heritage desecration?
BY NAYANJOT LAHIRI
‘I T IS no easy matter to tell the truth, pure and simple,” said David
Hackett Fischer in his endlessly amusing Historians’ Fallacies, for “truths
are never pure, and rarely simple.” Consider the reply that was given on
August 3 by Minister of Culture Ambika Soni to a Parliament question about
the destruction of monuments. The question was asked by Rasheed Masood, who
wanted information about their disappearance, the role of land mafias in
abetting their destruction, and about the corrective steps that had been
taken to protect the surviving heritage.
Insofar as precise details go, there is candour and honesty in Soni’s reply.
Apparently, 35 ‘centrally protected monuments’ in different parts of India,
from Arunachal Pradesh to Karnataka, are no longer traceable. The
‘disappeared’ monuments are wide-ranging – medieval guns and British
graveyards, rock carvings and temples, kos minars and tombs, inscriptions
and siege batteries. The chief culprits are identified by her as “rapid
urbanisation, construction of multistoreyed residential and commercial
buildings and implementation of development projects”.
This may indeed be the best information that was made available to the
minister. But it is neither the simple, straightforward truth, nor is it
good enough to answer the question. For one, the query concerned historical
monuments, not only centrally protected ones. The number of historical
structures and sites that have disappeared is far, far larger than the 35
structures listed in the reply. Several hundred unprotected sites and
monuments have and continue to be destroyed at an unstoppable pace. Anyone
with a personal familiarity of the Indian archaeological landscape is aware
of this, and while it is true that these have frequently disappeared because
of the reasons that Soni has stated, simultaneously, there are other factors
too.
Encroachments and destruction have been initiated in many cases by religious
lobbies. The high profits of the antiquities trade, protected by mafias of
various kinds, have resulted in destruction as well. An impressive array of
outstanding early terracottas from Chandraketugarh in Bengal are today with
private collectors in the West. Enamul Haque’s beautifully illustrated
Chandraketu garh: A Treasure House of Bengal Terracottas showcases the
wealth that has been smuggled out of this centrally protected site. These
terracottas could only have been dug out in such large quantities because of
unmindful guardians and policymakers. Destruction in this case has happened
because only a miniscule portion of the ancient city ruins were protected by
legislation.
In several instances, monuments and sites have disappeared because threats
to them have been ignored by their institutional guardian, the
Archaeological Survey of India. More than 20 years ago, a former director
general of the National Museum, R.C. Sharma, pointed this out in print in
relation to Govindnagar in Mathura. Apparently, when Sharma became curator
of the Mathura museum, the large imposing mound at Govindnagar was more or
less intact. “Repeated efforts were made to persuade the authorities of the
Archaeological Survey of India to declare the entire land as protected area
and to start excavations at the earliest.” Nobody in the ASI appears to have
showed any concern.
Instead, the local housing society “got its project of house building
approved and the devastation picked up at a terrific speed. Three hundred
labourers were engaged for levelling the spot rapidly”. The files of the ASI
must certainly contain the details of such destruction. They are also
mentioned in many prominent publications. If proper statistics were provided
to the minister, Soni’s statement in Parliament would have been even more
sensational than it was.
Even in the case of ‘protected’ monuments, there are at least three
unmentioned factors that have contributed to their ‘disappearance’. First,
if developers and land mafias have successfully destroyed monuments,
correspondingly this means that the ASI is powerless to act as their
institutional guardian. This requires explanation.
If we look at the Act under which ‘protected’ monuments are governed, there
is a comprehensive legal framework in place. One of the sections of the 1958
Act states that in the protected area no person can “carry on any mining,
quarrying, excavating, blasting or any operation of a like nature”. Again,
the rules of 1959 under this Act deal with all kinds of issues such as
“access to protected monuments”, “construction and other operations in
protected areas”, “excavations in protected areas”, and even “copying and
filming of protected monuments”. Where does this lead us? Simply, to the
conclusion that laws and rules, of the kind that are mentioned in the
Parliament reply, are unlikely to prevent disappearance of monuments in the
absence of adequate vigil on the part of those who superintend monuments.
Second, even where the ASI has been vigilant, its officers have been unable
to prevent unlawful encroachments. The state of officially protected temples
in Bhubaneswar shows that hundreds of FIRs filed against violations have not
been acted upon by the police. They are, in fact, unlikely to be acted upon
if political heavyweights continue to be among the prime movers and shakers
in heritage desecration. The pro tected status of the 13th century Rameshwar
temple did not prevent an influential local minister from hosting his
daughter’s reception there. Nor was anyone prosecuted even though this case
was reported in India Today in 2000.
Finally, some 19th century monuments listed by the minister have been
deliberately destroyed or dismantled because of government policy. In 1949,
the British government made an announcement of policy to the effect that it
could not provide full-scale financial commitment for the maintenance of its
cemeteries in parts of its former empire. Consequently, when local Christian
organisations failed to provide support, these were to “revert to nature in
a dignified and decent manner”, a polite way of saying that they were to be
abandoned. Again, after Independence, a few British memorials were
considered as being degrading to the nation and were deliberately removed.
The statue of John Nicholson, which Soni specifically mentions, was one of
them. It used to stand near Kashmiri Gate but was removed and taken to
Ireland with the consent of the Indian government. It now stands in front of
Nicholson’s old school in Dugannon in Northern Ireland.
It is bad enough that India’s monuments continue to disappear. What adds
insult to the shameful spectacle of a defenceless disappearing past is that
the State itself does not seem to have reliable information about either the
scale or the character of the missing monuments. Surely, there is an urgent
need to compile a national register of sites and antiquities, one that can
form the basis of a report on the ‘state of India’s archaeological heritage’.
This register ought to encompass the heritage that is lying in the public
and private spheres abroad.
For a nation that is so proud of its past, it is time that its citizens
insisted on a comprehensive report of this kind. Assessments of disappearing
forest cover and other kinds of environmental degradation are regularly made
and help articulate legislation and policy. If this exercise is extended to
monuments and sites, it would help generate pressure on those who are paid
to preserve our past.
The writer teaches archaeology at the Department of History, Delhi
University
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