Your have worked extensivelyin the state of Orissa for thelast many years now. How doyou view the evolution of theregion and the relationship of humans and nature through thelens of history?
I have been associated with studies on two feudatory kingdoms – Ranpur (with Dr Niels Gutschow) and Keonjhar (with Dr Hermann Kulke, Director of the Orissa project); Ranpur being one of the south-west and Keonjhar being one of the north-west feudatory states on which we have focused on in our Orissa studies under the German Research Council Projects.
Orissa’s cultural heritage is one of the most authentically preserved in our country. Historically, this has evolved retaining its close tie with tribal cults, tutelary gods and their sense of their primordial religious landscapes of sacred grooves where their ‘jungle gods’ inhabited. Their connection to their settlements and the primordial gods living in sacred groves or jungles was intimately connected and the relationship between the two is unbroken even when the urban settlements grew as the streets and the abodes of their gods actually generated the street networks and residential settlements in a way that the cosmic relationships of their positions governed the planning of the settlements with the brahmins occupying a distinct position within the settlements with the king donating their lands for residences.
Almost fifteen hundred years ago, eighteen ‘jungle states’ were first mentioned in the hinterlands of coastal Orissa. Hermann Kulke has described the later process of formation of feudatory states (or ‘little kingdoms’) west, south-west and north-west of Bhubaneswar.1
These were also known as Garhjat states. The gajapatis encircled their fertile coastal granary and their political and religious centres of Cuttack and Puri by a large number of feudatory states which bore the namegadajata, meaning ‘born from the fort’ (gada). Several decades after the downfall of Gajapatis in year 1568, the Mughals assigned the small Garhjat (gadajata) states of central Orissa to the Rajas of Khurda who had meanwhile become local successors to the imperial Gajapatis. Under the Khurja rajas, the Garhjat states achieved a semi-autonomous status which they retained even when the Marathas conquered Orissa in 1751. When British conquered Orissa in 1803, the autonomy of the Garhjat states even received imperial sanction when the East India Company acknowledged them for a quit-rent as their allied feudatories.2
On what projects are youcurrently working on?
I have recently completed the World Heritage Nomination Dossier for the Historic City of Ahmedabad which is now under process of evaluation by WHC-ICOMOS. I am currently working on the Cultural Landscape of Yelahanka Kingdom region with Magadi as the focus of history of Kempegowda rulers as the founder of Bangalore. This is an extension of our earlier studies on heritage of Bangalore. I am also working on the history of Ahmedabad city and its foundations in early fifteen century. I am currently advising on a few restoration projects which are essentially building restorations.
What, in your view, should be the salient features of a historic conservation work?
The most important salient features of historic conservation work—when one talks about the monumental architecture—are its value, its authenticity and its integrity in its setting. When one talks about the historic cities and the settlements, the salient features are their endogenous characters, their layers of historic evolution and their continuity in its tradition as a record of culture.
What kind of issues andchallenges do you see in the area of heritage conservationin the country, in the area of education, research and practice?
The issues and challenges in the field of heritage conservation are manifold. Issues related to abandonment, neglect and misuse are main cause of the dilapidation and destruction. The challenges are devolution of values for buildings, changing life style and attitudes of people and lack of concern for history and heritage. The field of conservation is new for us. Archaeological Survey of India and similar archaeological societies by the former princely states looked after the ruins and monuments of past to protect those from plunder and destruction. In our own regional culture, jirnoddharwas an in-built integrated aspect of maintenance and upkeep in our traditional system of building practice. This meant that the buildings were never allowed to get into a state of ruins and thus conservation was never seen as a special task to resurrect or restore a dilapidated structure.
In one of the earlier interviews,Prof. AGK Menon notes that theprofession needs to reconsiderthe prevalent paradigm of conservation. Recalling Patrick Geddes in 1920s, he says that conservation needs “diagnosticsurvey and conservativesurgery”.
Patrick Geddes was a great naturalist and he was called upon by the British Agency in India in the early 20th century, primarily to address to the problems of expanding historic cities in India and advise the Agency— which was looking for directions—for planning of these cities for future. He studied several cities in India and the historic towns with their congested localities which were threatened by epidemics. One of the ways he suggested was to open up these cities for fresh air and hygiene. Being a scientist, he proposed diagnostic surveys to investigate the health of these environments and, wherever necessary, a conservation surgery to open of the lungs of the settlements within the cities. Many cities followed this and the new colonial city center became a reality opening up the congested traditional towns.
Do you think there is a need to relook at the present legislationof protection of monuments and historical places? What broad recommendations willyou suggest to ASI?
There is an urgent need to reexamine the over one hundred and fifty years old ASI Act and to enlarge the ASI setup and amend the Act. Besides just the monuments, the Act should also include the precinct, the sites, the historic urban landscape and the natural landscape in its scope. The fields of heritage conservation now is globally recognized and also includes the cultural landscape as an important aspect of world heritage.
At the time of ASI completing its one hundred and fifty years, under the direction of the then Prime Minister, the Ministry of Culture had asked the ASI to constitute a National Committee on Conservation Policy exactly for this purpose—of examining the increased role of ASI and suggesting how the organization can expand its scope to the requirements of World Heritage Convention, to consider the country’s heritage as a global resource and of value to the humanity at large. I was a member of this committee along with others but nothing more came out of this exercise.
In any heritage conservationand restoration project, how do you address the multilayeredcharacter of the site? For example, in case of Taj Mahal, there is original Mughal layer and then there is a Coloniallayer. What forms the basis ofthe final design strategy in the typology?
This question is directly pointing at the aspects of authenticity in conservation. Actually restoration is an end result of a critical process of heritage conservation. This critical process anticipates a careful investigation of the historic layers and its successive decoding to establish the authenticity of the monument and site. Each successive layer is understood through the kind of breakthroughs in its evolutionary process and no monument is seen without its settings. Even a monument frozen in history has its sense of time and that never remains static over a period of time unless it is neglected and allowed to ruin. For this reason, the notion of authenticity is its near original state as evident and which can be perceived through the time. This could be established through investigations in records, evidences available and any archival material such as builders’ records of construction if available. In case of Taj Mahal, there is enough research available on its history and hence its conservation exercise is carried out on this basis.
Any conservation strategyshould be a balance ofmaintaining the spirit of theplace and at the same timeaddressing the present needsof the area.
Heritage conservation is seen as a great exercise in facilitating any development and thus heritage is seen as a great resource and a basis for any inclusive developmental goal. While it provides a positive continuum to an evolutionary process, it also helps retain a sense of identity for people for whom the past is a foundation for present for endogenous future development. The spirit of place and its safe guard as a contemporary reflection of past is the basis of any relevant conservation goal.
The word “tourist” has oftendominated the conservation approach of most of theprominent heritage precinctsin India, which has resulted in a fractured and limited relationship of the citizens ofthe country towards heritage and its related aspects. How doyou view this?
It has derogatory effect on the heritage and also loss of crucial history; this is really a tragedy for our heritage conservation goals. Many sites are threatened by lack of complete controls on the encroachments and unrestricted tourist activities. This even includes World Heritage inscribed sites. The level of footfalls in some of these are now a great concern for erosion of materials of historic buildings. Uncontrolled tourism has also affected the settings of many a historic sites and the damage it has done is really resulting in the loss of historic contents of these sites. We have to de-link the growth of tourism development from the heritage sites and in offering it to visitors great care needs to be taken that there is an effective control on visitors and the surrounding areas of the sites, so that there is no threat to the sites and its historicity.
Conservation of a historic landscape is quite different than conserving architecture heritage, as landscape is a living context, growing and evolving with each passing moment. How different should be the strategies to address historiclandscapes, say that of ahistoric garden?
I am not a specialist in this discipline but some of the best examples of historic landscapes I have seen are in Orissa where sacred groves are left untouched from any human interventions as these landscapes have primordial sacred values, many times connected with myths related to its natural surroundings and folk communities for their roots and also for their sub-regional identities. In the contemporary scenario, I am aware of some historic gardens where a conscious effort is made to conserve / recreate it. The gardens in the Red Fort and Humayun’s tomb (both in Delhi) and even Taj Mahal in Agra are in a way recreated gardens; even the Mehtab Baug opposite Taj Mahal is a contemporary garden where only the foot prints are perhaps rediscovered and used as a premise for plantations which have been done based on available historic references. As I understand, the Sundar Nursery in New Delhi is a great example of contemporary reinterpretation of an Islamic Garden.
I feel strategies for addressing to the preservation of any historic landscape should focus on absolutely minimum intervention in its natural settings. The landscape evolves itself out of its organic nature and people’s mythical associations preserve it out of their own primordial beliefs in it.
Historic gardens were a result of imagined ideas about recreating ‘heaven on earth’ at a time in history and this might have had enormous relevance to its settings and cultural context, considering its association with a culture in time. These sites maintain their association to their settings and the strategy should be to preserve these settings and their flora and fauna as much near to its original as possible. In addressing the issues related to its evolution, as related to the ideas of its origin, one has to investigate its authenticity as evident through its history.
As compared to the documentation of built heritage, there isa very limited research available in the area of landscapeheritage – historic gardens,ghats, sacred orchards and other such precincts. What in your views can be the steps to move forward?
I am sure the various departments of landscape architecture have sizable documentation on this subject. I have also seen students’ theses on such topics (in landscape department at CEPT, Ahmedabad) which are quite meticulously carried out. An effort to compile such resources perhaps lying scattered in institutes’ libraries could yield a very useful data bank on this subject. May be this Journal can encourage someone to undertake preparation of such a bibliography which can be a very useful exercise on this subject. A well-known website ‘Architexturez’could help in disseminating such information, provided these are offered to them to put up on their site. This site is a huge resource for reference for professionals and students for architecture and built environment. Academic institutions in all regions are key to increase such database as now there are sufficient schools of architecture all over the country which can make their regional documentation as part of their course work.