who once owned it.

Now imagine you die one day, leaving behind wonderful craftsmanship, or works of art, or poetry, or novels you wrote, or whatever contribution you made to this world, would you like it if your works or your contributions are not given due respect and are destroyed since you no longer exist? Imagine if all the works of Rabindranath Tagore were burnt up as soon as he died? Would we be left with such a rich literature? Think of the monuments in the same way. Monuments are deeply rooted sentiments to a majority of people in the city, and tells the story of the city, helping us connect to its history and its present.

This is the very reason monuments should be preserved.

Answer 2

Answer:

The ASI needs to reach out to municipal councils in towns, village panchayats, elsewhere, to get them involved in preserving some of this. And you have to think of education—there isn’t a school anywhere where you don’t have monuments in the surrounding area. If you can actually integrate those localities and their histories into what you teach in schools, there will be a greater sense of that, well, this is something that needs to be preserved; it belongs to us. I think the state has failed there.