Take care of history to make history

Next week, New Delhi hosts the two-day G20 summit. Much preparation has been underway to spruce the city up. This includes many of Delhi’s historical monuments undergoing ‘facelifts’. Unfortunately, not much thought has been put into artefact or architecture. Late last month, author of distinguished works like Invisible City: The Hidden Monuments of Delhi, Rakhshanda Jalil, was aghast how monuments inside Delhi’s Lodhi Gardens have been disfigured in the name of ‘prettification’. Sharing photos on X, she pointed out with horror how structures have been ‘coated with a fresh layer of sand, cement and bajri’. ‘In the process,’ she adds, ‘the delicate incised plasterwork on the walls is effaced,’ as is the calligraphy on the facade. This is callousness on a ‘G20’ scale.

For a country bent on proclaiming how it has wrung out the old and rung in the new, wrecking historical monuments is an old habit that is hard to die. Restoration is serious business that is best left to experts overseeing it. And, quite clearly, public authorities have been found to be once again scandalously clueless and without care about doing the job. It took the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s trained craftsmen, for instance, six years to remove a million kg of concrete from the roof and thousands of square metres of cement from the walls, ceilings and floors of all structures in the Humayun’s Tomb’s enclosure. Why couldn’t those responsible for Delhi’s latest beautification drive be more conscious and caring of the heritage value of these structures, and employ experts and trained workers, instead of hiring contractors who have little to no expertise in the matter?

Making a city beautiful can’t be a slapdash work to be ready before delegates land. It requires sustained effort, adequate resources and knowledge. Holding summits to shape the future is all very well. But knowing how to preserve the past with the right expertise and knowhow shows the ability to craft and forge the right kind of future. Not just for visitors but also for those who stay and stay back.