Heritage has a powerful symbolism and it evokes strong emotions. Every heritage is related with a particular ideology. If the party in power has a different ideology than government’s decisions somehow affects the heritage and its conservation. This politics of heritage is equally practiced throughout the world. For example: – In India few pro Hindutva groups claim Taj Mahal as an old Hindu temple. According to them Taj Mahal was built upon a temple. The ruling party in the state removed the Taj Mahal from state government official tourism website because this state’s ruling party supports the pro Hindutva group. Another example is from Pakistan, where government is not providing enough funds and technical support for the conservation of sites of Indus Valley Civilization. Because it does not suit their political ideology. Heritage sites also become the key target during armed conflict. ISIS destructed plenty of ancient sites in the name of religion. Such cases are equally same for intangible heritage. Example of this is a violent protest over a release of the film in India. The Film was based on the life of a queen belonging to a certain community. That community does not want the film to be released. Thus they were vandalising movie theatres. That community has a certain percentage in the vote. So, on the name of vote bank politics, government was not taking any action against them.
Every time the ruling power changes, heritage has to suffer, either directly or indirectly. And along with it conservation suffers. Politics of heritage do not stop here. There are also several incidents where the party in power change the history syllabus taught in schools. Personalities and events related to their ideology cover the largest percentage of the syllabus. Sometime the local oral history took over the factual written historical evidence. Political nature of heritage, archaeology and practice of conservation makes the work of a conservator and restorer, which depends upon the support by government, extremely difficult.