|
Three Indian sites were added to the World Heritage list by the United Nations' cultural branch, UNESCO, this summer. They join 23 other sites in India which have already been listed by the organisation. Indian conservationists reacted enthusiastically to the news, proclaiming that their country's heritage is finally getting the recognition it deserves.
India certainly needs all the international help it can get. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is run by central government, is in charge of some 5,000 sites throughout the country; there are dozens more managed by State governments and hundreds which are simply unprotected. But how much difference will the UNESCO imprimatur make to the three new World Heritage Sites?
Abha Narain Lambah, a Mumbai conservation architect who was awarded a UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Conservation award earlier this year says that the listing "is a fantastic tool". "Governments have woken up to the reality that tourism is now one of the biggest drivers of economies in the world", she says.
"In Asia, China and Vietnam have been aggressive in marketing their sites. The challenge for Indian authorities now is to translate the UNESCO listing into better management on the ground and to bring in more tourist dollars. People visiting World Heritage Sites expect world-class infrastructure".
 |
Elephant Chariot, Hampi Ruins, India |
Last month, at the opening in Mumbai of an exhibition on Champaner - Pavagadh, a medieval capital in the Gujarat region, and one of the three Indian sites recently listed by Unesco, Jeff Morgan, executive director of the Global Heritage Fund in California, told The Art Newspaper that UNESCO recognition was vital to boosting tourism. "Champaner is remote, like Hampi [a GHF Project in South India, which was listed in 1986]. If a site is included in guide books, tour operators will take people there".
Morgan cites how Angkor Wat in Cambodia-which has the distinction of having been listed by UNESCO both as a World Heritage Site and simultaneously included on the list of World Heritage in Danger 12 years ago-earns Cambodia a third of its foreign income. Tikal National Park in Guatemala raises $280 million a year, while Machu Picchu receives one million annual visitors. "India is well equipped to benefit enormously, because it has sites dispersed throughout the country", he observes. Other specialists say that the process of submitting a proposal for World Heritage listing to UNESCO, in itself, forces positive changes in the way the site in question is managed by local authorities.
"The campaigning to have a site listed by UNESCO does give us a lever [to improve site management]", says Tasneem Mehta, who heads the Mumbai chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage (INTACH). Ms. Mehta led the successful campaign to have the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway terminus (CST) in Mumbai, listed by UNESCO last summer.
The Central Railway, which owns the station complex, a splendid example of 19th-century neo-Gothic architecture, first submitted a request for listing to UNESCO two years ago. The bid was initially rejected and the Central Railway were told to re-submit their proposal once they had assembled proper documentation.
When considering bids for World Heritage status, UNESCO requires very detailed information about the history of a monument and its importance as a testimony to human creativity. UNESCO also has to be satisfied that effective heritage legislation is in place and that the site has an adequate conservation budget allocated to it.
In recent years, anyone who submitted a proposal to UNESCO has also had to enclose details of the site's management plan. The International Committee on Monuments & Sites (ICOMOS), an NGO comprising conservation professionals from around the world, serves as an advisory body which conducts a physical review of the site before an award. There is also an internal committee to monitor conservation work after an award, as well as a committee of stakeholders.
When re-submitting the bid, Ms. Mehta emphasised that the CST represented a cluster of significant buildings and formed part of a cultural landscape, features which Unesco specifically looks for.
The process of submitting a bid and the award of World Heritage status also plays an important part in raising international support at the highest level. When he visited Mumbai last year, Ms. Mehta guided Prince Charles around CST for an hour. The prince then invited INTACH to Clarence House and he will be holding a major fund-raising dinner in December for several causes he espouses in India including conservation.
But UNESCO recognition is by no means sufficient to protect a monument. The awards carry no direct financial reward and, once a site has been listed, its management is left to local authorities, despite the rigorous selection process. In 1995, Sir Bernard Feilden, a conservation architect who has worked on York Minster and other cathedrals, visited the rock-cut caves at Elephanta Island, just off the coast of Mumbai, a site which was listed in 1987, and was appalled to see garbage strewn all over and visitors scrambling over the huge three-faced statue of Shiva. He wrote to the ASI, threatening that he would write to UNESCO to have the site removed from the World Heritage list unless an effective management plan was implemented. This acted as a catalyst; UNESCO provided initial funding to the ASI to improve the site and INTACH later obtained funds for a management plan.
A more serious threat is to Hampi , where the Karnataka State government has built two bridges across the river where the 14th-century site is located. "It is the cause of great damage to the monument", says Anila Verghese, a Mumbai art historian who has written a book on Hampi . "They knocked down the fort walls in the process. People who manage such sites have not got their act together. There are plans for malls to be built just outside the site". These developments prompted UNESCO to put Hampi on the list of World Heritage in Danger in 1999.
George Michell and John Fritz, art historians who have conducted extensive research on Hampi , concur: "There was virtually no contact between UNESCO, the ASI and the Karnataka Department of Archaeology on the management of Hampi after it had been listed as a World Heritage site until word reached Paris that a bridge at the site was about to be finished. Only then did UNESCO people visit the site and declare it endangered. This did have a positive impact by temporarily halting the construction of the bridge. Important questions on the management of the site were also raised. But now the bridge is being completed, and a bypass road is being built through part of the ancient area. From our point of view, the UNESCO listing has completely failed to protect this site. As far as we know, no management plan has been fully drawn up, let alone implemented."
In theory, a site could be removed from the World Heritage list by UNESCO, but this has never yet happened. UNESCO usually threatens to place World Heritage sites that are being mismanaged on the list of World Heritage in Danger: some 35 sites in India have been notified so far. As a rule, UNESCO only inspects sites after World Heritage listing has been granted if there is a complaint. With 788 World Heritage sites around the world, UNESCO simply does not have the resources to monitor them after listing.
Ironically, one raison d'être for recognizing world heritage sites-to raise local revenue via tourism-can be a monument's undoing. At India's most famous monument, the Taj Mahal, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh started filling the bank of the river opposite the great building so that tourist facilities could be constructed before he was blocked by central government (The Art Newspaper, No.139, September 2003, p.22).
At the Ajanta Caves in western India, unchecked tourism threatens the fragile wall paintings. Walter Spink from the University of Michigan, who has been studying this UNESCO site for over 40 years, has suggested restricting entry to the four major caves with paintings that have survived intact. To date, the ASI has ignored the suggestion.
On balance, experts believe that World Heritage listing does put a site on the global map and encourages the authorities to manage sites more effectively because they are concerned about losing the listing. In the end, however, whether listing sites really makes a difference depends on how committed to conservation the local authorities really are.
Please direct media inquiries to:
GHF Press press@globalheritagefund.org
or (650) 325 7520
top
|