 "India's disappearing monuments")
Co-incidentally on a day when a survey by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has found 24 monuments around Delhi and other parts of the country untraceable, and 12 monuments submerged under reservoirs, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture has recommended that a new authority to protect ancient monuments in the country be created. The merits of this suggestion can be debated, but first a glimpse into ASI's glaring ineptness as an institution that was formed to preserve and protect India's rich, varied and abundant architectural and cultural heritage for posterity.
For starters, the ASI's mandate isn't daunting - it must only protect any monument or site which is 100 years old and is considered to be of 'national importance' - that's roughly 3,500 monuments scattered across the country. If that sounds like a large number, you only need to consider the fact that Delhi alone is filled with more than 1200 ruins dating back not a hundred, but a thousand years - a number rivaled only by a historic city like Rome.
From Mughal tombs to ancient mosques and beautiful old structures still flaunting the perfect symmetry and form of Islamic architecture with their latticed windows, grand pillars, coiled domes and arched balconies, Delhi is dotted with relics of the past at every corner. Sadly, all crumbling under the weight of their history and eclipsed, by towering residential buildings, glass facades, electricity lines and the desire for more utilitarian, modern spaces as is the case across other urban landscapes in the country. What's more, if the capital's Islamic splendor has been destroyed beyond recognition, plans are now underway to also bulldoze its imperial past - the Lutyens' bungalows.
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The ASI, given its narrow sanction, budget, human resource and technical constraints - cannot be realistically expected to be held accountable for the safeguarding of all such structures - a total of 1 lakh in number across the country according to some estimates. But it is only reasonable to expect it to carry out its limited responsibility towards the national monuments.
Sadly though, it has been found grossly inept at carrying out even this job, engaged instead in activities like digging for imagined gold to help finance the country's current account gap.. A CAG report has found 92 of the 1,655 ASI monuments that it recently surveyed 'missing' - much higher than the official government figure of 24. What's more the numbers could swell further if the survey is completed for all the 3,500 odd monuments under ASI's management. A report in the Tribune suggests many of these fell prey to greedy builders, while even those that haven't gone missing are struggling for the want of funds, expertise and bogged down by 150 year old rules that are hopelessly out of sync with new best practices.
While money, manpower, lack of expertise and archaic rules are definitely constraints, Abha Lambah, conservation architect and editor of Custodians of the Past - 150 Years of ASI points to a larger mindset problem that's leading to this slow destruction of our heritage. Departments like civic planning and conservation, which should ideally work in tandem are often at loggerheads with each other in our country, working towards conflicting goals. This leads to 'development', or pressures of population for instance being given precedence over preservation of history and instances of builders grabbing heritage sites for expansion or unauthorized activities being allowed on the grounds of historic monuments.
"We need a multi-pronged approach to preserving our past - a greater dialogue between archaeologists, the tourism industry, urban planning departments, civic infrastructure bodies - all of whom need to co-ordinate and work together under one forum to bring out the best of history. We also need to integrate areas like graphics, advertising, visual communications, branding, ticketing under one forum - this is part of the grammar adopted by countries across the world and we need to catch up" says Lambah
While crediting ASI for doing seminal work in the area of archaeology given the limitations under which it has functioned, she adds that merely allocating more budgets won't solve the problem. "The very fact that it is called the Archaeological Survey of India shows the inherent limitations in its scope of functioning. From that point of view a new body that facilitates a larger role for ASI with a bigger bandwidth of functions and more engagement with civil society to strengthen the heritage ecosystem is not a bad idea."
Needless to say this must supplement the more urgent need for capacity building (there are currently only archeologists & only one full time conservation architect with ASI), recruitment (many ASI staff have been working on temporary basis for 20 years) and comprehensive, regular audits of the monuments under ASI's fold so that they don't 'disappear' like they have been off late.