I'd say from a mathematical perspective, 0-based indexing makes more sense, simply because the Peano axioms start with 0 for the natural numbers. Also, thinking of overflows makes more sense this way, because it's just modular arithmetic.
As I said, these places are maintained by the village, so it doesn't fall in the police's jurisdiction. Even if the police were to be involved, I would imagine they still wouldn't be effective because of corruption, apathy, etc.
I'm from Meghalaya and the thing that annoys me most is the irreverence that tourists have for these structures and their nearby surroundings. A lot of tourists would litter and step into places they're not supposed to, and make a living hell for the people who maintain these tourist sites. Almost all tourist sites in Meghalaya (especially outside of urban areas) are maintained by the 'shnong' (village) and although they do get some revenue from tourists, it's not necessarily their only source of income. Maybe they should make these places prohibitively expensive to enter so that people would hopefully care more.
*edit: I should add that the entry fee is usually dirt cheap, even free for some places