As the new welcomes, the old is tucked away
Sarika Sharma
The elevated road and the feel of a new and modern city has engulfed us for some time now. Suddenly, we find the cab rushing through a narrow lane where we seem jostling for space along with rickshaw pullers, bikers and other cars. “There you go,” says the cab driver. He says this is the nearest he can drop us to the Golden Temple. The heritage walkway lies barely 100 metres away.
Beyond and behind the gate
The ambitious Golden Temple beautification project owes its origin to former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal’s dream. He has famously said:
“The Golden Temple is God’s great gift to mankind, the signature of God on earth. It stands like the Heart of God Himself beating for humanity. But every devotee was saddened by the painful contrast of the divine splendour of the shrine with images of narrow lanes, unkempt shops and buildings and chaotic surrounds.
...As I walked under the starlit sky early one morning... I felt a voice directing me to accept ‘seva’ to transform and beautify the whole place...”
The rest is history.
A Rs 210-crore project was conceived to bring the Holy City up to international standards; to make the road leading up to the holiest Sikh shrine “the world’s best street”.
So, the road from Phuwara Chowk to the Golden Temple is now vehicle-free. Refurbished, the building facades are now in red sandstone. All business establishments on the street are painted pink, with maroon boards. A giant waterfall with a statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh atop is where visitors now start clicking selfies. And then there are huge statues of Bhangra dancers where gatka players perform in the evenings under the yellow light of Victorian lamps. There is a multi-level parking, a Partition Museum, Cafe Coffee Day and Subway outlets, the usual papar-warian wale, vendors selling tees carrying slogans denoting Punjabiyat, juttis, Phulkari duppattas — the stuff all tourists want to take home from Amritsar.
Old houses have got a fresh paint too. An old woman, who would have stood testimony to the changes from the Galliara project to the present beautification project, sits in the window of her home on this street, her gaze fixed at something. She isn’t blinking. You step into the street leading to the staircase of her house and you stop blinking too. You feel like in a place from another time, a place far from the beauty of the heritage walkway.
The streets here are crammed, sewerage lines stand open. The house with the lady seems trapped in history; no, somewhere in between with that half new, half old paint. If the walls facing the walkway were fresh pink, here they are shabby; with years of wear and tear standing out. The wood has turned dark brown. The staircase looks worn out. A little unsafe too. Will someone give this a fresh lease of life too, we doubt.
Well, when beautification is a project and not an approach, the difference is stark. And that is actually when all the beauty begins to irk. We turn to experts.
The good and the bad
One of India’s top conservationists, Gurmeet Rai is involved with the Hriday project in Amritsar under which several historical buildings are being restored. She would like to begin with the good things first.
She says it is so heartening that the services have gone underground. She is also glad that the area has been designated for pedestrians. That doesn’t just work from the traffic safety point of view. She says it also means that “because you walk that distance, blood circulation heightens. By the time you reach the sacred site, your mind is at peace and it is a second level experience.” She is also glad the project has affirmed that government projects can be realised in record time and good quality construction can be done in public projects. However, there are things she has a problem with.
“When you are talking about the whole inner city, it requires non-motorised transport like rickshaws and cycles and you give more quality experience to the pedestrian. The walled city is right at the centre and from no edge of the city are you going to walk more than 750 metres or 1km. What is needed is parking on the periphery of the walled city so that people get on to the non-motorised transport or walk down to the bus stand,” she says. If done, Rai says, it would become a part of the larger mobility plan or traffic management plan. And this, she says, would go a long way in impacting the entire setting of Darbar Sahib.
Locals at a loss
Talk to tourists and they marvel at the beauty of the place. “It is so beautiful now. Much more peaceful than I last visited it,” says Preet Dhillon, a visitor from Calgary, Canada. “It is way cleaner and safer,” adds her companion. While pedestrianisation is a good thing, locals feel their rights have been compromised.
It was a tough last year for Kuljit Singh, the owner of the famous Bhai Chanda Singh Gurbhakhash Singh Papar Warian Wale. There were clouds of dust all around. That haze has all settled now, yet Kuljit Singh is peeved. He says sales have fallen, if not for him who has two centuries of history to boast of, for the others whose businesses have hidden behind the jaali that has been added to the facade. Chanda Singh was the pioneer in papar and warian business in Amritsar in the 19th century.
Rai says the moment this opaque and very beautiful facade was created, markets were disconnected. “People now make a beeline for Darbar Sahib and go back. This impacts people’s livelihoods. Had you taken a more inclusive approach for people living in the vicinity of Darbar Sahib, it would have been fair to everybody,” she points.
Madanjit Kaur, who has documented the architectural history of the Golden Temple in her seminal work ‘The Golden Temple: Past and Present’, too feels local people have been neglected in the entire scheme of things. A former professor at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, she says the beautification project has uprooted traditional commerce. She says that while earlier there were seven to eight roads leading in and out of Golden Temple, there is just one main road now. She says congestion will be a permanent issue here. “And what about the elderly, the ailing and kids? How do people deal with this in case of an emergency?”she asks.
Both Kaur and Rai feel the place’s character has been diluted in all this. For Kaur, the entire project has been a propaganda aimed at political benefit. “Rome’s churches, Greek buildings and historical buildings in Israel and Africa stand as they are. Has their importance diminished?” She feels that the commercial establishments leading to the holiest of Sikh shrines would be repulsive for Sikh psyche.
Former professor from GNDU and adviser, Indian Heritage Cities Network, Balvinder Singh is all for the project, but feels it seems more like a picnic space now.
“Conservation doesn’t mean to add new things. It must have harmony with tradition,” he says. However, he is pleased that at least tourists and pedestrians are happy. He too is relieved he won’t have to worry about a rickshaw hitting him from behind.
The way ahead
Rai feels those behind the project should have undertaken just 25 per cent of what has been done so far. She doesn’t understand why the Badal government had to rush. “Services should have been made underground and they could have worked on the outer façade a little. Houses could have been conserved well and we could have presented a sustainable model.”
However, with the Badal government gone and a new government set to do things its own way, Madanjit Kaur is worried about the maintenance of the entire project. “The buildings will be subject to environmental factors. The paint will fade. There will be breakage, wear and tear. While this may not really be the new government’s baby, it would be wise to have a permanent body to look after its upkeep.”
Rai says that the master plan talks about the whole city as a conservation and a tourism floor. “It talks about area-based development. What is going to be scary is if someone considers this project as the best way of addressing history,” she says.
Is anyone willing to read the signs?
What’s with the colours?
A Jaipur-based architecture firm took around a year to complete the work, a record time frame for something that is being done amid a government setup. However, a little homework would not have hurt. Former professor from GNDU and adviser, Indian Heritage Cities Network, Balvinder Singh feels the area around Golden Temple looks like Pink City because of the architects involved in the project. Conservationist Gurmeet Rai says the architectural vocabulary is not from local architecture. “Red sandstone can be seen in Amritsar only in two buildings. At the Rambagh Garden in Western Deori, which was used as a durbar by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and Ramgarhia Bunga with that façade overlooking the parikrama,” she says, pointing out that it means something in the historical narrative. Rai says they have used beige with red oxide and weird designs, which have nothing to do with the art and architecture of Punjab. A Punjabi palette would have had line work of blue, green and red oxide, colours of Lahore School of Painting.
People at the centre
Former professor from GNDU, Balvinder Singh says our projects fail because they don’t put people in the centre. “Internationally, there are rules of urban planning to ensure an elevated road doesn’t pass by people’s bedrooms. Here, who has bothered?” He says trees have been cut mindlessly throughout the city. “Summers are scorching here. They provide share to people. And trees are landmarks of cities, its identity. But no one cares. Why are buses failing? What could be the problems with bus rapid transit (BRT) system? No one wants to give a thought to all this.” However, there is one positive thing that he sees amid this: the Smart City project. “This is the only project that has asked people to give their views and people have responded,” he says.
