What does India’s archaeological heritage have in common with her natural heritage? And why will preserving our environment also help save the pasts of our ancestors?

For one, both are endangered as never before and without drastic remedial action, will soon be civilizational debris. The tiger has disappeared across large parts of its habitat, as have several of India’s ‘protected’ monuments. All these lay within sanctum sanctorums that were supposed to have protected them. In tiger reserves, a core area is set apart for tigers to live in; surrounded by a buffer zone where limited human activity is allowed. The equivalent for monuments is a ‘prohibited area’ while the less exclusive ‘buffer’ zone is called a ‘regulated’ area.

The theory underlying prohibitions on construction in the ‘prohibited area’ surrounding national monuments was better preservation. The theory has been belied by the practice; and among the colluding culprits has been the Archaeological Survey of India’s. By its own admission, 249 protected monuments have been encroached for decades, with unauthorized structures even around Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace in Porbander.

How can our heritage be better protected? One way to do this is to preserve the environment of which it forms a part. India’s forests, fields, hills and coastlines are dotted with dead towns and deserted villages, magnificent megaliths and mundane stone tools — all sentinels of the past. Where such landscapes have been preserved, our shared pasts have survived.

The Aravalis in Delhi-Haryana region is an example of this. Across this terrain are Stone age sites. Many sites that yielded prehistoric tools in mid 1980s have now been destroyed by construction and mining companies. There remain, however, pockets such as JNU campus where prehistoric land use can still be studied because construction is restricted. The past has survived because the landscape in which it is embedded has survived.

For this, legislation that protects both kinds of heritage is required. Some provisions are already in place. The environment ministry’s Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification of 1991 mentions, along with areas of outstanding natural beauty, historical/heritage areas. In this zone, from 2003 onwards, a clearance from the ministry became mandatory for demolition or reconstruction of buildings of archaeological importance.

Consequently, Queen Mary’s College on Marina beach in Chennai was saved from demolition. This needs to be extended. Lists of heritage sites within the CRZ should be prepared. Similarly, the environmental impact assessment should be made more heritage sensitive. How can this be assessed without a heritage expert on the Expert Appraisal Committee?

Above all, political will is what can push such action through. Environment preservation and heritage protection are Siamese twins joined at the hip: they have worked under rulers sensitive to their joint concerns. Lord Curzon saved innumerable monuments across India and it was he who notified Kaziranga as a reserved forest, ensuring survival of the one horned rhino. Indira Gandhi created the department of environment and stalled ‘development’ work around many monuments.

The question now is whether PM Manmohan Singh who launched ‘National Action Plan on Climate Change’, can outline a ‘National Action Plan on Heritage’.

( Professor at the Department of History, Delhi University)