With recognition comes additional responsibility. If UNESCO has given our centuries old burial sites/Moidams a new lease of life with a heritage status, then it must be acknowledged that the onus is on every Assamese to maintain these heritage sites as well as our sense of history.
It is painful to admit that these Moidams suffered the indifference of history, geography and our own people for a long time, until good sense prevailed. The ASI and the Assam Government taking over these sites years back were the right beginning but it was the present dispensation in Dispur and the one preceding it which earnestly gave it a serious consideration for world recognition. After a lot of behind the scene efforts and ground work involving hundreds of individuals and the community at large, we are where we are today.
It must also be acknowledged that the techniques used by the Ahom kings to build and preserve these Moidams, even after the vagaries of nature for centuries, could not have been anything less than scientific besides being a product of traditional wisdom. It is this wisdom that we must respect now that the world has given it recognition. This is also a lesson that heritage, whether material or cultural, needs State support and patronage.
The challenges for the State Government still remain. There are many other sites which have been ravaged by encroachment that cry for attention, and these also include other Moidams in Charaideo, once a historic capital of the Ahom kingdom.
