Cultural Documentation of River Ganga from Gaumukh to Ganga Sagar – Meerut District

This Namami Gange project is being undertaken for the Jal Shakti Ministry, Government of India, under the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) scheme. INTACH is assisting the Ministry in the capacity of a knowledge partner. Three divisions of INTACH namely; Natural Heritage (NH), Architectural Heritage (AH) and Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) divisions have been engaged in the cultural mapping project, of three aspects natural, tangible and intangible assets along Ganga.
The objective of the project is to conduct field investigation and document existing cultural assets on either side of the river Ganga (within a radius of 5Kms, starting from its source, i.e. Gangotri, down to its point of dispersal at Ganga Sagar) and to produce for the ministry a detailed, illustrated report based on the primary and secondary resources available.

Meerut District

The report covers the Intangible assets existing in the district and other lesser-known aspects such as History, Etymology (Meerut probably derives its name from the word ‘Maya Rashtra’, meaning the country of Maya), references of it in the historical texts, Meerut and Mutiny of 1857, the Delhi Chalo war cry along historical and archaeological sites belonging to various religions. The report also highlights the historically very important nearby site called Hastinapur. The report has also covered the Mahabharata Site -Parikshitgarh, Mawana District, Shukrataal Muzaffarnagar, and the Ayurvedic significance, Mollywood of Meerut- Not to be confused with the genre of films that emerge from Malayali Cinemas, Mollywood is a local name used by the peoples of Meerut to refer to their rural cinema industry.

The report has highlighted the Scissor industry and the challenges for this highly vulnerable industry of Meerut along with Musical instruments, Embroidery Cluster and Sports equipment industries. It also highlights the fairs and festivals of Meerut, the Azrada Gharana, cuisines &folk rendition of the music. The report also covered Hastinapur which is an archaeologically and culturally rich site. Many Sacred elements of this place have been covered in this report. The information about Pandureshwar temple, Jayanti Shakti Peeth, Karna Temple have been covered.

Images from Hastinapur:

Check out more on the INTACH ICH Archive:
https://icharchive.intach.org/Detail/collections/81