The Sacred Grove Festival commenced on Friday at the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya. It will continue till Sunday. The chief guest of the inaugural function was GA Kinhal, Director, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal.
Kinhal said, “Sacred Groves are known by different names in different regions like Punit van, Dev van etc.and these groves are treasures of bio-diversity. The North-eastern States are doing exemplary work in the development and conservation of the sacred groves. They are yet to get their due recognition.”
Senior Anthropologist, Prof KC Malhotra explained the importance of sacred groves in our society since ancient times and told the history of sacred groves in Manav Sangrahalaya. He said, “Sacred groves are planted and maintained by community efforts, hence everyone respects its sanctity. In the beginning it was extremely difficult to grow anything on the hilly landscape of IGRMS. But with constant efforts, now the sacred groves in IGRMS has canopy of 70 per cent which can be seen in forests only.”
After the inaugural session, an exhibition on ‘Sacred Groves of India’ was jointly inaugurated by GA Kinhal, Prof KC Malhotra, Prof Sarit Kumar Chaudhuri and other distinguished guests. This photo exhibition displays various aspects of sacred groves in India and journey and activities of IGRMS in the context of sacred groves.
Pankaj Raag, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Culture planted a tree at ‘MawBukhar’ sacred grove of Meghalaya. He congratulated to Director, IGRMS and other experts for organizing the festival. He also visited newly constructed house of ‘Wangcho’ tribe of Arunachal Pradesh.