When Shadhona was granted accreditation by the UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in December 2019, it was definitely a special moment for Bangladesh. Shadhona, which had started out mainly as a dance institute, was also looking forward to taking up the herculean tasks that lay ahead of them in the coming months.
This cross-religious invocation stands as testimony to the inherent pluralism of this deltaic region, which is not just a confluence of rivers from the east, the west, and the north, but also a land that has witnessed the convergence of belief systems from far and wide. These are age-old practices that are well-documented and corroborated. In 1917, Rai Saheb Dineshchandra Sen, in his Lectures delivered to the Calcutta University asserts, Songs of Manasa Devi are sung by professional Muhammadan minstrels in Mymensingh and other districts [of Eastern Bengal].
Unfortunately, we cannot deny the fact that culture is now a primary site for struggle , with plurality, as mentioned above, and cultural diversity coming under the two-pronged threat of fundamentalist forces and the market operated by transnational capital. These threats are a matter of urgent concern. From our history, we know that the State is a cultural construct. Any threat to culture adversely effects cultural at