About Intangible Cultural Heritage

The Intangible Cultural Heritage is the youngest division in INTACH and was started in June 2008. Underscoring its significance, ICH has been described as ‘the mainspring of our cultural diversity and its maintenance a guarantee for continuing creativity.’

ICH Division has since, worked on various aspects of the subject, including documentation, holding an important international seminar on endangered languages in India, dying crafts, documentation of traditional knowledge, holding of workshops and participation in zonal meetings with convenors etc.

UNESCO has described ICH as follows:
“The intangible cultural heritage means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups, and in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage… “