Prof (Retd) Sukhdev Singh
India, being a vast country with diverse population, topography, and climate, and so being its cultural heritage, the participation of the people of India to safeguard their cultural heritage is necessary in more than one way. Firstly, they are the genuine stakeholder and hence should own it; secondly, with people’s participation, the cultural heritage gains relevance in the life of the people and hence is integrated in the use and socio-economic activity; thirdly, its look after is cost-effective and sustainable; fourthly, it will encourage local and authentic workmanship for its conservation, adding diverse knowledge resources based on geographical, cultural, linguistic, and religious variations. Considering a stupendous diversity and a long disparate historical timeline with essential cultural imprints of India, its natural and human cultural heritage cannot be limited to that which is protected by the Central and State governments of India under the AMASR Act, 1958 (amended in 2010). Under the act, the 100- or more-year-old structures and sites of monumental value are protected and preserved as remnants and ruins by the central and State Governments. Most of these structures are owned by the Government and are preserved as deserted structures. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) supervises the care and conservation of monuments, sites, and remains of national importance, while the State Departments of Archaeology and Museums look after the monuments of state (regional) importance. Other structures are regulated under the Antiquities and Art Treasure Act, 1972 (Rules 1973).
The scope of these acts being limited and expensive, a colossal extant cultural heritage depleting under pressures other than the natural decay remains threatened and unprotected. Since the UNESCO 1972 World Heritage Convention, the understanding of cultural heritage has significantly changed to include a broader people-based approach, recognizing that cultural heritage is not only about grand monuments but also about common houses, shops, and other everyday structures, as well as the living traditions and environments defining the cultural fabric of communities and shaping their lives. Not just the structures as individual units but as groups of structures constituting ‘cultural landscapes’ in the streets, markets, avenues, etc. in the old townships constitute the cultural heritage. This cultural legacy is as valuable as the legacy comprising the monuments, yet it remains unprotected, i.e., not protected by any legal provisions, and under continued threat from the pressures of socio-economic conditions such as insensitive urbanization, modernization, and development policies. Some initiatives like listings of the sites, buildings, objects, and other intangible systems for a record, research, and conservation; heritage walks to sensitize and relate people to their and others’ cultural heritage; and the heritage regulations by the State Governments and local bodies to create some legal provisions for safeguarding the unprotected cultural heritage are some of the ways to safeguard the unprotected cultural heritage.
Listings are the inventories for identification, advocacy, and preservation of ‘unprotected’ cultural heritage. Such inventories together can constitute a ‘National Register of Historic Properties’ for research and action on conservation policies and regulations. The listed buildings may be graded and classified as Grade A/B/C in descending order of importance for decisions to engage in conservation. Further, as a part of the modern cities, the old townships displaying their extant architecture can be notified as ‘Cultural Landscapes’ or ‘Heritage Zones’ requiring sensitive planning in the routine or comprehensive development initiatives, listing these landscapes in the Master Plans of these cities.
To regulate development in such zones or landscapes, the State and Local Body Governments can pass heritage regulations controlling intervention in changing the ‘unprotected’ historical/old buildings and sites. To relate the people to their cultural heritage of sites, architectural structures, and living traditions, the heritage walks can show a way forward. To popularize the heritage walks, the civic amenities must be augmented, and the visual beauty must be uplifted by controlling the cacophony of advertisement and signage boards, electric, internet, and dish wire mesh. The heritage walks and conservation projects will help to boost the local economy and employment generation in craftsmanship, shopkeepers, and the service industry. Such a paradigm of ‘living’ heritage holds a mutualistic relationship with its architectural and natural environment. While protected monuments and archaeological sites must be conserved with minimal intervention as a true, pure, and perfect testimony of the past, other architectural structures and sites of significance may be preserved with flexible intervention, reclaiming their meaning, relevance, and role to act as denominators of the past in the present, where ‘past’ and ‘present’ are not the vertical binaries but a continuum from one point to the other on the same cline.
Such a relationship models schematic paradigms of ‘living heritage’ in the form of heritage lanes, heritage trails, or zones of individual heritage structures. The separation of cultural heritage from nature is impractical and artificial. The human culture owes to nature as it uses not just the elements of nature, such as sand, soil, metals, trees, flowers, etc., but also its systems, designs, procedures, etc., like changing the forms of material, colouring the changed forms, and varying the patterns. Such an understanding of cultural heritage builds on the systemic arrangements in continuity and relevance. Set up in 1984 to evolve as a think tank and practical resource bank for developing the systems of safeguarding ‘unprotected’ cultural heritage, the Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage (INTACH) has been tasked with engaging the people of India in this pursuit by enrolling the citizens as members, on the one hand, and by engaging the skilled human resources, on the other. INTACH has been listing 50 and more-year buildings of architectural, historical, archaeological, or aesthetic value, planning heritage walks, and advocating for heritage regulations. It has been working in complementarity with other organizations and individuals rather than in competition with them.
(The author is Vice-Chairman, Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage, New Delhi)
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