The history lesson in the nod for Moidams
The inclusion of the Charaideo Moidams of Assam in the Unesco’s World Heritage List is a significant moment for India’s history.
The inclusion of the Charaideo Moidams of Assam in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (Unesco)’s World Heritage List is a significant moment not just for Indian soft power but also for the country’s history. The announcement of the inscription of the 700-year-old burial mounds and shrines of the Tai Ahom dynasty that ruled large tracts of modern-day Assam from the 12th to the 19th century couldn’t have come at a better time given India is hosting the ongoing session of the World Heritage Committee that decides on these inclusions. Inscriptions are not just an acknowledgment of the overwhelming value of a property to humanity but also signal member States’ collective intent to conserve it, and represent a big win for the jurisdictions housing them.
That said, the larger import of the decision is more inwardly directed. It compels a harder look at those facets of the country’s history that are in need of greater acknowledgment in its historiography. The tales of the Ahoms’ long reign, till recently, largely remained confined to the state. The Moidams held special importance for the Ahoms, who shifted capitals along the Brahmaputra Valley at different points of time, but came back to the necropolis to bury members of their royalty and aristocracy. The Unesco nod blends the Moidams into the broader discourse on Indian heritage and, thus, could end up stoking not just tourism interest in the site but also interest in the Ahoms and other regional histories from across the country that are waiting to be mainstreamed.
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