Withering legacies: A curious tale of India's 'missing' monuments

In a scene from Satyajit Ray’s mystery-adventure film Sonar Kella (The Fort of Gold), 1971, one of the antagonists says Rajasthan is a state where every nook and cranny hides a fort or monument, and it will be nearly impossible to know which one is the golden fort. The actors of Ray’s cult classic endure several gruelling adventures before they finally realise that they are looking for the Jaisalmer Fort.

Ray’s film reveals an intriguing truth about monuments in India. Despite their near-ubiquitous presence in both urban and rural areas, monuments are not always the easiest structures to locate. Sometimes it is the stories that blur the maps; at other times they are simply missing.

Take the tomb of Razia Sultan in Delhi, for instance. The resting place of one of the most-storied women rulers of the Indian Subcontinent, is an unassuming cluster of weathered sandstones hidden in the packed bylanes of Old Delhi, surrounded by the walls of neighbouring houses, and no roof overhead. The responsibility of its upkeep is on the shoulders of a tiny adjoining mosque with few visitors.

In Telkupi, a village in West Bengal’s Purulia district, the construction of Panchet dam over the Damodar river submerged a set of six to eight 11th century stone temples. Only a few remain visible above the surface of water.

In Karnataka, about 18 km from the Thirthahalli taluk, the 9th century Kavaledurga Fort valiantly fights off surrounding jungle’s persistent overgrowth. Despite attempts and restoration and maintenance by several succeeding dynasties and kingdoms over the centuries, as well as central and state governments, the fort remains neglected and hidden beneath overgrown shrubs.

Facing multi-pronged challenges, the fact that many of India’s 3,693 monuments have gone “missing” no longer appear to be a surprise. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) last week decided to form a special committee to trace and certify 24 such protected monuments.

The issue was first raised in 2013, in the audit report number 18 of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). The CAG team visited 1,655 of the 3,693 sites during the ASI audit and found 92 heritage sites “missing”.

Union Minister of Culture G Kishan Reddy told the Rajya Sabha last week that the ASI had traced back 68 of these monuments. The ASI special committee will now attempt to find the remaining 24 monuments from this list, which are yet to be traced. The Barakhamba Cemetery and Inchla Wali Gumti in Delhi; the Kutumbari Mandir of Almora; the remains of the “copper temple” in Lohit; and the European Tomb of Pune are only a few names on this list.

So how exactly do monuments go missing?

K P Rao, former director at the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archaeology and Museums, and an honorary professor at the Department of History at University of Hyderabad, says the monuments, which were listed by the ASI as “protected” even before Independence, often become “untraceable, especially in urban areas, due to initial occupation by the locals, and later alteration/removal of the structure by them”. Sometimes, he explains, locals aren’t aware that the structure is a protected monument, and often build around them. 

The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (AMASR Act) regulates the work on preservation of monuments and archaeological sites of national importance. The Act mandates ASI officers to regularly assess the present conditions of listed monuments. The officials can file police complaints, issue showcause notices, and coordinate with local administration to notify and remove encroachments around monuments.

Thus, of the 92 listed by the CAG report, ASI officials were able to trace back the locations and re-identify 42 monuments. However, 14 of these have been lost, while another 12 were submerged by reservoirs/dams.

Rao says some monuments can be relocated or “transplanted” when there is an imminent danger. One of its best examples can be found at Nagarjunakonda valley, where stupas, chaityas, viharas and amphitheatres were transplanted to save them from getting submerged by the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir.

Another major cause is the absence of a centralised inventory with the ASI on the number of monuments with full details of the sites and structures notified as centrally protected over the years, historian Himanshu Prabha Ray tells Business Standard. The CAG investigation had also found cases of double notification, she says. For instance, Hauz-e-Shamsi in Delhi’s Mehrauli, has been notified as “Shamsi Talaab”. The latter is a missing monument.

Manpower is a major challenge when it comes to preserving protected monuments. The parliamentary committee report noted that of the required 7,000 security personnel for 3,693 monuments, the government could provide 2,578 security personnel at 248 locations due to budgetary constraints.

The CAG inspection could cover only 1,655 monuments on the protected list at the time. There’s a possibility, therefore, that more monuments might be still missing or need to be traced. The list will be pruned after the final attempt to locate the 24 monuments.

However, deleting lost/untraceable monuments from the protected list isn’t simple. It needs denotification of the monument under Section 35 of the AMASR Act, which is a long-drawn process. As Ray points out, the denotification process, too, needs to be carried with due diligence. Some monuments that have already been classified as lost, such as the statue of General Nicholson in Delhi — a British hero from the 1857 Battle — haven’t yet been de-notified by the ASI.

THE CULTURE CAUSE  

Monuments go “missing” for cultural reasons as well. Often, local “haunted” legends and inauspicious activities render old villages and townships like Kuldhara, Rajasthan, neglected and untouched by tourists as well as authorities. Cultural dissonance is another reason for monuments to be lost and forgotten. The Buddhist Stupa about 35 km from Islamabad, Pakistan, in the village of Mankiala, is a prime example.