Tamashas in Tombs: 'Privatisation' of Old Monuments and an Ordinary Indian

A private entity with no track record in architectural conservation is set to 'adopt' Delhi's cherished monuments.

A private foundation with no track record in architectural conservation is set to 'adopt' Delhi's cherished monuments, including Humayun's Tomb.

(Photo: PTI)

Why do we ordinary folks prize our monuments – or museums for that matter? What is it about these piles of old stone or brick, these fading or decaying, and sometimes chipped, objects that inspire awe and affection in many of us?

While we could each have our own reasons, speaking for myself, as an architect, I value those moments spent soaking in the spatiality and materiality of old buildings, as much as their form and details.

As a father, I take my children to both monuments and museums so that they can understand their place in the continuum of time and human history, as much as to learn through experiential observation certain understandings difficult to imbibe only from books.

As a citizen – of a city, a state, or the country – I value them for placing me and mine within a continuity of this civilization.

As a resident, I love to show off my city’s or country's hoary distinguished past to visitors – both from other parts of India and abroad.

As a possible archaeologist or anthropologist (had stronger urges not taken me down other paths), I savour the eye candy of the beautiful objects and symbols of man’s creativity and determined endeavours through time.

While I am there, I can also empathise with the lady and her child who have walked in just to beat the searing heat for a few minutes before continuing their journey, or the person who has come in just to use the toilet. As much as I can with the young couple canoodling in a private dark ancient nook, participating in the endless cycle of wooing – preparatory to procreation and regeneration – that has brought all of us reading this to this moment of time and space we occupy, much like all other creatures around us. And spotting the serious researcher, the inquisitive student, or a professional reconfirming his thesis inspires the hope that the value of the monuments (or exhibits in the museum) will endure through time – to remain there relatively untouched and uncorrupted so that our grandchildren or their grandchildren can one day return to enjoy the same experiences, thoughts, and possible awakenings.

Thus, when one is informed of what is presently sought to be done to supposedly “develop” the significant and valuable monuments of Humayun’s Tomb, Purana Qila, Safdarjung’s Tomb, and the large Mehrauli Archaeological Park, all in our storied ancient city of Delhi, as proposed by the Ministry of Culture's 'Adopt a Heritage' scheme – the hapless citizen casts about in vain to glean what is “cultured” about the proposal.

Humayun’s Tomb. As a citizen – of a city, a state, or the country – I value monuments like this for placing me and mine within a continuity of this civilization.

(Photo: iStock)

Putting India's Collective Historical Wealth At Stake

It is proposed to hand over these valuable markers of our collective past to a private entity for what seem purely commercially minded purposes.

This, instead of better funding the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) – the custodian of India’s tangible heritage since more than a century and a half.

While one cannot doubt the empowerment of a government during its allotted timespan to do whatever it thinks apt, and to further its manifest (and manifesto) objectives, one has to sit back, grin, and bear it as long as the action remains reversible in totality in the future. At most, the citizen could speak up publicly to urge some course correction (under ideal circumstances). For the rest, a democratically elected but obdurate executive with a mandate can do what it wishes – as we have all seen since 1975.

Among the many more serious concerns of the details of this move to privatise our collective historical wealth, it is probably among the least of the concerns that in a country that ranks 129th on per capita income out of 200 countries, that legally mandated corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds contributed by our private enterprises are going to be diverted to such lunacies that will irretrievably degrade the nation’s historical wealth.

View of the proposed event and event dining.

(Source: Sabhyata Foundation 'vision document' for Humayun’s Tomb)

The fact is that our Islamic dynasty-era monuments are being handed on a platter to a new private entity – Sabhyata Foundation – with no prior track record in architectural conservation. (Yet, the same foundation in 2018 was entrusted with 17th century Red Fort, which is of both national and historical significance; being associated with the First War of Independence of 1857 as much as embodying modern-day India since traditionally used by the prime minister for the ceremonial Independence Day speech ever since the first one by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947).

One wonders, if at all the government and the ASI are so broke as to not be able to manage the country’s own monuments, why it was not the Aga Khan Trust that not only has the expertise and staff, but also funds in plenty.

It should have been the natural choice to preserve, manage, and redevelop our monuments given its track record at working with the Indian government to do exactly that through the years.

The Exceptions Made

The reasons for entrusting the little known Sabhyata Foundation, managed by the Dalmia family, remain mystifying. We may recall this is the same family whose late forebear Vishnu Hari Dalmia was the president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad at the time of the demolition of the early Mughal-era Babri Masjid.

No matter what the history and antecedents of that mosque in less equitable and more benighted mediaeval times may be, that loss still rankles many historically minded Indians.

It is also significant that while such dubious privatisation MoUs have been signed for dozens of other old Indian monuments, only Sabhyata Foundation is being permitted to run commercial enterprises, as well as to raise new constructions, within the Islamic-era complexes.

One can only wish the government would get on instead with the long-promised privatisation of the dozens of loss-making nationalised industrial concerns – and use that money for the upkeep of our monuments, and to better train the staff of the ASI.

Much greater concern is aroused by the fact that the private corporate entity plans building additions (no doubt in typical poor modern Indian architectural taste) to monuments like the mid 16th century Humayun’s Tomb, a declared World Heritage Site, in order to install lifts to reach upper floor 'fine dining' restaurants.

One begins to despair, especially since restaurants are, or were hitherto, impermissible in the vicinity of most monuments, as even unnamed ASI staffers warn us. This is due to the organic nature of ingredient materials used in the mortar and plaster of old buildings of this subcontinent (and as reused in modern-day renovations to maintain historical and scientific integrity) which could be harmed by the germs and pests that proliferate in most hospitality kitchens.

Once those built elevator shaft excrescences are up in place, how can we imagine we will be able to totally reverse matters another day by removing them when more sense dawns? Would they not leave some telltale marks behind of the modifications made today?

Not to mention the rapid or slow harm threatened to a fragile old structure through the digging of lift shaft foundations or even the vibrations in usage of an elevator.

That most of these “improvements” proposed by this obviously misguided private entity, as well as the model of funding envisaged, are in contravention of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958 should surprise no one. They are also opposed to even the precedent policies of the ASI which has at least done its best to preserve much of our heritage till now, despite its low ranking in India’s priorities always vis-à-vis grants in the national budget.

When one further learns that trees are to be “relocated” to enable sound and light shows, the despair grows stronger.

While it will remain an enduring mystery why our politicians, babudom, and their pet architects and designers so hate trees – that they can't conceive of leaving them standing and build around them – it will pay to remember that most ancient monuments also have the most magnificent and ancient trees in their environs, as anyone who has visited the recent Aga Khan Foundation-renovated Sunder Nursery will know. Or anyone familiar with the erstwhile Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts’ now shorn estate with those magnificent and venerable awe-inspiring century-old banyans, pilkhans, and maulsaris, now merely footnotes of history.

Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts – before and after. 

(Photo Courtesy: Narayan Moorthy)

When the aam aadmi further considers that Humayun’s Tomb has ample open spaces clear of trees to host even a large many-seater tamasha show, the mystification grows greater still. Especially given how precious trees have now become to the pollution-beset-choking Dilliwali/wala.

All of India's Right to History

It is already a matter of enduring shame that India is one of the few countries that levy different entry fees for foreigners to our monuments and museums. All the while proudly mouthing platitudes like Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.

And this is while every politician’s rarely museum-inclined progeny breeze into the Victoria & Albert Museum or the British Museum for free – to be able to capture that Instagram shot establishing their culture credentials – on their enviable and inevitable annual long summer sojourns in London.

In a country ranked 111 out of 125 in the Global Hunger Index, one’s heart already bleeds for the family of rural folks in the queue to buy tickets to enter the Red Fort or the Qutab Minar. That Rs 35 multiplied by six members could probably feed them the next day’s breakfast in this fairly expensive city. One only cannot offer to pay for fear of causing a riot – when besieged by everyone else of similar means in those long snaking queues in the heat.

One’s breath is further taken away when informed that the ticket for the sound and light show at the Red Fort costs Rs 1,500 per head. Does that mean that only India’s millionaires have a right to know its history and watch such a show in a public space?

A performance at the Red Fort.

(Photo courtesy: Kritika Sah/The Quint)

Considering the present boast about India’s economy soon reaching nearly global pole position, one wonders why the possibly thus plentiful taxes in the public exchequer cannot be used to make entry free to our monuments, or subsidise such shows, for at least those who visibly look like they can’t afford it but, in an urge similar to ours, still have desire to enter with their children?

Every dwarapal or bouncer of modern-day India has a German Shepherd’s nose for such niceties – as one knows when wafts in past better dressed others even in one’s old, faded T-shirts, and battered sandals. When one reads that not just 'fine dining' restaurants, but even 'private curated experiences' and 'fashion shows' and such ticketed events are envisaged in these public and fragile monuments – most of them funerary tombs erected out of respect to deceased souls – it can be pretty hurtful to a more egalitarian sensibility. Such events will inevitably and carefully keep the hoi polloi out of these tamashas over tombs with their high entry price barriers. And we thought so far that this was a democracy – and a socialist one at that.

A file photo of Humayun's Tomb illuminated in tricolour.

(Photo: PTI)

Playing Fast and Loose With History

It is already bad enough that our children are getting to study a “carefully curated” history from books that have recently weeded out whole chapters of India’s past where the ruling dynasties were not of the majority Hindu faith. Now, even the monuments will begin to confuse them – like the ongoing Mahabharata-themed Son et lumière at Old Fort must be doing when incongruously performed in a monument that dates from Humayun’s city of Dinpanah and displays signs of mediaeval Mughal architecture informed by even Central Asian influences.

The avowals of this being intended to be for "cultural rebalancing" and "undoing distortions" (as India’s ostensibly well-educated foreign minister would have it) is all of a piece with the fact that most modern Indians are more likely to learn their history of the chequered (and many a times, reprehensible) Mughal dynasty through a racy Alex Rutherford book.

Yes, they are coming across painted ware shards in the depths of the multi-layered archaeological excavations that speak of a long multi-layered continuous inhabitation at this site, shards that could be co-terminus with the supposed period of this epic 3,500-4,000 years ago. But is that at all so surprising given the human propensity to establish dwellings or places of worship at a height to better survey the surroundings or to establish a seeming hegemony. We would probably find such ancient fragments under each and every hilltop fortress or temple in this ancient land, if one were to look.

This propensity for playing fast and loose with history is going to lead to extremely poorly informed future generations – even as other nations overtake us in the teaching of skills and attitudes necessary in an integrated world of dwindling natural resources – given that we already have an unprecedented learning crisis with most Indian children performing below grade-level in both literacy and numeracy, leading to poor employment opportunities and reduced life chances.

Poignantly, as some later successors of our far more intelligent and less communally minded forebears who coined the generous and far-sighted term of the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam also wisely said in the Chanakya Niti –

"Vinasha Kale Vipareeta Buddhi."

(The author is a Delhi-based architect. This is an opinion article, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)