Our double standards on
heritage.
We are a nation of
individuals with collective indifference and selective amnesia.
Its manifestation is in
almost all domains of life. Here I would like to dwell upon two such episodes
one a cunning divorce and the other a confused love affair with the past
especially with regard to certain structures.
Cunning divorce- the result
of collective indifference and selective amnesia.
Recently I was shown the
photos taken of the ancient sculptures, some pertaining to 2nd
Century B.C and some pertaining 4th, 5th and 6th
century A.D kept in pathetic condition in the museum at Chennai. I went in, saw them and
came out drenched in sweat and tears.
How much respect we show to
our ancient sculptures, especially those of the Vijayanagara, Chola and Chera
empires? There is no air conditioning, no
glass casing/covering to protect them from dust and miscreants, too much of
bright lights, no CCTV cameras, they were perched precariously on the window
sill like small strips of jutting walls of pillars and held tight by rusted
nails holding rustic clamps, surrounded by electric vibrations and extreme
noise from old wall mounted fans. See picture below.
Then there was a very ancient
stone supposed to contain some ancient
script of Grantha which was exposed to miscreants to bleed them with engraving
of all their love messages with nails on these old harmless stones [ ridiculously
in an age of SMS and Twitter on android mobile sets]
Then as we moved on to the
section with massive skeletons of dinosaur and elephants we encounter so much of dust and dirt that makes us wonder
whether it is the skeleton of elephant or skeleton with elephant’s skin because
the dirt gives a grayish coating.
See the two photos below
Confused love affair with the
past-the result of collective indifference and selective amnesia.
Whereas the white colored
wonderfully maintained Victoria Museum in Calcutta stands testimony to our
greater love for our colonial bosses than our ancient kings who incidentally gave
us some of the world’s greatest architectural splendors and sculptures whereas
the Victorian architecture is said to be a bad imitation and poor attempt to
mix styles read here http://www.historydiscussion.net/essay/the-european-influence-on-india/1367.
There is always lot of
politics behind architecture
There is in India a group of neo
snobs who are very fond of publicizing more about protecting mostly British era
constructions of the Victorian era, imperial architecture as a great heritage. There is nothing wrong
in anyone having any love affair with anything as long as it does not hurt
others or cause damage to others or impede overall progress and development.
Where is justice? Or what is
justice when it comes to land in India.
Is any political party
serious in addressing these two issues in India.
1.
The status now.
If you have encroached on public property,
especially roads, government lands, lands owned by public sector institutions
etc. Then, if they [the rightful owners of these lands] require you to move
away, to widen roads or build their own facility, you can approach a lawyer and
get a stay. It is as simple as that.
What
needs to be done?
Actually the governments must be empowered
and the courts must ask the encroachers and unlawful occupants, hitherto, to
pay a few lakhs or crores as unauthorized occupation charges as per present
market value for the past 20 years or asked to vacate within one month.
Those
who aid and abet this crime.
Will the lawyers who ask for a stay and
the judges who allow it will they accept the same justice if people illegally
occupied their own premises [their properties, courts etc]?
2.
The status now.
Greater injustice befalls on those who
[either individuals/institutions/corporate houses] happen to own any old
building notably of the 17th or 18th century British
architecture. There are some buildings, especially those that have been in very
dilapidated conditions in prime locations with high population and intense
activity, have become, naturally old, unusable, and have been declared as
unsafe to occupy and hence remain unoccupied and therefore the only sensible
option left would be to demolish them and allow new construction in those
places.
The
culprits
But what happens is some vested interest
groups/outfits which have been using/occupying those premises either with or
without paying rent, influence the media and write saying these buildings are
heritage buildings and follow it up with a litigation where by the court
instructs the owners, even if it involves spending a few lakhs or crores by the
owners, to ensure to protect those unoccupied dilapidated buildings of the
colonial architects.
Those
who aid and abet this crime.
What justice is this for the courts to ask
the owners to spend a few lakhs and crores and protect them? Is it not the duty
of the courts to ask the litigants to do that? Or shouldn’t the courts ask the
government to do that after paying proportionate compensation to the owners of
the property? Or shouldn’t it be the onus of the judges/ groups/ lobbies/ media
houses that are so keen on protecting the great heritage to bear the expenses
for maintaining such structures for which they shout their lungs out and write
reams of praise?
Would
these heritage loving lobbies pay for damages that these constructions may cause even in the event
of a low intensity earth quake?
Social and economic
imperatives
Heritage and
Metro rail
Here
is the script of what my daughter spoke in the inter school oratorical
competition for Madras Week celebration two years back held at PSBB K.K. Nagar
and she got the first prize. The Topic given was
Heritage and
Metro rail
Heritage
as a terminology has acquired a wide range of connotations. So, at first we
need to clearly define what we mean by heritage?
In
general we all have scant respect combined with varying degrees of ignorance
and indifference towards many really culturally, socially, environmentally and
scientifically significant aspects, value systems and facets of heritage and
the symbols that represent such heritage.
Heritage
in brief includes and involves the full range of our inherited traditions,
monuments, objects, and culture. Most
importantly, it is the range of contemporary activities, meanings, value
systems and behaviors that they impact.
However,
going by the topic it is obvious that we are talking about a sudden new found
concern and care for some old, dilapidated, mostly unused or unusable or
misused constructions mostly built in the past few decades at the maximum a
century ago. Constructions mostly made of combinations of brick, lime stone,
clay etc. Of course, there are some exceptions to this, wherein, such old
buildings are used for some meaningful activities and they do stand as symbols
of some activity. Let me stress they are symbols and not the intrinsically
significant part of such activity.
Constructions
which were older than a century and a half are mostly of solid rocks, stones
and hence do not get jolted or spoiled even when they get submerged under water
like the structures at Mahapalipuram.
This
sudden concern is purely due to some vested interests, ideological affinities,
political expediency and purely personal and material gains.
We
all must approach with sanity anything
based on facts, inevitable situational requirements, the relative changes and
adjustments that we have to make towards such requirements and in some cases
even a hard decision or a sacrifice if one may use such big words.
The facts are:-
1] Everything has an expiry date, including our life.
2]
Infrastructural development is inevitable if we are to promote economy, trade
and enable movement of goods and transportation of a constantly growing
population.
3] If
we remain as luddites [those opposing change] then we will remain an
economically backward state/country.
4]
What could we do if these buildings, mostly those built of brick, lime stone
and clay and existing in dilapidated conditions get damaged or come crushing to
the ground due to earth quake, severe cyclonic storm, sudden floods, heavy
rainfall etc or get destroyed in some fire.
5] In
most cases the activities that are taking place can be easily relocated
elsewhere in the interest of growth of economy.
We
must all remember one thing that the only thing that does not change is change
and everything else is subject to change.
Heritage has very little to do with the past, but is
actually more about how we conceptualize the future.
Objects of heritage are the things we pay
attention to because they’re still meaningful to us, not always because they
tell great stories about the past but because we use them to tell stories about
ourselves.
Practices of heritage are
customs and habits which, although intangible, also inform who we are as
groups, and help to create our shared social memory.
We
use objects of heritage (monuments, buildings, sites, landscapes) and practices
of heritage (languages, music, community celebrations) to shape our ideas about
who we are as nations, communities, and individuals. What we define as
‘heritage’ is constantly changing in the light of the present as we look to the
past to imagine our future.
So
in the interest of future and our own progress we must be willing to exchange a
few symbols of heritage in the form of some old buildings.
We
read in history books that how passive spectators we were when all our rich
cultural heritages were plundered by invaders. We ourselves have made lots of
changes to our value systems, and symbols of heritage for various reasons.
If
time permits I can go into the relative importance and even inevitability of
metro and mono rails……2013
Photos by B.Srividya
