Crusade to protect heritage buildings: Kashmiris wake up to glorious past finally

Srinagar: After years of indifference, neglect and lack of commitment, the people of Kashmir are waking up to the widespread impairment caused to their rich heritage as a consequence. A concerted effort at community level is underway to protect whatever is left of the splendor they have been proud of and preserve it for future generations.

Apart from intelligentsia, it is the students’ community which is playing the frontrunner in the campaign and Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) is working as “guiding force” in it.

Past few months witnessed a series of awareness runs and rallies by the students in their “crusade” to stand up against the ruin. The receptiveness began sometime ago when a students’ organisation filed an application before the chief justice of the state high court seeking judicial intercession towards conserving the neglected heritage sites and reclaiming the rare artifacts stolen from official museums or shifted outside the valley, most valuable of these being a 400-year-old copy of holy Quran believed to be hand-written by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb using pure gold, saffron and vermillion on precious home-made paper.

Apart from occupying a central and one of the most strategic positions in Asia, Kashmir’s dissimilarity also lies in its heritage and environment and its summer capital Srinagar in itself is a city of great antiquity.

As a tourism department brochure says Srinagar is a son et lumiere that tells the story of the love of the Mughal emperors for the paradise vale; river bridges, of gardens in bloom and lakes rimmed by houseboats; at once a business centre and holiday resort some 5, 200 feet above the sea level. Particularly the Old City of Srinagar with its almost medieval charm has sights, smells and sounds to enchant the most jaded traveler.

As much as it’s natural and scenic loveliness, Srinagar is famed for its monuments and shrines: architectural wonders that hold the key to the City’s spiritual and historical past. It has been a melting pot of cultural and religious influences and has assimilated some exclusive arts and crafts. Srinagar is also justly known for its Mughal gardens — vast acres of hillside, terraced with water bodies and rimmed with flowering shrubs and trees-laid in formal quadrangles by the Mughal emperors whose love for the Vale of Kashmir is legendry.

But over the years, Kashmir and in particular Srinagar could not reconcile the requirements of modern development with its scenic splendour and historical and cultural heritage. “The result is that it is fighting a challenging battle now to retain whatever is left of this old glory,” admitted M. Saleem Beg, convenor INTACH Kashmir chapter. The organisation has put in a concerted effort for cultural resource mapping of Srinagar and towards restoration of its treasured possessions.

He said that it is not the question of preserving the valley’s masterpieces or retrieving those it has been divested of alone. “Among other afflictions it particularly the City of Srinagar has suffered at the hand of successive regimes, the loss of open spaces is perhaps the most glaring of all,” he said. Critics say that the state-sponsored urban vandalism, the greed of people and other vested interests have reduced the one time Venice of East into the most unplanned urban concrete jungle and a slum.

Some of the City’s landmarks including world famous Dal Lake and other water bodies are threatened with extinction. Apart from increasing requirement of the residents, the greed of some of them, official apathy precisely the corruption, nepotism and political partiality — precisely vote-bank beliefs besides lingering instability added to the woes of the place. The past three decades of militancy proved the worst period of obliteration as vested interests seized the situation to their advantage. Since the government action could stem the rot and NGOs having not the kind of impact in Kashmir as elsewhere in the South Asian region, the INTACH deeply felt concerned about the need for voluntary action.

The INTACH Kashmir team consists of multidisciplinary conservation experts who are working towards preserving the cultural legacy of Kashmir by creating awareness, mediating between the government and the public, offering architectural and engineering consultation to owners of heritage buildings, and documenting various heritage structures within the state. It is one of the most proactive and self sustaining chapters and in the last 13 years of its presence in Jammu and Kashmir, its Kashmir Chapter has worked on a number of projects.
Sometime ago, the INTACH prepared a draft identification of heritage zones of Srinagar. It was because of the concerted effort put in by the INTACH, Centre for Heritage and Environment of Kashmir (CHEK) and other conservationists and conscientious citizens, that the State Legislature enacted the Jammu and Kashmir Heritage Conservation and Preservation Act in December 2010. But it has virtually been restricted to the official files.

B11