Our heritage assets such as yoga and ancient monuments are the root of industries that are currently worth about $350 billion and can be an engine that runs our country, notes Mohan Raghavan, head of the Department of Heritage Science and Technology at IIT-Hyderabad.
Speaking to TNIE as part of Hyderabad Dialogues, Raghavan, who has a PhD in computational neuroscience and is also well-versed in Indic knowledge systems, points out that this massive sum goes under the radar because different parts of the heritage industry are bundled under different heads and departments — Indic apparel is under the Ministry of Textiles, Yoga under the Ministry of Ayush, and so on.
He also speaks about research currently underway in his department and the work they have done on the Ramappa temple, the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Telangana.
Excerpts
Recently, in the Lex Fridman podcast, the prime minister spoke about how culture connects India from the north to south. How can science and technology be used to conserve our heritage? What exactly is your department doing?
The topic that you have asked about is something that is very close to my heart, something that excites me absolutely. It excites me as a scientist, as a technologist, as a person who has actually started and run incubators and also as a heritage specialist and as a student of Indian knowledge systems and a faculty in that particular area.
Science concerns itself with curiosity and then tries to understand it. Engineering says how do I actually get things done and deliver some tangible utility to people, how do I make the bulb and throw light in the lives of people, for instance. They are both trying to add value to people’s lives. Anything that adds value is potentially the genesis of an industry. So, this brings us to the central question of what is very, very important for any country — bringing jobs and industrial activity.
When telecom or mobile phones are delivering value to people, what is it that people are actually consuming? It is not the phone, it is the content that is coming on the other side. Where is that content coming from? It is coming from the creative people, it is from the entertainers, it is the influencers. That is why the fundamental assets that any country or any group possesses are the genesis; then engineering and science take it and deliver that value to people.
And from this perspective, when you look at it, heritage is a fantastic asset. This sometimes goes below the radar and people do not realise it.
Why is it an asset? What is it that has always brought people to India for centuries and millennia? Why did the Romans, Fa Hien, and others come here? Why did the Arabs come here? They wanted the knowledge that was produced here, whether it was mathematics, yoga, meditation. When they came here, they realised there was gold, spices, etc.
Look at the broader yoga industry, which runs on the premise that people in their busy lives have lost their happiness, and want to rediscover themselves, it is worth about $30 or $40 billion at least. It’s projected to reach up to $70 billion to $80 billion.
Why is computer science sought after today? Because of the jobs. You take away the jobs, tomorrow, nobody will go to computer science. And similarly, we found that as of today, our heritage assets are the root of industries that are worth about $350 billion.
And at a projected CAGR in about a decade, around 2034, it is poised to cross a trillion-dollar market!
The reason why nobody really knows this is because different parts of the heritage industry have got bundled under different heads and under different departments. For example, Indic apparel is under the Ministry of Textiles. Food and cuisine goes possibly under agriculture and something else. Yoga goes under the Ministry of Ayush or sometimes Health in general. And similarly, every heritage asset is actually
sitting under different headings, and people do not realise that the actual value that is coming from a lot of these enterprises is because there is a fundamental connect that people feel with it.
The cuisine, textiles, forts, architecture, music, dance — it is a fantastic opportunity and it does not make sense to look at each of them in silos. Then you lose the synergy.
The West, especially the US, appears to have taken the lead in research in breathing exercises, meditation. Where are we?
What you are saying is true in public perception. It is both true and false. True as in, historically, they put in a lot more money into doing scientific research. But it is untrue that we did not do it. In fact, one of the first experiments on yoga and meditation is about a century old. There were experiments here in India that were done in the 1920s, 30s, 40s. And it has been there.
The West did recognise the potential behind this, put in a lot more resources, and spent a lot more time understanding the science and tech behind it. But it is also true that what gets done in the West gets more media attention. They are inherently good at marketing themselves. Typically, Indians have not been so good at it.
For example, do you know what is the earliest research into musical instruments? It was done by no lesser person than Sir CV Raman. He did fantastic research into Indian drums, tabla, mridangam, etc. He studied the acoustical properties of stringed instruments. But have you heard of it? If the work of the only science Nobel laureate from India is practically unknown in our own country, you can imagine the work of other lesser men and women.
Have we done enough? No. And it is precisely to rectify it that we are now starting. With the NEP, there was a further impetus. Indian knowledge systems are officially recognised as a set of disciplines that need to be taken care of.
But what happens in the West grabs media attention. I think this is something that we all need to figure out, how do you crack this news cycle?
Recently your department invited Bharat Rao, who claims to have deciphered the Indus Valley Script. Even Western scholars … for example, Edwin Bryant talks about ideological McCarthyism, where anyone taking a relook at the Aryan Migration Theory would be branded a nationalist or worse. It was surprising to recently learn that this is the case even now in many Indian universities. So, did you have any apprehensions before inviting him?
The phenomenon that you’re talking of does exist. It has existed for a long time. So, does it make people apprehensive? Yes, it does. You don’t even have to go so far as to invite X, Y, or Z. We’ve seen times where even talking about heritage is enough to get you labelled. And even now, to some extent, sometimes it does happen. But I don’t really think much about these things.
Opinions are going to be there. I focus more on positive activity. We started one of the first departments of heritage science and technology. We have a lab for yoga and performing arts. We have labs for understanding music, instruments, acoustics … we have labs for understanding data science.
How do you go about it? Do you take a standard book like Hatha Yoga Pradipika? You also need a qualified student. And then you need to rigorously test it.
You talked about Hatha Yoga Pradipika. We can start from there. It talks about several kriyas. Let’s say Trataka. It is looking at a lamp continuously. We have had a tradition that says that this is somehow beneficial. And now you ask yourself the question, how is this going to be beneficial?
The authentic primary references for this practice are in Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Research starts with the primary resource, primary references, and primary practices. So you obviously need skills, people who can understand a little bit of Sanskrit, who actually can read the text. Just reading Sanskrit is not enough. If you know English, it doesn’t mean you can understand rocket science and aeronautics, because there are so many technical details that you need to grasp.
So, you need to know Sanskrit to access that language, but you also need to know the technical language. For example, we run an MTech in yoga technology. And in that, you have to have a course on Samkhya, Yoga Shastra, and Ayurveda.
Now you ask how do I measure it? So what should you measure? Should you measure your eye blinks? What is the force that is exerted on your cheeks when you actually do it, on your eyebrows when you do some particular exercise? Or would you like to measure what is happening in my brain? Would you like to measure what is happening in the muscles? Are the muscles relaxing? Are the muscles getting tightened? Is getting tightened something inherently bad? Is it good? Should I use an EEG? Should I use an MRI?
Now you have very practical issues. If you want to look at something like Trataka and say, I want to measure it. What kind of a lamp should I see? If I have 10 subjects doing the same thing and I want to understand what that practice is doing, I must get 10 subjects who are not doing that practice and 10 subjects who are doing that practice, and then I have to compare them. And the 10 subjects who did not do the Trataka, what should they be doing?
You also have to decide what kind of equipment you should have. Should I have an EMG plus an EEG plus an eye blink sensor? All of this comes from a deep understanding of how brain neuroscience works, and you should know where to look for. The next stage is to actually understand, interpret the data.
Have you done such experiments?
These are all ongoing. Trataka is an example. We are looking at yoga and the issues of safety around yoga. What is the best way in which yoga teachers can teach a student over an online or video mechanism? Yoga is a skill. If you come physically to a class, I can say, “No, you are not bending enough,” because I am holding the person, and can sense the muscle tone. But when you are on a video call, how do you guide a student on the other side? So, this is a technology problem, an engineering problem. We have multiple projects going on of this kind.
Can you talk about the work that your department has done in Telangana?
We worked with the Ministry of Tourism. They wanted us to do a pilot on the Ramappa temple in Warangal. So, we went there, studied the place, and understood what the economic issues are.
The ministry wanted us to understand how we can improve livelihoods around these sites. It’s a very important concern because if the locals are not involved, they don’t see value for themselves in a heritage place. Their cooperation in the upkeep of the place goes down.
They should not start feeling that by this becoming a superstar place, people coming from outside are benefitting. But what is there in it for us? If that thought creeps into their mind, then their connection with the place goes down.
So, the ministry wanted us to look at how we can increase tourism potential, keeping this in mind. So, we visited it. The local collectorate also helped.
We conducted a study of that place. We understood the local issues and what kind of skills are there in that place. Based on that, we made a proposal of what can be done — these are the experience centres; these are the games that one can set up; this is how roughly the footfalls are going to be; this is what is going to be the revenue earned. This was about a year and a half ago.
Is it being implemented?
Possibly not yet. Maybe it is in the works. We do not know. But we have made those proposals.
TNIE team: Kalyan Tholeti, Prasanna RS, Vennapusala Ramya, Darshita Jain
Photographers: Vinay Madapu, Sri Loganathan Velmurugan