Will UNESCO awards for Rambagh Gate in Amritsar and Pipal Haveli in Gurdaspur bring the focus back on the need to preserve our cultural legacy

Gurmeet S Rai

UNESCO announced winners of 2023 Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation in December last year. The 12 selected entries included six Indian projects, two of these from Punjab.

The Rambagh Gate in Amritsar was given ‘Award of Excellence’, while Pipal Haveli in Nawanpind Sardaran village, Gurdaspur, was awarded Special Recognition for Sustainable Development. The Rambagh Gate, restored under the HRIDAY programme of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs by the Municipal Corporation of Amritsar, reversed centuries-old deterioration and revived the original form by employing traditional building techniques and locally produced materials such as the characteristic Nanakshahi bricks set in lime mortar. A jury of seven international conservation experts appreciated the project for its continued use by the historical gate community as a traditional market, a government school, and a municipal printing press.

Situated inside a historic ‘haveli’, Pipal Haveli is a contemporary community-centered, multi-use educational building. Appreciated by the jury for its transformative heritage practices, the new building, located in rural Punjab, emphasises ecological and traditional building methods, as well as the construction techniques that utilise locally-sourced materials and vernacular architectural language.

Embedded in the context of the projects are critical questions faced in the field of heritage conservation and integration within the lives of the local people. Conservation of heritage within communities has been an ongoing effort since the 1980s with the establishment of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). Special programmes in architectural and urban conservation were established in Indian colleges of architecture. Therein, architects are trained in conserving heritage and simultaneously integrating aspects of reuse that uphold tangible and intangible values of the buildings and sites.

Other Indian projects

• Karnikara Mandapam at Kunnamangalam Bhagawati Temple, Kerala, garnered an Award of Distinction (second place).
• Church of Epiphany in Gurugram, Haryana; David Sassoon Library and Reading Room, in Mumbai; and Bikaner House, in New Delhi, India (third place) were recognised with an Award of Merit.

The six projects in India that received the UNESCO awards demonstrate diverse approaches to integrate heritage into the urban landscape while protecting the integrity and authenticity of the sites with community-centric approach. The mandate of heritage protection and conservation is on the ‘concurrent list’ of governance. Hence, it’s a shared responsibility of the national and the state governments. This led to the reorganisation of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) into two parts soon after Independence. At the national level, the ASI protects and manages monuments of national significance, and the state departments of archaeology undertake similar tasks for the sites of regional significance. To illustrate this, Rambagh Garden in Amritsar is protected under the national law while the Gobindgarh Fort there is protected under the state law. However, urban development and governance of cities is the mandate of state governments. Hence, heritage of local significance, for instance, the Rambagh Gate and the colonial period gates of the city of Amritsar as well as the historic buildings of heritage value in the walled city, which otherwise is not protected by the national or the state government, necessitates means of protection and conservation by the local government as part of city development policy and programmes.

Globally, culture has been recognised as the fourth pillar of sustainable development. In 2010, UNESCO adopted the ‘Agenda for Culture’, emphasising the need to integrate culture into development policies and strategies. Distinguishing the integral role of people-centric approach for preserving cultural diversity, heritage, traditions and practices, in 2015 the international community adopted ‘The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ and included culture in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It has been identified that focusing on cultural rights, heritage, diversity and creativity is essential for both human development and sustainability, ensuring the effectiveness of the 2030 Agenda.

However, in India, a serious question faces urban governance at the end of over four decades of extensive work in cultural heritage conservation. This is whether adequate reform has been achieved in the institutional structures for mainstreaming cultural heritage of local significance into city development through institutionalised planning, development and governance. Both tangible and intangible cultural heritage is seen sitting on the margins of city development, policy and practice. Buildings and sites of heritage significance such as the Rambagh Gate, the Town Hall, and several others, under the ownership of government bodies continue to lack policy and institutional support for conservation and sustained care recognising the values of the sites.

In the past two decades, sporadic effort to support heritage conservation representing a legacy of a people for tourism enhancement at the local level received financial support through ‘schemes’ for development of tourism destinations. Through the HRIDAY programme of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development of Government of India (2015-2019), heritage of local significance received financial support for mapping heritage, identification of heritage zones, planning for conservation and infrastructure development within these zones in 12 historic cities across the country. Essentially, nothing has been done at the local level or at the regional level to sustain cultural heritage conservation and care at the local level. Even projects undertaken through support of central government lie in a state of neglect. This is such a let-down for local people and those who believe that culture is important in the present and for the future generations.

The Rambagh Gate project demonstrates the ways to achieve integration of heritage into city planning while creating cultural spaces for the communities. Symptomatic of the challenges faced by cultural heritage of the city is the current condition of ‘care’ being accorded to the heritage of Amritsar conserved under the national programme completed in 2018 and recipient of the prestigious international award for the process and output. Hope the awards usher in a new empowered way of conserving and reconnecting heritage of a place with its people.

— The writer is a conservation architect. Her firm CRCI India Pvt Ltd was awarded 2023 UNESCO ‘Award of Excellence’ and ‘Special Recognition for Sustainable Development’