Urban Mirror

Urban Mirror Correspondent

Aligarh, June 2: The Centre of Advanced Study Department of History, AMU, Aligarh has expressed concern over lackadaisical attitude of successive central governments in the maintenance and conservation of national monuments, including world heritage sites, in the country. The AMU historians have now launched campaign against the NDA government’s decision to hand over Delhi’s Red Fort to a corporate group Dalmias under “adopt a heritage scheme”.   

The AMU historians said that Dalmias are not only supposed to look after the  maintenance of things like lawns and toilets, but also run an “interpretation centre”. The historians said “We fear that parties with no knowledge of the monuments would play havoc with our built heritage: it is nothing but another step to change our understanding of our past”.

 Professor Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, Chairman & Coordinator CAS Department of History AMU said the situation had been deteriorating for a long time in the connection. He said in the past the Tomb of Humayun and a number of heritage structures near it were randomly handed over to Agha Khan Trust by the previous UPA government. Prof Rezavi said the Trust in the name of conservation, “renewed” the structures by scrapping away the original designs and plasters and replacing them by new ones. He said now same was being done in the case of Monuments of Bijapur and Golcunda. Referring to some structures in AMU, Prof Rezavi said over enthusiastic engineers replaced the original wooden ceilings of Strachey Hall with concrete slabs.

He said in order to “understand what is happening and register our reservations, as a “School of History”, we at AMU are organising a one day symposium on June 5, which would be addressed by Aligarh historians and scholars from outside. The proposed programme would be held in the Department of History.  He said “Symposium on Our Heritage At Risk: The Problem of Managing our National Monuments” would be addressed by Irfan Habib (AMU) on  What Constitutes a Monument and Their Protection, Jamal Hasan (Former Director, New Delhi) on Can preservation be a private enterprise- A case of Red Fort?, Shireen Moosvi (AMU): Private Interests and Monument Management and Conservation: The Case of Humayun’s Tomb, S Ali Nadeem Rezavi (AMU): Canons of Preservation and Medieval Monuments: A Case of Fathpur Sikri, Shama Mitra Chenoy (DU): Heritage Conservation and Delhi Monuments,  A Representative of Deccan Heritage Trust: Experiences and Problems of Conservation in Hyderabad Monuments and a representative of the AMU Heritage Cell: Conserving Heritage Structures At AMU.