By TCN News,
Aligarh: Dr. M. Waseem Raja of the Aligarh Muslim University attended a regional seminar held at Sigeria Town, Sri Lanka from 29 April to 1 May, 2013 on the theme of “Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Expression in South Asia.”
This Conference was organized by SAARC Cultural Centre and attended by more than 50 delegates from different parts of South Asia and especially from the member countries. Among other government nominees was one of the delegates whose name was cleared by Ministry of Culture, Government of India for the said regional seminar.
The aim of the seminar was basically to highlight the endangered traditional knowledge which has been in practice from thousands of years in South Asia. The regional seminar was inaugurated by Dr. Jagath Balasuriya, Minister of National Heritage, Government of Sri Lanka and the keynote address by Prof. Sunanda Mahendra, Emeritus Professor, University of Kalanya, Sri Lanka.
The theme of the regional seminar was ‘safeguarding traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression and practices’ which had been in practice and are being challenged by modernization process as world is moving faster without taking care of what we are forgetting.
In the said seminar various aspects of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expression had been discussed. The main focus of Seminar was on healing through traditional practices in South Asia, the traditional medicine and the other hand in terms of cultural expression there were large number of papers on dance, music, ritual practices and also those areas which fell under the continued practices in regards to earning livelihood, costumes and art forms. So much so that various forms and practices were discussed including one paper on “Traditional Culture of Fish Catching in Sri Lankan Low Land”.
The traditional healing methods included papers from the delegates of India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh which mainly focussed on Ayurvedic medicine, naturopathy, and holistic approach of curing sickness.
Dr. M. Waseem Raja, presented paper on various aspects of Greco-Arabic healing method practiced in India more particularly during Mughal period which came to be known as Tibb-e-Unani and which is still prominent form of healing methods. Though in danger of losing ground but still being widely practiced. He focused on various pros and cons of Unani Tibb of its Golden Past and bleak future and suggestion, how to safeguard the traditional method of healing in Indian contexts in particular and South Asia in general.
In the second lag of his stay there was research review committee of the theme on Diaspora in South Asia. In this regard, he along with eight other presenters from different parts of South Asia was to defend their awarded projects in mid-term review from 2-3 May 2013.
The Review Committee continued to deliberate two days to assess the progress of what were achieved by the Principal Investigators. Dr. M. Waseem Raja defended his them on “East India Diaspora during 19th -20th century. He tried to provide the details of people from East Indian forming diaspora in far off land sent as indentured labourers for working on Plantation Industries. Only some of them could return to the homeland rest of them remained there as diasporic people away from home exporting their Bhojpuri culture to Surinam, French Guiana Caribbean’s, Madagaskar, Maurititus.