Q1 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2018 · GS I · 10 marks · 2 min read

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Safeguarding the Indian art heritage is the need of the moment. Comment.

Topic: Indian Heritage and Culture. Syllabus: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times. Same official PYQ from year-wise 2018 and Indian Heritage and Culture.

Revision summary

Temples, caves, bronzes, manuscripts, and crafts form one heritage, not two separate worlds. Theft, climate, and urban pressure make delay costly because originals cannot be replaced. Laws such as AMASR and the Antiquities Act need faster enforcement and provenance. UNESCO fame without crowd control can harm the site it names. Craft apprentices and local care must sit beside museum conservation.

Model answer

Flow diagram

flowchart TD
  H[Art heritage] --> M[Monuments bronzes manuscripts]
  H --> L[Living crafts]
  T[Theft climate cities] --> H
  M --> S[ASI law community]
  L --> S
  S --> K[Safeguard now]

Conclusion

  • Fund preventive conservation, craft schools, and legal title of objects in one chain, from village to museum.
  • Treat heritage as a public good in city plans, not as leftover land after a flyover.

Indian art heritage is both monument and living skill, and both are under time pressure from theft, weather, and the market. Law and listing help only when communities, craft, and conservation share the same map.

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More from this topic

Q15 · UPSC Mains 2025 · GS I · 15 marks

How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) and drones be effectively used along with GIS and RS techniques in locational and areal planning?

Indian Heritage and Culture

Remote sensing supplies pictures of land and water; GIS stores them with administrative boundaries. Drones add cheap, repeatable local maps for disasters, utilities and village layouts. Artificial intelligence classifies pixels and can forecast flood, heat or sprawl on that GIS base. Indian platforms such as Bhuvan and Gati Shakti already try to combine these tools. Planning still needs ground checks and a public purpose, or the map only watches the poor.

Q11 · UPSC Mains 2025 · GS I · 15 marks

Mahatma Jotirao Phule's writings and efforts of social reforms touched issues of almost all subaltern classes. Discuss.

Indian Heritage and Culture

Phule wrote Gulamgiri and Shetkaryacha Asud to name caste as slavery and to defend the peasant. With Savitribai he opened schools for girls and for Mahar and Mang children in Pune. The Satyashodhak Samaj (1873) sought ritual and marriage without priestly monopoly. Women, Dalits and cultivators were treated as one excluded order, which is why “almost all subaltern classes” is a fair phrase. His world was Deccan and agrarian; mill labour would be a later chapter.

Q10 · UPSC Mains 2025 · GS I · 10 marks

Do you think that globalization results in only an aggressive consumer culture? Justify your answer.

Indian Heritage and Culture

Global media and retail have spread a loud culture of brands, malls and credit. That culture can be aggressive in targeting desire and crowding out other measures of a good life. The same global pipes carry Indian production, hybrid customs, rights talk and political backlash. The poor often meet globalisation as cheap goods and weak jobs, not as lifestyle consumption. So consumer culture is a major result, not the only result.

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