India's Cultural Minister recently informed the Parliament that 24 historical buildings preserved by the ASI have disappeared.
A country’s culture is known by the ethics of its people. In the same way, the history of a country is known from its monuments. India is a country where its history is slowly disappearing. Often you must have read news in the newspapers that hundreds of years old remains were found when excavation was done in a village, or old coins were found. The Archaeological Survey of India is the only institution working for the protection of the country's historical heritage.
This institute has been active in India since 1861. All the historical buildings from Taj Mahal to Qutub Minar, this organisation does the work of their conservation. But you will be surprised to know that 24 monuments across the country have disappeared despite being protected by ASI. Now how this institution was working, these questions are in scope.
On the 2nd of this month, India's Cultural Minister Kishan Reddy informed the Parliament that today 24 historical buildings preserved by the ASI have disappeared in India.
This means that 24 important symbols related to the history of the country have disappeared. Leave ASI, no one knows where these historical buildings have disappeared. We have a list of missing historical buildings protected by ASI. It has buildings of many states.
- 2 historical buildings Barakhamba Cemetery and Inchla Wali Gumti are missing in Delhi.
- 2 historic 'Do Kos Minar' of Faridabad and Kurukshetra in Haryana are missing.
- The historical 'Kutumbari Mandir' of Almora, Uttarakhand is missing.
- The historical stone inscription of Satna, Madhya Pradesh is missing.
- The historic guns of Sultan Sher Shah present in Tinsukia, Assam are missing.
- The remains of the historical 'copper temple' of Lohit in Arunachal Pradesh are missing.
- The 'European Tomb' of Pune in Maharashtra and the '1 Buruj' of Agarkot are missing.
- The historical inscription present in the fort of Tonk in Rajasthan and the '12th century temple' of Baran are missing.
- Historical 'Bamanpukur Fort' of West Bengal is also missing.
These are the names of 13 of the 24 buildings that ASI has in its protected list. But there is another list of 11 missing buildings. Every name present in this list belongs to different districts of Uttar Pradesh. In this list also you will be able to see that many buildings under the protection of ASI are missing, these include historical temples, tombs, Buddhist relics and megaliths.
Overall, there are all kinds of historical symbols in this list, which ASI had the responsibility of preserving, but now they have disappeared. Now the question is, what kind of protection is this in which the historical symbols related to the identity of the country disappear and the ASI does not even know. Hundreds of years old temples, inscriptions, towers everything disappeared.
When a historical building comes under the protection of ASI, it is believed that it will remain safe for years. It is assumed that ASI takes care of these buildings. But here the situation is different. Here the historical buildings have disappeared despite being under protection.
For the first time in the year 2013, the CAG told the ASI that 92 of his buildings were missing. This information was found during the audit of ASI. The CAG team visited 1,655 sites out of 3,693 during the ASI audit. ASI has now found 42 buildings out of 92 that were reported missing.
Now the question is how did these historical buildings disappear. The answer to this question is recorded in a 70-page report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture of Parliament. This report was placed in December of the year 2022. The title of the report is "Issues relating to Untraceable Monuments and Protection of Monuments in India"
In this report, questions were answered from ASI on the disappearance of protected buildings. It was told in this report that in the year 2013, 92 protected buildings of ASI were missing. Out of which 12 buildings have been submerged. 14 historical buildings succumbed to urbanisation. That is, houses, shops or roads have been built over them. 24 historical buildings have been declared completely missing.
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 "DNA Special: The curious case of ASI's 'missing' monuments")
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