Sunday Reading

New Delhi, 16 February 2010

Preserving Heritage

TIME FOR “INCLUSIVE” STRATEGY

By Suraj Saraf

Tremendous effort has been made over the years to preserve our invaluable Indian heritage. However, instead of effecting any improvement in the situation, conditions have turned from bad to worse. So much so that it would be no exaggeration to underscore that precious Indian heritage has become hostage to smugglers and encroachers.

The facts are truly disturbing. About 249 monuments, protected by the Archeological Survey of India, the principal official agency to protect and promote national heritage, and by State departments of archeology, had been encroached upon (euphemism for disappeared), according to a Parliamentary Standing Committee, headed by CPM leader Sitaram Yechury.

The Committee had said: “The case of vanishing of our monuments is a dangerous process which if not controlled in time may lead to a situation where we will be left with only a few monuments as symbol of our culture and traditions. Vanishing of monuments should be stopped with all resources at our disposal.”

Likewise, the Vice-President of the World Council of Museum, Amareshwar Gala, had lamented: “If I were in power in the Indian government, I would declare a state of emergency for the cultural property.” Clearly, he was referring to the increasing cases of smuggling of artifacts from India. This has evoked an interesting comment from an expert, who warned that if this trend continued, Indians will be worshipping only fake gods in the temples or they will have to go to London, Paris or Washington to worship the genuine gods!

According to INTACH (Indian Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) there were 70,000 monuments in India of which only about 10,000 had been taken under protection by the ASI and the archeology departments in different States. The rest 60,000 were at the mercy of nature and needed immediate attention.

This is the dismal state of affairs despite the fact that Article 51 of the Constitution talks about protecting and preserving our composite national culture and Article 49 relates to protection of monuments, places and objects of national importance.

Apparently, as a desperate remedy, the ASI has decided now to outsource the protection of monuments to private security agencies and had invited bids. However, one wonders how the ASI bigwigs, who had always advanced lack of adequate resources as the main reason for being unable to afford protection of the monuments, would find the resources to afford this private protection.

Moreover, this goes against the opinion expressed by the Union Home Ministry, which was not in favour of handing over the protection of the monuments to private security agencies. Sadly, there is no uniform security system or guidelines for the monuments and that most of the present ASI staff is unaware of their duties and security procedures due to lack of training.

The other problem is that while the ASI tends to opt for private security to solve its problem, the latter is on contract for only three years. Since there is no proper chain of command, the private guards feel they are above ASI officers. Also, the guards have the same problem as the ASI watch and ward staff-- they are often not trained or equipped to man these monuments.

The Home Ministry shares a similar opinion i.e. the private security personnel are neither professionally competent nor adequately trained for the task and also do not have weapons/arms and metal detectors. Visitors are frisked manually but women visitors would be spared for want of lady officers.

An interesting suggestion appears to be gaining ground and a consensus i.e. the community must be involved in this task. However, both education and awareness would be the primary requisites and so far there no viable process has been suggested. But two suggestions made by President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should deserve attention and perhaps even immediate implementation.

Inaugurating a global conference on Conservation of Heritage in New Delhi last year, Singh observed that awareness should be increased to preserve heritage structures. He stated: “Our cultural properties have been exposed to various threats--natural and manmade.  Over the centuries, conquerors, explorers, colonizers, vandals and thieves had added their bit to the vagaries of nature and the passage of times.” And, in developing countries like India, while attention was mainly focused on the immediate challenges of survival and development, little thought was given to larger issues such as culture and its preservation.

At the same time there was a word of caution: “One must not get trapped into this binary choice between development and conservation of heritage. The two must go together. We need strategies and policies that facilitate such a walk on both the legs.” A step forward would be to garner people’s involvement in the development and conservation of our heritage. Conservation should not be seen as an elitist pre-occupation. Coordinated efforts should be made along with comprehensive planning of the local areas’ plans with participation from the local community.

In fact, some would opine that it was wrong to suggest that additional resources were needed for the preservation of heritage sites. What was more important was the mindset, a value system and culture that respects the past and wishes to learn from it. Indeed, involvement of the community should be viewed as the most viable solution for safeguarding the country’s heritage.

In this regard, President Patil has strongly pleaded for giving priority to art and its appreciation in the education system. During the presentation ceremony of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards she had said: “In our present education system much priority is not accorded to art and its appreciation. A change in this approach is necessary. It would require efforts on behalf of art practitioners to make teaching interesting and the education system to accord priority to performing arts.”

One option that readily comes to mind is for the Akademi to explore alternatives such as setting up a digital library to provide people easy access to its archival material, which would encourage studies on Indian culture. Indeed, it is this inclusive approach that may ensure the safety of this treasure of rich ancient art heritage in a vast country like India. Let us not waste any more time. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)