Making a mess of our national treasures

Countless heritage treasures continue to be looted from India through organised chains of antique dealers and procurers who have built networks going down all the way to small towns. They bribe local villagers who are unaware of the commercial value of antique pieces, and then export them as “modern” imitations.

Twenty five years ago, in 1984, the Ram Niwas Mirdha Committee made the following recommendations so that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), custodian of India’s cultural heritage, can safeguard our heritage treasures.

Recommendations: 9,000 attendants for 5,000 monuments; atleast four attendants per monument 24 hours; ex-servicemen-manned ASI security force to be trained by CISF, BSF. The reality in 2009: 3,500 monument attendants; watch-and-ward staff and private guards; high-profile monuments with CISF.

This is all the ASI can provide out of its 2008 allocation of a mere Rs 177 crores. Remember, in 2008, the monthly salary of the junior most peon in the government of India was Rs 10,000 plus on joining. Even on that basis, 3500 monument guards and 900 officers (512 on rolls and 400 yet to be recruited) the money gets swallowed up soon and the net result is that as many as 35 historical monuments and sites under the aegis of  ASI across the country have simply disappeared without any trace. In their place now stand modern concrete buildings, housing residential or commercial complexes.

Surprisingly, the largest number of such monuments — 12 — is in the national capital itself where the headquarters of the ASI, presided over by its director general, is located.

The Archaeological  Survey of India, established in 1861, is the apex body that protects and conserves monuments. So far, it has declared 3,667 structures as protected monuments; of these, 21 are on the World Heritage List. Another 108 monuments have been declared centrally protected. The rest await facilities, care, and support. It is a pioneer organisation in field of archaeology-oriented activities.

There are 24 divisions of the ASI covering the whole of India. The main tasks of ASI include maintenance, conservation and preservation of centrally protected monuments/sites.

The funds for the ASI come from the annual grants sanctioned by the Union ministry of culture of which it is a part. In 2007-2008, the ASI estimated Rs 177 crore as its annual expense. This includes the revenue generated by the ASI through ticket collection. The 117 ticketed monuments generate about Rs 60 crore (of which 75 per cent is returned to the Union ministry of culture). Most of the grants were spent on establishment expenses, publicity, and minor conservation works.

A meagre Rs 5 crore is allocated for excavation. In short, only about Rs 7,600 is annually spent on each monument or roughly Rs 20 per day. But according to experts, proper conservation of each monument costs anything from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore, depending on the level of work to be done in the site.

The government is aware of this meager expense on the national heritage and assisting the ASI in this task are two organisations, the INTACH (Indian National Trust for Cultural Heritage) set up in 1984 and the National Culture Fund established in 1996. INTACH, the NGO with the mandate to look after monuments which are not under the government agencies, has taken up restoration and protection of a few hundreds of monuments and it has prepared a list of nearly 70,000 monuments in the country of which about 60,000 are not looked after by any government or private agency.

According to its reports, “Many of these 60,000 monuments need immediate attention. Otherwise, they will be ruined.”

The saga of the National Culture Fund is interesting. Faced with shortage  of manpower to handle conservation work in the 24 circles of the ASI, the Union culture ministry decided to outsource the conservation of protected monuments of national importance.

Interestingly, one of the reasons cited by the ministry for the shortage of manpower in the ASI, is the national  conservation body’s involvement in works abroad as part of bilateral agreements.

In order to overcome the limited resource base, the Ministry of culture floated the National Culture Fund and this Fund allows private donors and corporate organisations to fund specific conservation projects. The other bit players in the onerous task of safeguarding our heritage are the state archaeological departments (there are 25 of them, one for each state). Their role is not defined nor is there any attempt to work alongside the ASI in determining what needs to be done. Religious institutions, who own many of these monuments are the fifth players in this complex situation. They are a law unto themselves.

The different parliamentary standing committees have pointed out that these different organisations have to be welded to act in consonance with each other, and for that the apex organisation has to be the ASI. But to enable ASI to successfully undertake the task there are three major issues. The first is the lack of manpower and finances and the unfilled vacancies in the ASI. The second is that the ASI be converted into a scientific and autonomous organisation. The third issue is that very often the ASI functions without a proper director in charge.

So far, the government has only tried to give effect to the second suggestion. The Mirdha Committee first mooted this in 1984 and recommended that the ASI should not be treated as an administrative organisation, but should be considered a specialised institution. Hence, it recommended that the ASI must be made autonomous and accorded the status of a scientific and technical institution. The government accepted this recommendation and in May 1989 endowed the ASI with the status of a science and technology institution. But so far, the Ministry of culture has not implemented this and the ASI continues to be what it was — an attached office of the Government of  India, instead of being the guardian of India’s heritage.