Why experts are cautioning govt over private role in heritage conservation

Historians and conservationists have expressed reservations and unease over reports that the government is exploring a new framework that would allow private players to take on the job of conserving the country’s protected monuments.

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The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will retain supervisory powers and vet detailed project reports, while private agencies will handle execution, according to The Indian Express. There have been talks of a public-private partnership for a long time. If true, historians and heritage experts warn that such a shift risks distorting history, commodifying heritage, and diluting the state’s responsibility to protect monuments.

Corporate role in conservation

Until now, the ASI, established in 1861, has had the sole mandate for conservation. Donor funds were channelled through the National Culture Fund (NCF), set up in 1996, but the ASI itself carried out the work. With the new arrangement, corporates will have far greater say in how conservation is implemented, though, as per the Express report, officials have claimed the ASI will remain the final authority.

For critics, however, this throws up various questions and concerns. “What is going to happen can be assessed from what is happening to the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) thing in protecting monuments,” said Oral Historian Sohail Hashmi.

The CSR framework introduced in the Companies Act, 2013, mandates companies to spend at least 2% of net profits on social development activities. Heritage conservation falls under permissible CSR activities

Red Fort adoption controversy

In 2018, Delhi’s Red Fort was “adopted” by Dalmia Bharat, a cement manufacturing giant, under the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ scheme. The company signed a five-year MoU, pledging Rs 25 crore towards illumination, pathways, toilets, drinking water facilities and landscaping. The deal allowed the company branding rights on signage and publicity material.

“We can see what somebody who has absolutely no idea of heritage conservation can do to a monument. Recently, there was a function at the Red Fort, and all the food served there was vegetarian. Why? Because Dalmiaji is a vegetarian… From what I have heard, even the revamped sound-and-light show has minimised the role of the Mughals while amplifying the Marathas… There were also talks of the Dalmia group starting a fine-dining restaurant at the southern gate of Humayun’s Tomb. CSR doesn’t mean you can make money from things like these. How can there be a fine dining restaurant in a mausoleum? This is just basic etiquette,” Hashmi told The Federal.

“So, when individuals who have absolutely no idea of history or corporate houses who want to curry favour with the government are given the responsibility of restoring or maintaining or looking after these structures, what will happen to the history of these structures? The first thing to do is to set up a committee of serious historians, who will decide the criteria,” he added.

Experts stress restoration ethics

One of the main private, philanthropic organisations that has worked on conservation in India is the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC). According to their website, the group has ‘restored or rehabilitated over 350 historic sites”.

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“We at AKTC have been working with the ASI for the last 25 years on protected monuments. I don’t want to say anything more, because I’m not sure what the report (in Express) means,” AKTC CEO Ratish Nanda told The Federal.

According to Prof Ali Nadeem Rezavi, historian at Aligarh Muslim University and secretary of the Indian History Congress, the unease has to do with the conservation practice itself, apart from the politics. He stressed that conservation has well-established principles dating back to Sir John Marshall, the ASI’s first Director-General, who codified rules in the 1904 Ancient Monuments Preservation Act. The principle was simple: prevent further decay, but do not “renew”.

Calls to uphold authenticity

In this year’s budget, ASI was allocated Rs 1,278.49 crore. “The ASI has said there is a fund crisis. So, their plea was - how can we do so much without having the requisite grants? I believe that what the government is doing is actually, instead of going for some medicine or operation to arrest the cancerous growth, they are trying to amputate body parts themselves. You see the case of Dalmias and the Red Fort. I went there recently, and the upkeep of the place is as bad as it was under ASI. You have to pay a heavy sum to enter the museum of Mughal artefacts there, and none of the museums there are devoted to the Mughal period. If you want to see that beautiful white marble where the Peacock Throne was, you cannot see it because it is under a glass that is so dirty,” he said.

“What I feel is that handing over these monuments is something which is actually going to destroy them. If bodies that do not know about conservation of historical places get the task, how do you suppose that they are going to maintain the sanctity of that place?”

Heritage conservator and historian Swapna Liddle underlined that the critical factor is expertise and accountability. “Ultimately, the only criterion here is: what are the qualifications of the people who are working? Do they have the qualifications, and will there be accountability for what work is done and how it is done? For me, that is the most important,” she told The Federal.

When conservation alters heritage

For her, the danger lies in allowing private players to decide which monuments to restore and how. “Which monument needs restoration, and what kind of restoration it needs, should not be based on what a private player feels. Maybe they want publicity from a particular monument. Those are not ways in which such decisions should be made,” she said.

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Rezavi said the idea of a public-private partnership was “not a bad idea on the face of it”, but it depended on the implementation. He cited the case of Humayun’s Tomb, where conservation was supported by the AKTC.

“What they did is, they renewed the tombs. So that it's no longer what was there. It is just a reflection of what these people thought was the original… For example, the garden layout, which they are very proud of, is something that is quite English in character. Mughal gardens were never like this… Heritage is not beauty. Even the ugliness is the heritage, and that, perhaps, is being destroyed at the moment,” said Rezavi.