Professor Narayani Gupta is an urban historian and works on the history of Delhi. She taught history at Indraprastha College for Women, before joining Jamia Millia Islamia in 1988. She was a founder-member of the Conservation Society of Delhi and has been a member of the Delhi Urban Art Commission. Professor Gupta is the author of Delhi between Two Empires: 1803-1931- Society, Government and Urban Growth, OUP, 1981; Delhi Then & Now, Roli Books, 2007; and has co-authored Beato’s Delhi: 1857 and Beyond, 1997, Penguin, 2011.
Kunal Chauhan: What are the most important issues that Delhi faces today in terms of conservation of its rich heritage of more than a thousand years?
Prof. Gupta: Land is now seen largely as real estate, so any areas which are not built upon have invisible eyes keeping a watch on them. The problems with regard to the monuments of Delhi and the Heritage Buildings of Delhi are different. ‘Monuments’ are protected. Isn the easy-going days of the 1920s, and even when we were young in the 1950s, there was no need to demarcate boundaries. They were just very beautiful parts of the landscape. Now the area around the monument is under threat unless it is enclosed as for instance at Humayun’s Tomb . Anybody can come and build there. There are rules to stop them doing it, but once something has been done, it takes forever to correct the wrong. Therefore, the most important problem is that the visibility of these monuments is now under serious threat.
Kunal Chauhan: Okay. Do you think that the existing heritage structures of the city should be handed over to corporate groups who could perhaps spend more money for the upkeep at a time when the organisations like the ASI fail to do so due to the lack of funds and manpower, not forgetting to mention the layers and layers of bureaucracy? What are the pros and cons of this and according to you what should be the way forward?
Prof. Gupta: This is an extremely important question. For a long time, the Archeological Survey had a gravitas to it, a status which made us see them as not only as protectors but also owners of these structures. The ASI was comfortably undertaking repairs to these buildings, and there didn’t seem to be any great pressure on them. In the 1950s and ‘60s, my family enjoyed going out into the rural areas of south Delhi (as they were then) and picnicking next to the monuments. They were clean, inviting, uncrowded and didn’t have a lot of tourists – it was absolutely beautiful, an exhilarating change from densely-built Shahjahanabad or formal New Delhi. That is something that has gone forever, we’ll never get that back. And for the ASI the work of keeping monuments in good shape has become that much harder.
Together with this, there is the problem that the ASI has come down in status. It has been downsized to becoming a little subdepartment of a ministry. It should have been standing tall and proud, as one of the great institutions which we are proud of. This is a great tragedy, because they feel oppressed and criticised, and become self-defensive. For the last half-century, there were two or three things that kept being reported in newspapers, one being the neglect of some monument or the other. So ‘neglected’ became an adjective for ‘monuments’ just as ‘problems’ became the noun that went with ‘urban’.Another phrase that was becoming very common was ‘lesser-known monuments.’ This seems to imply smaller structures which are not protected. So, as the urbanisation process moved outward from Shahjahanabad and New Delhi, there was a sense of unease about the historic older cities.
Things changed after a generation. From the 1980s there was a significant shift in perceptions, a transition from the passive to the active. Three initiatives date from here.
One – It was possible to discuss what Delhi should look like, how it should be presented. To add to this, there was a government under Indira Gandhi that was very anxious to present ‘Indian heritage’- this was the time of the Festivals of India – not a new idea, because the British rulers had held Exhibitions, from 1851, where they replicated whole havelis, costumes and furniture. In the 1980s Festivals of India were organised in England, America, Russia and France. But they were one-day wonders. There was no sequel in the form of greater attention to long term conservation. It was also at this time that the Indira Gandhi Centre was set up; even before the buildings came up, Kapila Vatsyayan, who was a dynamo in these matters was able to push through a wonderful exhibition called ‘Kham,’ which occupied a large part of Rabindra Bhavan Complex, honouring monuments of India, and of the world.
Two – This was also the time when UNESCO extended its mandate, and ICOMOS ( International Commission for Monuments and Sites) was set up, holding annual conferences. In 1964 the historic Charter of Venice was drawn up, which encouraged people to reconstruct destroyed landscapes. This initiative came from Venice, from Europe, where whole cities had been destroyed. In India only some monuments had to be restored. In India the response came from architects not so much by archaeologists. Then somebody noticed the National Trust of England and wanted the same to be established in India by the name of the Indian National Trust of Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). But there is an enormous difference between INTACH and the English National Trust. The English National Trust is the third-largest landowner in England, next to the Queen and the Church. An enormous number of properties had been sold to them by the aristocrats who could not keep them up, and they didn’t have the money so they sold it to them. So, now if you go to England, if you have the money to buy the membership of the National Trust, you get free entry to the most magnificent houses, all set up with the original furniture and all of that. It’s fantastic. Our Indian National Trust doesn’t compare with this as it doesn’t have any property except one small building in Banaras. A document was prepared by the Indian architect A.G.K. Menon, in 2004 – “The Charter for Unprotected Heritage.” These things are worth retrieving and thinking about. There are two kinds of unprotected heritage- the smaller monuments which the ASI does not bother about or cannot handle and the more recent buildings like domestic havelis and the British official buildings which are not under the ASI. So INTACH began a program based on this. Three – INTACH was set up in 1984, the Conservation Society of Delhi in 1985. This was an initiative of a few people who were part of Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay’s Environment Group’ – she was distressed about what was happening in Delhi, and wanted people to start thinking about it. One sub-group was about monuments; it was later renamed as ‘The Conservation Society of Delhi’(CSD). We started heritage walks in Delhi. Today you are spoilt for choice, there are so many people in the business. That created a sort of interest in these monuments – something that the ASI could have done by itself but didn’t. They knew so much more than we did. Instead, they just had their official guides. I think there should be a public-private partnership and a way for linking the private agency or a sponsor with the ASI. The best example for this is the role of the Aga Khan Trust in Humayun’s Tomb complex. After some years, the Trust would hand over its obligations to the ASI and it will be a challenge for the ASI to keep up the same level of detailed maintenance which they have done. You can’t say the Lal Qila (Red Fort) now belongs to the Dalmias. The ASI needs to regain its position, its importance and its place in India, instead of caving in and saying they cannot manage it. I would say that for the Lal Qila, we should have a permanent Lal Qila Trust, with historians, archaeologists and artisans as permanent members. The Trust can run it, the ASI can be the technical owner, the Dalmias the facilitators.. This is not to push out the public and bring in the private agencies only but it must operate as a collaboration between the two.
Kunal Chauhan: Very well said Ma’am. I believe it becomes important to have an essential and equal partnership between the public and the private and must not, as you mentioned, be owned by anybody else because that cannot be a way forward, certainly with the monuments of that level and with so much significance. Because we are talking about monuments and their preservation, what do you think is a better way of preserving monuments; by keeping them in their natural state and making bare minimum repairs since even the destruction of a monument, partial or otherwise, has its own history or do you think it is better to use modern repair techniques extensively to restore it to its pristine form?
Prof. Gupta: We will never know what the monument’s “pristine form” was because, for that, you need to have the same kind of movements of people around and in it, the same bird song, the river and roads as they used to be – you willl never get that. But you can get near it. There are very clearly two schools of thought on this, after the Charter of Venice; there are those who are of the view that ruins should be ruins, while the other group says we should get back to what we call its pristine beauty from trying to infer the whole from the part. It seems a non-negotiable point. On each side there are people who get high blood pressure arguing their point. I am on the side of repair, to disclose its beauty, but no more. There should be no major renovation, which is the Indian tradition.
I’ll give you the best example-you are from the hills, In Himachal, I do know that there were exquisite temples made of wood. A local millionaire came along and wanted to beautify them. The word ‘beautify’ is most dangerous – what is done is a testimony to the ugliness that wealth can generate. The millionaire knocked down all the wood and put up good cement structures, plastered them and made them totally ugly. Now if that was his idea of beauty he could have built new temples. It is possible to supplement, but there should be total discouragement of supplanting and replacing. Let modern buildings be in modern style, and let the older ones be respected for what they were.
Go and look at the Tomb of Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan – the dome till a few years ago was just rubble, because the marble was vandalised decades ago; has now been covered partially with marble. When Abdul Rahim built it, he certainly did not have it covered with rubble, there was a facing beyond the rubble – there was marble which was removed or taken away. So, we will never get back to anything ‘original’. We are getting back to what we saw ten years or twenty years or a hundred years ago, whereas this is a monument built in the 17th century.
So, there is no need to get over-orthodox about keeping ruins as ruins because ruins are usually the result of sheer vandalism. In India there is rampant vandalism of things that are not owned by anybody . Would you imagine going into Ashoka Hotel and pulling things apart? But you will prise chiselled stones off Mughal monuments, you will pick up images from temples. The real education needed is in the minds of people. So far we seem to be stuck with “Yeh Mughalon ka tha, aur usse pehle kisi Hindu raja ka mahal tha.” (This belonged to the Mughals, before which it was a palace of a Hindu king.) There are ‘guides’ who announce that Lal Qila was built by Jains, Taj Mahal was some raja’s palace’. This kind of mindless discussion indicates the complete lack of respect or affection for the work created by gifted artisans. One should look at the monuments as art and not as part of some defeat and victory.
The sense that the work of artists and artisans of long ago is our precious collective heritage, collective as well as individual, is not part of the national ethos. There is a story which I love : in 1966, there was a major flood in Florence, the River Arno flooded into everybody’s house. In such a situation, one usually grabs one’s passport or small pet dog. What did the people of Florence do ? They all ran to the museums to save their precious artefacts and manuscripts. Soon they were being helped by young people from all over the world, who were affectionately called ‘the mud angels’ because they were caked in mud from the flood. So, whatever remains in the museums of Florence today is because of these people’s efforts. Now, honestly ask this question ofm yourself – If there were a flood in Delhi, will you run to the National Museum to save the Central Asian collection?
Kunal Chauhan: Very interesting question to be precise! Like how many people actually will do that! That’s a very interesting thought-as a former student of history I’ll give it a very serious thought.
Prof. Gupta: All of you heritage walkers or monument visitors must have a sense of shared ownership. Think of Tughlaqabad. The lone chowkidar (“Saat mile ka dewaar hai, aur aik aadmi hai chowkidari ke liye”) had been there some years before he became a little wicked and started selling the land off. Yes! He sold that land inside the fort to make ‘Tughlaqabad Extension’. He was able to do this because he was there all the time, and knew the land. Then, what is he protecting?!
The other thing is that we should allow people of the neighbourhood some sense of involvement. For instance, take Vijay Mandal, near Sarvapriya Vihar; one of ASI’s biggest properties. There is a Sufi shrine there, where every Thursday qawwalis are held, and attended by the villagers from Begumpur. The ASI some years ago blocked the side, cutting it off from the village. I happened to be there with some official group once. These little old ladies, who are a bit older than I was then, came up to me and said ‘Bibiji, ab hume jaane ke liye koi raastha nahi hai, pattharon par chad chad ke jaana padtha hai,aur dar lagta hai raat ko.’ (Madam, we tell them that we don’t have a way to go up, forcing us to climb over rocks, which makes us rather afraid.) Why interfere with the qawwali, why make it difficult for them to use the monument?There has to be some way of thinking about present users, past users, possible future users, it’s not an easy task. But for each area or monument there were to be a group of people like you, all the ‘stakeholders’ cold work together.
Kunal: I think the points you have raised are very interesting. I happen to live very close to Begumpur and I have heard so many local stories about how a lot of these monuments were mosques built for the public to be used and how it is no longer there in the public domain; because it’s a two-way thing, the public is not able to use the monuments so the public is suffering at the same time the monuments or the mosque is no longer in operation the way it used to be, there is no regular upkeep by the locals, it is not being touched, a lot of anti-social elements are using the space for a lot of their activities, and therefore it’s hampering the mosque/ monument as well. It essentially needs to be a two-way thing and earlier we were talking about the public and private partnership and taking ownership, I think a lot of the ownership ought not to be taken just by organisations, it also needs to be taken by individuals in their own individual capacity, especially the people who stay near those places.
Prof Gupta: You are absolutely right. If you look at the History of Islamic Architecture edited by George Mitchell, at the end of the book they have thumbnail pictures of many monuments which they haven’t covered in the text, and among them is Begumpur. Begumpur Masjid – I don’t know when you first saw it – the first sight really hits you. Its scale is incredible. But when you talk to the villagers, you discover a different relationship – the Masjid is part of their family. They will tell you how their families were living inside the mosque comfortably, with their cattle; if you look at old British records they describe a visit to to the Khirki Mosque, and finding a hundred and eight souls and fifty cattle, all comfortably living there. So in the 1920s when the Archaeological Survey asked them to move out, where could they go? They just settled outside. And most of the villages in south Delhi are villages that were inside monuments. And the people of Begumpur don’t call it a masjid, if you are a stranger and you ask for a masjid, they will take you to some little masjid and say say woh to masjid nahi hai woh Qila hai. (that is not a mosque, it is a fort). And this happens everywhere, a kind of neutralising of the whole thing, making it something secular. They showed us how during Partition the Muslims occupied one half of the angan (courtyard) and the Hindus the other side and you can see the black marks from their choolha (ovens); we met a couple who got married inside it with a little wedding ceremony, in 1947. We located old photographs from the ASI of the fields around, what has now become Sarvapriya Vihar; and the people could recognize their fields – we did this for around 3-4 days, but if this could become a part of their education, it would make ‘heritage’ part of the children’s lives. The nearby Mother’s School was very responsive, they helped us, conducted tours, improvised plays, and talked to the villagers. It was a lovely week of interaction. Now Begumpur, Jahanpanah and to some extent Lal Gumbad-these are all connected, this is all part of the Tughluq Delhi. You can’t go back and change what has happened to the neighbourhoods, but you can still stay connected, think about their history and create activities around them. For instance, in the Khirki Masjid we had a calligraphy workshop. It was completely non-invasive and everybody enjoyed it and somehow it fitted in with the spirit of the place. In Begumpur village, the villagers were using the mosque as a common recreation area, doing what they like but not anything very offensive. Perhaps every one of us has some degree of ‘anti-socialness’ inside of us, I may not drink liquor or take drugs but there may be other things I do which are anti-social, so when these boys are getting up on top of Vijay Mandal, we should not chase them away, but be firm that they should not leave broken bottles around. There is a way of treating them which you have to think out slowly. Respect our monuments, respect our heritage, these are just slogans nobody can relate to. To relate to a place or a building,to feel affection for it, you want to be proud of helping to keep it clean. I always remember my students who after a week of helping clean up Lal Gumbad, wanted to plant beds of red roses.
There was this little old lady in Begumpur, who used to take her khatiya (cot) to the angan (courtyard) of the masjid at night and sleep there – the guards were terrified of her, because little old ladies can be fierce, so she got away with it. But when boys wanted to play cricket inside they were not allowed to . Wouldn’t it be better to suggest what games they could play without danger to the building ? You have to decide what can be done, how it should be used, and above all, don’t alienate the people living nearby. Let the poor sit in its warmth on winter mornings. The village is a very crowded place, let them use it, be proud of it and keep it clean. When we went there that day I saw the guards scolding these villagers saying ‘ peeche hato’(move away). So they asked, reasonably, Kya ho raha hai yahan, kyun peeche hate? (What is happening here? Why should we move away? ) All this because some senior officials were expected. These attitudes have to change.
Kunal: Yes I think that’s a very interesting thought about how it can be taken up and what should be the way forward in regards to the locals and the monuments. So I will come to the next question. Do you think that the new Central Vista project is an attempt to erase the colonial legacy of the city, as no government in independent India has undertaken a redevelopment project of this scale? I know this is a topic on which you have spoken on many occasions, but what do you think about this?
Prof Gupta: Actually, they are not destroying the colonial heritage, the secretariats are staying, the Rashtrapati Bhavan is staying and the old Parliament house is staying. What they are replacing is Nehru’s and Indira Gandhi’s legacy. The National Museum which looks colonial was actually built in the fifties. The only bit of colonial in the Vista is the archives (NAI) building- so you don’t have the courage to destroy the truly colonial. There are those who make sarcastic comments about Lutyens, who is one of the world’s greatest architects. He was one of the most dedicated architects – he worked from morning till night for years over the project. Whether you like its appearance or not is a different thing, but that amazing blend where the Rashtrapati Bhavan looks like a Roman structure and incorporates Indian details so the Indians recognised the Indian bits and the others recognised the other bits, is fantastic. Anyways, there was no public discussion, and there is one solution our government has for everything: the minute you stop using a building, make it a museum- we are going to be awash with museums. There is a beautiful garden in Teen Murti Bhavan where children used to come and play on Children’s Day on 14th November. A museum of the Prime Ministers of India is being built there, so a beautiful lawn in Delhi will be gone. Arguments have been given for the need for vastly increased office-space, at a time when the pandemic and all this digital progress have shown us that we need fewer babus, we need more computers. Now we have a future of nine buildings, nine stories high stuffed with babus who will use underground corridors, and never have to come out in the sun. These proposed buildings do not look attractive – they are going to look like walled detention centres.
Kunal: I don’t get those designs.
Prof Gupta: They are not ‘designs’- it is one design replicated nine times. And they propose to continue the road up to the Yamuna where there will be a “Park of National Unity”. So I wish you joy for the years to come, and hope that sometime somehow a quality of humaneness and quiet beauty can overcome the humungous. After all the talk about public-private partnership, here is a government enterprise where the people have no sense of ownership. The committee in charge of the Central Vista includes a number of rather harassed secretaries from various ministries-they don’t have time to think about this, they’ve got their own work, haven’t they? Why should they be concerned? It is artists, architects, literary people, people with imagination who should have been consulted if you want something beautiful.
Kunal: I think I am going to ask about something that is connected to what we have been talking about, what do you think are going to be the long term implications of this project in terms of the environment and in terms of the aesthetics given that these buildings are ‘modern’ in their appearances?
Prof Gupta:My chief concern is that the architectural changes being made or proposed in Delhi make no honest attempt at involving people, eliciting their opinions. We are presented with decisions, which chiefly involve replacing older buildings, not supplementing them.
The modification of New Delhi began with the construction of the Meridian Hotel (which was meant to be twice as high as it is !). If you start making exceptions to height control and you allow some people to build up, then others will make demands- Gujarat Bhawan will be something all the states will want to imitate. The Central Vista ‘redevelopment’ is part of this mindset.
The other major thing that happened was the Pragati Maidan scandal. The ‘Hall of Nations’ design, which is not just an architectural but an engineering miracle features in the curriculum of architectural courses all over the world, but the government sacrificed it in order to build a convention centre for thousands of people, who will come in thousands of cars so you need a car park. Just go past Pragati Maidan and see what we have destroyed. Our generation had a special relationship with it, there was the Shakunthalam theatre, there was the Book Fair, there were all kinds of things that made up the culture of Delhi. Now you can look at a convention centre which will be used a few days in a year.
The other sad story is of the Kidwai Nagar flats. Whenever a change is being created by demolishing something and creating something else this should have six months of reflection time; put up the picture, invite public objections, have a meeting with people who have things to suggest, take them into account and tell them what modifications you have made. In 1980, a wonderful meeting was held in Vigyan Bhawan where the DDA projected its plan for that year and we were all asked to break up into little groups dealing with housing, water management and so on to discuss those sections, it was a very satisfying experience- there were officials, there were private people, everybody was welcome, and we all sat there and thought it out and discussed it and enjoyed it. People do enjoy thinking about their cities, but you are not giving them a chance.
Kunal: I think going back to the thing that we were discussing earlier, that is going to help people take more ownership of their city. They will feel this involvement with what is around them that they also have the role and the responsibility in the decision-making process and that is going to encourage more and more people to be vocal about the city that they have been living in some cases throughout their lives. But I think it needs to first come from the government.
Prof Gupta: No, then you will wait till kingdom come. You have to take a stand on this. One is not asking for anything new – this is done in Europe.Whenever there is a land-use change proposed, at the site a big board should be put up explaining the proposed changes clearly. The classic example is that of the BRT (Bus Rapid Transport) Road. People did not know that the road was going to be divided- that the buses would sail along, that autos would have a lane, nobody knew, nobody was told. And when the car drivers came to know about it, they burst their blood vessels with anger, they couldn’t imagine allowing buses to travel faster than them. This killed the project. If this had been explained to them earlier, pamphlets given, trial runs done, it would have worked.
Kunal: Right, I am going come to my last question now, which is involved with the last part that you mentioned, which is how do you think that the common people can be made aware of the city’s heritage of which they are an important stakeholder and how are different members of the society, such as the people from the academia or the other civil society members can help in this regard?
Prof Gupta: Everything starts with children, local history is terribly important, this is done all over the world, if you look at good syllabi in other countries, the child is made aware of her neighbourhood. Textbooks start with the family, two parents are shown, and a brother and sister, who live in a peculiar house with a triangular roof which nobody has except in the North East and Kerala-so the whole thing is an imaginary construct. Instead of that they should be encouraged to find out about their locality; this was done with children in middle school. The book called ‘Meri Dilli’ was quite popular. It had two chapters written by children, but the government cut out those chapters, because the children wrote humare yahan ek sundar khubsoorat library hoti thi(we had a wonderful library in the neighbourhood) and humare mohalle mein power aksar bandh hota hai aur hum aankh mein choli khelte hai. (We often have power cuts in the neighbourhood, and we play hide-and-seek in the darkness.) We found it charming, but the government did not find it funny. Make the children think about the buildings, I took the children to Hauz Khas and asked them wouldn’t you like to have your school here, and they looked at me as if to say – “it’s all very well for you to talk”, and asked “suppose the children fell into the lake?” Children think about things, they are born architects. So start in school with local studies, it is very easy to do and they will go home, talk about it and parents will get interested. I believe only children can teach the world.s The ones who really educate you are your students and your children.
Kunal: I think that’s a very good note to end on and yes, children are the future and we really need to invest in making more inquisitive children, the more they question and seek out answers the better the society will look. On that very note thank you so much, ma’am, for doing this interview, thank you so much we really really appreciate it, it has been an absolute delight.
Kunal is a Delhi based lawyer & policy analyst and has been working in the social sector since the last seven years. He is the Founder of ITISARAS and currently presides as the Chairman of the Governing Body of the organisation.