Book on Heritage Conservation

FOREWORD By Suresh Kumar; IAS (Retd.) Chief Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Punjab All nations and communities value their heritage and ensure its preservation for posterity, for making aware their future generations about their glorious historic past. Globally, heritage is known to carry enormous value and importance, both socially and economically. Heritage has been leveraged by numerous cities and nations to promote the economy, create employment, and generate prosperity. Considering the role and importance of built heritage, it will be important that these valuable assets, created in the past, are properly identified, preserved, and conserved. India, with a long history spanning over five thousand years, has been rated as one the oldest and most valued civilizations in the world. During its long and historic journey, the country has inherited a huge wealth of manmade environment, created by various communities during its long history. However, due to lack of awareness, the majority of the heritage has either been lost or is facing enormous challenges for survival due to large scale misuse and abuse perpetrated by people and communities. Considering the relevance and criticality of heritage, this eBook titled, ‘Managing Unique Heritage of India – Approaches and Options’, written by Jit Kumar Gupta and Yamini Gupta, is a valuable resource to create awareness among readers, researchers, and students about India’s enormous repository of built heritage and the need and importance to preserve it. The Book, through its various articles, attempts to bring out the entire context of heritage, its identification; issues, challenges and bottlenecks faced by it in its management in face of rising urbanization, globalization and liberalization of economies and the options, which could be exercised to make the entire mechanism of heritage conservation professional, effective and efficient. For rationalizing the entire context of heritage conservation, the book makes several suggestions, in terms of making the process of heritage management people-centric; involving communities in not only its identification, preservation but also its management and safety. Suggestions have also been made to make it an integral part of the planning and development process of cities and towns; empowering local institutions, creating a dedicated fund, evolving heritage regulations, incentivizing the heritage property owners for developing a culture of heritage conservation. I am happy that the book also brings out and focuses on the enormous wealth of heritage created in the State of Punjab in terms of walled cities, Havelis, religious and educational institutions, palaces, bungas, etc, and makes suggestions that can be exercised at local and state level to preserve heritage for posterity; making the State of Punjab, a role model in the country in the domain of heritage conservation. Hopefully, planning and development agencies in urban and rural areas; communities and NGOs, and the CBOs working at the local level will look at the suggestions made in the eBook for their applications to preserve the valuable heritage and make them an integral part of community and city living. PREWORD Dr. Rohit Jigyasu Vice President, International Council on Monuments & Sites (ICOMOS) Project Manager, International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) The notion of cultural heritage at international level has undergone a marked shift during the last few decades. While earlier, the understanding was predominantly monument-centred, where heritage was largely understood as isolated grand structures or archaeological sites recognized mainly for their historicity by separating the past from present. However, the contemporary definition of cultural heritage includes vernacular structures, historic urban areas, cultural landscapes and intangible aspects, characterised by their living and dynamic nature, where continuity defines the link of past and present and close interrelationship with the local social and environmental context. In light of this new understanding of heritage, its protection and management is not merely restricted to preservation of physical fabric but entails strategies for managing change to enable continuity of past into future. This means that rather than pitting heritage conservation against development, it is seen as an approach for sustainable development. In the face of increasing challenges due to rapid urbanization, disasters caused by natural and human induced hazards and the impacts of climate change, there is an urgent need to develop risk preparedness measures for protecting the present of our past for the future. Also the role of cultural heritage in building resilience of communities through rediscovering and adapting traditional knowledge gained over time needs recognition. This ebook titled ‘Managing Unique Heritage of India – Approaches and Options’ edited by Jit Kumar Gupta and Yamini Gupta very eloquently brings forward the contemporary challenges and opportunities for the protection and management of cultural heritage in Indian context. Reader friendly language and rich references of case studies of Amritsar and Jhunjhunu makes it a very useful publication especially for the students and faculty of architecture and planning. I am sure this will enlighten the readers towards enormous task for protecting and managing our rich cultural heritage for the future generations. PREFACE Built heritage is known for its role and importance in making value addition to the urban habitat, connecting past with present and charting the future growth and development trajectory of any community, society and nation. Heritage allows society to showcase its glorious past, making people learn about the context of their living, quality of life, building materials, construction technologies and the principles adopted in planning and designing their shelter and settlements in the past. Heritage is also known for the value it holds, to make people learn about the social fabric, culture and identity of their ancestors. Accordingly, heritage remains valuable, both locally and globally. Built heritage is known for its potential of being major driver of economy, prosperity, employment, growth and development. It has enormous capacity to leverage economy and minimise poverty. Nations take pride in their built heritage and take appropriate measures to preserve, protect and manage them for people to visit, enjoy and learn, both from within and outside. Developed nations are known for their capacity, capability, systems and processes to value and preserve their built heritage but most of the developing nations are fighting a losing battle against damage and destruction being caused to manmade wealth, on continued basis, due to lack of skill, manpower, resources, commitment and awareness on the part of communities, institutions and parastatatal agencies, of the role and importance of built heritage. Majority of these nations have already lost most of the valuable built heritage to posterity, due to lack of appreciation on the part of the community, misuse, abuse and rapid commercialisation. In many cases built heritage has been sacrificed at the altar of land speculation and commercial exploitation. Considering the role and importance of the built heritage for communities and nations, this e- book has been prepared which is primarily, a compilation of eight articles which have been written by authors, individually and collectively, over a period of time, spanning over four decades on the various facets of heritage conservation and preservation. Articles try to define the context of built heritage, major road- block hampering the identification and preservation of the built heritage besides looking at the options for effectively managing the valuable built heritage. Articles look at the city and subject specific issues related to heritage in terms of the existing legal framework guiding the heritage; capacity of urban local bodies to identify and manage the heritage; absence of trained manpower for managing the heritage; non-involvement of communities; lack of resources; non- involvement of NGOs, CBOs, private, corporate sector; lack of integration between heritage and planning; low priority to heritage conservation in city management; absence of dedicated manpower at local level; absence of heritage regulations; lack of documentation; non-involvement of the academia; lack of incentives; misuse and abuse of the built heritage for commercial use etc. In search for the appropriate solutions for identification, promoting, preserving, conserving and managing the built heritage, articles suggest numerous options in terms of; creating a dedicated mechanism at local and regional level to identify the built heritage; relooking, reviewing and redefining the legal framework of the built heritage; involving communities in identification, preserving, protecting and managing the built heritage; making heritage conservation people and community centric; creating awareness about the role and importance of built heritage; creating a dedicated heritage fund at local, state and national level to promote the heritage; incentivising the owners of heritage properties; adopting the mechanism of listed buildings; making heritage conservation integral part of the planning and development process; launching more dedicated course in the domain of heritage conservation to have adequate manpower to guide the various agencies; earmarking dedicated

Load more