Modernity and Heritage

In the United Kingdom, which has many historical structures, the buildings which are listed or which lie within a conservation area are protected by law. Any repairs, alterations and modifications that are required to be done are meant to be done by firms and architects who are qualified in restoration work and who will keep the historical and heritage aspect in mind while undertaking repairs. Such a requirement has actually put an enormous burden on the traditional landed aristocracy, who without their feudal incomes to under write their expenses find it difficult to maintain the heritage status on many of the buildings that are part of the estate.

In India, we face an unfortunately different situation. Although we may have as many and more ancient monuments and heritage sites to be proud of and preserve, our priorities are different. Instead of preserving our culture and history as living reminders from the past, we are busy being pragmatic and conserving the present instead of the past. This is sad.

The Indian Express reports that in Delhi, old buildings and structures are being mercilessly razed by builder’s mafias so that they can build residential flats there and sell them make a fast buck. Delhi is effectively today a city of migrants, a city without roots or a soul and the only place that one might find some vestiges of it are in the old walled city of Old Delhi. Although Delhi as a city is full of ruins and most of these ruins are of huge historical value, the heritage buildings of the walled city of old Delhi have a special charm of their own because it is a living and breathing city, unlike the ruins of Tughlakabad or Mehrauli. 295

The question will never be fully settled- is the past more important than the present and in terms of our planning, priorities and budgetary allocation. Ultimately in a country like India, a developing country, never mind its current economic boom, the choice would be dictated by budgetary constraints and compromises necessitated by our huge population and inward migration into Delhi. If the city is not to be swathed by slums and shanties even more than it already is, vacant space needs to be cleared to make space for planned low cost housing, to that extent; some compromises might need to be made with preserving heritage sites, even though this might be sad. We don’t have a cash rich National Trust like in the UK to own, preserve, maintain and even make some profits out of these precious sites. The supposedly autonomous, government funded INTACH whose web site is even hosted on government servers is a very poor country cousin. 453