Royal Enfield, Wikimedia Foundation and IIIT-H join hands to preserve Himalayan heritage
New Delhi: Royal Enfield Social Mission (RESM), the Wikimedia Foundation and IIIT Hyderabad have signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) to digitally preserve the intangible cultural heritage of the Indian Himalayan region and make it freely accessible worldwide.
Under the partnership, RESM and the Wikimedia Foundation will release nearly 1,000 high-resolution photographs, videos and research materials documenting more than 150 cultural practices on Wikimedia Commons. IIIT Hyderabad will provide technical support and training to help volunteers upload the content to Wikimedia platforms, including Wikipedia, in multiple Indian languages.
The initiative comes ahead of International Intangible Cultural Heritage Day on October 17. The practices were documented over four years through The Great Himalayan Exploration (TGHE), a collaboration between UNESCO and Royal Enfield to document and promote India’s cultural heritage.
The ongoing initiative covers 11 regions: Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Assam and North Bengal. It is expected to expand to all Himalayan States and Union Territories.
Bidisha Dey, Executive Director of Eicher Group Foundation, said the initiative sought to make traditional knowledge accessible to wider audiences while supporting cultural continuity and recognising its significance in areas such as climate adaptation.
Praveen Das, Lead Regional Partnerships, South Asia, at the Wikimedia Foundation, said the collaboration would help address the underrepresentation of Himalayan communities and their living traditions in the digital world.
Through its Open Knowledge Initiatives programme, IIIT Hyderabad will organise training programmes and edit-a-thons to encourage volunteers to contribute to and enrich content across Indic-language Wikimedia platforms.
Tanveer Hasan, Chief Architect of the initiative at IIIT Hyderabad, said the partnership would help make Himalayan knowledge accessible in different languages and strengthen community participation in documenting local heritage.
The partners will also conduct capacity-building programmes and workshops to support the long-term preservation and accessibility of the documented cultural practices.