Letter from India: Growth threatens thousands of heritage sites By Amelia Gentleman Thursday, January 3, 2008 c/o IHT

Letter from India: Growth threatens thousands of heritage sites
By Amelia Gentleman

Thursday, January 3, 2008
DELHI: The announcement by the Indian Culture Ministry this week of a new drive to count up all of the nation's monuments and sites of archaeological interest hints that the government's previous approach had a certain cavalier complacency.

Explaining the need for the government's first census of historic buildings and antiquities, Culture Minister Ambika Soni warned that the country risked losing a number of these sites if swift action was not taken.

Last year, amid considerable embarrassment, she was forced to admit that 35 theoretically protected monuments had already disappeared because of rapid urbanization and development - 12 of them in Delhi, not far from her own office.

Her proposed creation of both a National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities and a National Heritage Site Commission, outlined on New Year's Eve, has, however, dismayed some campaigners for the preservation of the nation's heritage, raising as it does the prospect of yet more panels and committees to address an increasingly urgent problem.

"Do we need a commission to do what already should have been done? No," said A.G.K. Menon, who heads the Delhi section of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, a nongovernmental organization also known by its acronym, Intach.

With more than half a million people moving each year into an already-bursting Delhi, the pressure to build new homes is eating into every available space. Despite existing laws aimed at protecting heritage sites, green areas and stretches of land around monuments are shrinking. The same process can be seen in every city across India.

Well-known monuments in the capital and elsewhere are generally well protected. It is the less celebrated sites that are at risk.

"Urbanization automatically creates pressure," said Culture Secretary Abhijit Sengupta, the senior civil servant in the ministry. "Our archaeologists have to be more alert and more efficient. Management of these monuments is becoming a big challenge."

Under regulations dating to 1992, new construction is barred within 100 meters, or 330 feet, of the 3,600 historically significant buildings looked after by the government's Archaeological Survey of India. The rules, however, are not consistently enforced, and the ASI does not have the manpower to monitor all infringements.

"The law is never the issue, unfortunately it is the implementation of the law that is the problem," said Jagmohan, a former urban development minister who goes by only one name. He said Indian enforcement agencies lacked the will to apply the law to fight vested interests - politicians, developers and property dealers.

"Urbanization itself doesn't damage the monuments," he said. "It is the illegalities that do the damage."

Take the Khirki Masjid, a 14th-century mosque in a prosperous part of south Delhi, fortresslike with its thick brick walls, admired by conservationists for its latticed windows, minarets and domes. Despite its architectural significance and protected status, this is not a building that attracts many tourists. Officials have turned a blind eye to the appearance of several new five-story apartment blocks, painted in garish yellows and orange, on the fringes of the site, their ornate wrought-iron balconies edging over the fence marking the mosque's perimeter.

"It is a very beautiful building, but a large number of residential buildings have come up around it in the past 20 years," said the Intach chairman, S.K. Misra. Despite the violations of the 100-meter rule, no action has been taken.

"Political factors may be operating," Misra said. "The ASI lacks the enforcement mechanism and the funds."

With an annual budget of 3 billion rupees, or about $76 million, the ASI has just $21,000 to spend on each of its 3,600 monuments a year. Given that the Taj Mahal and other major sites suck up much of that funding, many are left with very little. There is a stark disconnect between the exemplary preservation work carried out on India's premier tourist attractions, such as the Taj and Humayun's Tomb in Delhi, and the neglect of more obscure places.

The government is increasingly concerned about the fate of the many other monuments not embraced by the ASI. Not only do current heritage regulations extend protection to only a highly selective number of monuments, they also do not apply at all to areas of natural beauty or to buildings under 100 years old. Officials at the ministry say a full list of sites in need of preservation would run into hundreds of thousands.

There may be a new source of help at hand - both for India and other nations undergoing a massive wave of new construction.

Concerned by the pressures the rapid pace of urbanization has placed on heritage sites in developing countries, national trust organizations from around the world met in Delhi in December to set up an international support group, aimed at helping nations protect their cultural monuments.

"It comes from a realization that we are so much stronger when we work together," said Simon Molesworth, the chairman of the new body, the International National Trusts Organization, which unites 45 countries. Molesworth is a former chairman of the Australian Council of National Trusts.

"The greatest need is coming from some of the developing countries, where, in their enthusiasm to develop their nations, they have found that they are losing their heritage," he said. "The organization has come about in response to requests from these countries, who are saying, 'We need your help.' "

India's own national trust, Intach, founded in 1984, is already very well-established, but Misra, its chairman, said that, in addition to soliciting assistance from colleagues abroad, it would be helping other countries in Asia and Eastern Europe that are experiencing rapid development.

Offering advice and expertise, the organization hopes to help countries avoid errors like those, for example, made by Singapore, which destroyed so much of its past in its rush to modernize and now is trying to recreate its heritage to enhance its appeal to tourists. Rather than attempting to take on the government and big business, the organization aims to persuade the public to fight for the preservation of its culture.

"It is more about changing mind sets, so that people are not so passive," Molesworth said.