With well over 1,000 fascinating heritage sites to visit in Bangladesh, from the outlines of 3,000 year old cities such as Wari Bateshwar in Narshingdhi and Mahasthangarh near Bogra amongst the best, to sites such as Mograpara that, somewhere, must have traces of the Khilji Palace so vividly described by the writer to the Admiral (who led the early 14th century visiting entourage from China, via countless temples, mosques, churches, palaces, mansions, forts and governance centres) a little on-site explanation and interpretation wouldn’t go amiss.
On site explanation and interpretation is an essential part of any heritage tourism experience. Heritage tourists are easily the most treasured members of the enormous international tourism market. They are usually the best educated, and, as such, amongst the wealthiest, as well as most culturally and environmentally sensitive. They are, in fact, exactly the kind of tourists that the fragile natural and social environment of Bangladesh could most easily support.
Heritage tourism may form the foundation of most major international tourism destinations – from Italy, France, Britain and Greece, to Egypt and India, and, not least, newer destinations like Peru, Mexico, China, Cambodia, Myanmar and Japan. But, in all those nations too, a thirst for national identity and heritage produces a torrent of local visitors to important sites, not merely, as is so often the case in Bangladesh sadly, in search of a picnic site!
Guiding is, however, like the rapidly disappearing heritage of the nation itself, already in a ruinous state in Bangladesh. For even moderately informed guiding of the heritage sites across the country, it is rare to find anyone around with even the most basic knowledge of who made the place, when, why or how. Without that, since so few sites are written up anywhere and even fewer, accurately, a visitor is rather lost.
On a recent visit to the World Heritage site of Paharpur, I was accosted inside the gate by a young man offering his services as a guide. He proceeded to tell me the magnificent site was a tribute to the skills of the great Islamic tradition of art and architecture! I find it hard to believe he really thought so, at what is one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the entire sub-continent.
Worse still was the large Archaeology Department notice, informing that the site is a 7th century Pala period construction. It is of course certainly true that the visible remains originated in that period, but archaeologists have already established the presence of 3rd century BCE Mauryan period brickwork on the site – a mere thousand years earlier. And it is widely accepted that the site may very well have originated in the lifetime of the Buddha himself.
Indeed, the site museum itself gives the lie to the board including many works on display dated to the 5th century and earlier.
It was also, almost certainly, a major site where the great Mahayana School of Buddhism developed, the school responsible for the Yogic and tantric traditions often attributed to Tibet. But the traditions were almost certainly taken to Tibet in the 12th century by the Vikrampur born monk, Atish Dipankar. At the request of the King of Tibet he travelled there to assist in restoring the Buddhism that had fallen into decay, taking the practices with him. Indeed, the many terracotta panels, some original, others replicated, that decorate the main structure, clearly illustrate the performance of such practices.
Such explanation of the significance of the site would be welcomed by most educated visitors.
At Mahasthangarh, visitors to remains of a nearby Vihara are presented with a mishmash of Hindu legends about princesses bitten by men turned into snakes. Possibly it’s an entertaining addition to enjoy, but scarcely the stuff with which to educate and inform and enhance pride in national heritage!
Whilst it is clear that there is a need for better guiding – even a level of expertise that may not be entirely professional but at least better informed – the Ministry of Tourism is presently considering a proposal that is likely to prove disastrous.
In the late nineties, the Government of Sri Lanka introduced a scheme to licence guides; it is such a scheme that is under consideration in Bangladesh. There proved to be two fatal problems with the proposal.
Trainee guides were to be instructed and examined by “experts” appointed by the government. At the time, I was living at Deniyaya, on the fringes of Sinharaja Rain Forest, a major environmental tourism destination. My landlord and his family had been guiding tourists into the forest for decades, knew it and its wildlife intimately, were widely acknowledged internationally for their work and knowledge, and were at the forefront of conservation activity.
They were told they had to take an exam, which was set by someone who was an academic, without detailed knowledge of the actual wildlife of the forest.
It is not hard to imagine those at the archaeology department in Bangladesh, responsible for the information board at Paharpur, failing any potential guide who understood the true history.
The second problem, that rapidly appeared, and it is hard to believe could be avoided in Bangladesh, was that the issue of licences quickly became a means for bureaucrats and politicians to give family and followers a means of making a living, issuing licences to protégés devoid of training. These licenced “guides” then proceeded to call the police to deal, on each site, with more professional and knowledgeable tour guides, or better informed local young people, who seemed likely to deprive them of guiding fees and tips.
It may well be that a little knowledge is better than none, in assisting visitors to appreciate the places they explore, but such “lite” guiding is likely to prove difficult for the slowly developing cultural, heritage and environmental tourism in Bangladesh to recover from!
Accurate, printed information could certainly help, and there seems no reason why tour companies themselves shouldn’t sponsor such publications. But, in the end there is little substitute for real, informed knowledge, appreciation and interpretation by a preferably local guide to enhance the visitor experience on site. It is, like staff at hospitality establishments, fundamental that site staff, rather than being employed for their contacts or political affiliations, should have some language skills, and be schooled in charm as well.
In fact, in my travels around the extraordinary, vanishing heritage of Bangladesh, visiting literally hundreds of sites, I have experienced only one good guiding experience; and that only materialised when, at Puthia, a television cameraman, without removing his shoes, scrambled for a better filming location onto a temple.
When I pointed out to him that prohibition on footwear was the same in temples as in mosques, an evidently well-educated young man thanked me for doing what he dared not, being a Hindu himself, and identified himself as an official guide on the site, employed by the Archaeology Department. A step, at least, in the right direction, with Hindu guides to Hindu monuments if Muslim youths remain careless of other histories and traditions, but a very small step where strides are clearly needed.
