Column

Seeds of archaeological pursuits in India were sown by Sir William Jones, when he put together a group of antiquarians, on January 15, 1784 at Kolkata. Nearly after a century, in 1861, it got formalised by Sir Alexander Cunningham, during the British colonial administration, as Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

Arguably, this was one of the best contributions of the colony in appreciating, documenting and preserving the historical assets of the country, especially its architectural legacies.

Unlike many other invaders and colonies, British Raj didn't necessarily destroy the architectural edifices of the regions they conquered in order to impose their supremacy, instead, they recycled them as civic amenity structures, which served both purposes of maintaining the existing structure and yet giving it a new identity and association with the changed regime.

Post-independence, Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 and Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972, were enacted for better preservation and maintenance of monuments and also to prevent illegal trafficking of antiquities and art treasures.At present there are 24 circles looking after more than 3,600 monuments. In a country, where every stone bears the stamp of antiquity, one would like to laud the existence and activities of the ASI, stretched so thin with its resources, but one can't resist questioning its modes and methods in recent past.

Remaining largely pre-occupied with structural sufficiency of the physical structure, it quite often ignores and undermines the spirit, ambience and experience of the ancient monument. Part plastering of Dilli Darwaja is the point in case. Pranlal Patel's photographs of procession of Gandhiji's ashes passing through the very gate clearly show the existence of an upper floor, naubatkhana, very intact over the gate. In less than two decades, we lost what survived for six centuries. Now, we even have buried the clues that showed it was built of stone and brick by recently plastering them over. Not appearing as the structure of the bygone era, it appears to be more recently built in stone and concrete. Sensitive archaeology round the globe has refrained from such alterations and maintained the originality and authenticity of the structure for posterity.

Failing to take holistic view of the context, more often than not ASI endeavours to isolate antiquity structures from the surrounding rather than blending them with the milieu. In India, we have living heritage. Old structures continue to be part of our times and present routine, where barricading them from life and human consumption is a contradiction. On the contrary, sensitive archaeology tries to recreate the time over space to bring in moods of the bygone days. It therefore even includes landscape, contours and civilisation surrounding the structures.

Attempts of ASI at Adalaj and Patan around the step wells have been the contrary. With splurging lawns around structures, islanding it within compound walls, it takes away the very essence of the step well's existence as a source of scare resource in a desert like context. Local species of large shading trees instead could have done better, both to create the context as well as to inspire life. Large tracks of artificially implanted lawns, not only are a huge burden in maintenance needs of the water starved areas, but also, feel alien to its context. God forbid, but there is also a chance to weaken the structure in longer run by excess water consistently seeping to its lower base and foundation, which being in arid zone all these centuries, it was not subjected to.

Adoptive reuse is accepted as the best strategy for maintenance of structure. While there need to be the regulatory framework for any alterations in a heritage structures, buildings in use have remained better maintained and have sustained over time. ASI therefore needs to have holistic policies for the overall development of the monument and integrated plan for its
subsequent management.

The author is a city-based architect and historian