Privatising our heritage
Heritage activists have alleged that five star lobbies could be the brain behind the state government’s move to amend the law relating to ancient monuments. The Goa Heritage Action Group (GHAG) has strongly objected to ‘The Goa Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment) Bill, 2010’, passed during the budget session of the Legislative Assembly in March. In a first-person report on the front page of ‘Herald’ last week, GHAG executive member and History lecturer Prajal Sakhardande pointed out how the amendments to the Ancient Monuments Act could seriously threaten the very sites the law was supposed to protect.
Mr Sakhardande was strongly critical of the inclusion of words like ‘re-erection and ‘re-construction’ of heritage monuments, specifically allowed in the amendment Bill, which was phrased as ‘maintain’ in the original Act, enacted in 1978, when Shashikala Kakodkar was the Chief Minister.
As far as ancient monuments go, the ‘conservation policy’ is followed worldwide. The very word ‘conservation’ suggests that not only the value and the significance of the site must be preserved, but that as much as possible of the original must be restored. ‘Re-erection’ and ‘re-construction’ is only taken up if the monument is crumbling, or has completely collapsed. Even in such circumstances, only the original existing pieces are pieced together, as has been done, for example, in the case of the Tambdi Surla temple. ‘Re-erection’ and ‘re-construction’, framed as loosely as it has been in the amendment, can completely deface the history and heritage character of a monument.
An alarming aspect of the amendment is that it allows any agency, other than the government, to take over ancient monuments and put them to adaptive reuse. This, the GHAG has rightly argued, throws the field open to private vested interests, hotel lobbies and other commercial interests, which will prey upon Goa’s priceless heritage to make a quick buck.
And, in a bizarre twist, the amendment comes into effect retrospectively, with effect from 1 March 2007. This throws up the possibility that the amendment has been specifically designed to provide a legal cloak for some secret illegal deals that have already been concluded, and are now sought to be ‘legalised’. Shades of Regional Plan 2011…? Are some or all of Goa state’s 51 monuments – chapels, temples and forts notified by the Archaeology Department – under threat of being handed over to private firms? It wouldn’t be the first time… In the past, a European company tried to take over the Cabo de Rama Fort in South Goa, helped by a pliant government that tried to denotify the monument. It was only after strong protests that the move was scuttled.
Even now, certain public areas in the historic Tiracol Fort, which has been leased to a private hotelier, are illegally restricted as ‘private’. The hotelier has also converted part of the ramparts – which should be left open to the public – into a cafeteria space.
Goa’s monuments belong to the heritage of the land and its people. The government is just the caretaker, not the owner. It cannot barter away the people’s patrimony.
I, me, mine
Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane, who is all set to retain his Valpoi seat in the coming by-poll, has said that he wholeheartedly supports the mining industry in Goa, and that those who talk about a ban on mining should first say how they will give alternate employment to the people of the area.
Mr Rane also says that mining should not be at the cost of the environment. How true. But let him first show the people some genuinely ‘environmentally friendly’ mines, before he expects them to understand his views.
