India has 12,000+ unprotected heritage monuments. The government actively protects fewer than 300.

Heritage activist Anil Dhirji shares 40 years of fieldwork — having personally documented 6,500 tangible heritage sites across 19 of Odisha’s 30 districts against a self-imposed 200-year threshold. With an estimated 12,000 unprotected monuments statewide versus government focus on just a handful like Konark and Lingaraj, the panel examines the limits of relying on ASI, state archaeology wings, and UNESCO. Panellists argue that a blame-government approach will never be sufficient, and that civil society must own the mission of documentation, storytelling, and grassroots conservation across eastern India.

About the speaker :
Anil Dhir reveals shocking truths about India’s vanishing cultural heritage. Discover how 12,000 unprotected monuments in Orissa alone face destruction while government protects only 300 sites. This heritage conservationist exposes the destruction of 22 ancient mothos in Puri and the Raghunandan library containing 66,000 books in six languages.
Anil Dhir documented 6,500 tangible heritage monuments across 19 districts while uncovering the tribal origins of Jagannath worship and retracing the historic Jagannath Sadak from Kolkata to Puri by bullock cart. His four decades of activism, awareness building, and advocacy work illuminate systematic neglect and cultural genocide in Eastern India’s heritage preservation.