HEALTH OF OUR HERITAGE

In the Mirdha committee, which submitted its findings in 1984, one of the members was Manmohan Singh

PRARTHNA GAHILOTE

NEW DELHI, JUNE 21 Over two decades after the Centre appointed an expert panel to prepare an action plan for protecting historical monuments from vandalism, the Ram Niwas Mirdha Committee report that was submitted in early 1984 is gathering dust at the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) office.

The expert committee recommended that the ''ASI should have at least 9,000 monument attendants to cover all monuments'' and wanted it to have ''a security force of its own.'' It also suggested ''ex-servicemen may be inducted in the security force'' and pointed out that the ''present strength of regular attendants for ensuring safety of monuments is absolutely inadequate.''

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, then financial advisor to the ministry of Education and Culture, was a member of the eight-member panel, constituted under the ministry in 1983. The panel's terms of reference included recommending administrative and professional ways to maintain and protect historical monuments, suggesting special protection for monuments prone to vandalism and also a scheme for training personnel.

Today, the ASI has around 3,000 attendants looking after 5,000 monuments across India. In Delhi alone, there are 172 monuments that have been declared as ''national heritage'' and are ''protected'' under the ASI's Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act of 1958. In Delhi, the ASI works with a total staff of 400. ASI director-general C Babu Rajeev says: ''I only have about 2,500 ASI guards to protect monuments. Another 1,000-1,500 private security guards are engaged to work annually. If we have to work with about 3,500 security guards, then some monuments are bound to be left unguarded and vandalism will happen there.''

He adds: ''The report did recommend that we employ at least 9,000 personnel for security purposes but that is not possible in the budget we have for the ASI. At best only the more important monuments like the Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar and Humayun's Tomb can hope to have proper security while the others wait.''

Mirdha, now chairman of Sangeet Natak Akademi, is understandably upset. He says: ''It is very sad that 20 years down the line, no one has bothered to implement the report. It was a very practical report prepared by highly qualified experts. We only asked for 9,000 monument attendants which is nothing considering that there are over 5,000 monuments that need to be taken care of by the ASI.''

''This only goes on to show that culture and heritage are the last priority in our scheme of things. Museums are in a shambles. They are never renovated, artifacts are lying around not attended to, one chowkidar guards these,'' he adds.''Heritage sites are poorly maintained and the monuments taken care of by the state government are in a worse state.''

''It is disheartening that at one level, we talk about our thousands of years of inheritance and culture and at another level, we care so little to protect and conserve it,'' Mirdha says.