The Hindu : New Delhi News : Experts sceptical about conservation panel

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 11, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Experts sceptical about conservation panel

By Mandira Nayar

NEW DELHI, AUG. 10. The battle to save the Red Fort may have been won with the recent direction of the Supreme Court to constitute a committee of experts to oversee any further conservation on the site, but by all accounts the war is far from over. The public interest litigation for the Red Fort may have set a precedent, but conservationists are concerned about how far it will be carried forward.

"I feel the legislation has no teeth. I think there should be a central empowered committee in the Supreme Court on heritage like there is on environment. I think the committee should be looking at issues of intangible as well as tangible heritage. I don't feel that forming the committee is the end of the issue,'' says the founder of the Asian Heritage Foundation, Rajeev Sethi, here.

While conservationists believe that this multi-disciplinary approach to conservation is a step forward and hope that it will be applied to other monuments too, they believe that there is still a lot on the Red Fort issue that needs to be resolved. "I think it is a step forward and it will be the beginning of dialogue and discussion on the issue. It has set a precedent for something that was not even imaginable in India till now. However, I think that it is important to know what happened to the jalis that were broken and finials that have gone missing during the restoration, someone should be held accountable,'' points out conservation architect Anisha Shekhar Mukherji.

With missing or broken jalis replaced during the conservation effort as claimed by the Archaeological Survey of India, heritage lovers are hoping to recover some fragments so that the original can be `pieced' together. "The finials are priceless and it is important that they are found. The Archaeological Survey of India has claimed they have replaced the `jalis' that were missing or broken. But the question is what has happened to the broken pieces. Besides, being part of history, they are also examples of great craftsmanship. They belong to a museum,'' Ms. Mukherji asserts.

Conservationists also hope that the committee will assess the "damage" done by the restoration undertaken by the ASI at the Red Fort. "I hope that this judgment will be a learning process for ASI and they will take this opportunity to assess the in-house skills that they possess. I hope they will also undertake an effort to upgrade and hone their existing skills. The continuity of integrity of the ASI skills has been broken and this needs to be looked at. I hope this judgment will help fill in lacunae like this,'' states Smita Makhija of the School of Planning and Architecture.

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