Harking Back: Conservation has a few principles that must be followed

Just how should our historic sites ‘experts’ proceed with the three basic Unesco steps of treating historically-treasured buildings and spaces? These are ‘preventive conservation’, ‘curative conservation’ and ‘restoration’. A new element seems to have entered the equation in Pakistan: Rebuilding.

As a signatory to Unesco, set up in 1945 with Pakistan becoming a member in 1949, we are bound by its rules. We have got to understand just what we are doing at the moment to our major historic sites in Lahore, as well as all over Pakistan. How we have treated Harappa, Mohenjo Daro and, mostly importantly Mehrgarh, the world’s oldest planned city (over 12,500 years old) is criminal to say the least. What we are doing in Lahore is not ‘criminal’ in the correct legal sense, but it needs to be seen to be understood.

Let us take four examples, very briefly, to understand our approach to Lahore’s historic sites, they being the Shalimar Gardens, Lahore Fort, the Old Walled City of Lahore and Chauburji. Let us start with the Shalimar Gardens. In the year 2000, our then Chief Minister Nawaz Sharif in his urge to construct a wide road to the Indian border knocked down two of the three historic Mughal-era water filtration plants.

Just for the record, when I visited the Alhambra Palace in Cordova, Spain, I saw similar water filtration plants still functioning there. Mind you those are almost 775 years old, while the Shalimar ones were about 375 years old. That is why that blind destruction still rankles. Unforgivable in my books.

The result is, as a Unesco report states (available on the internet) that “after that disaster the garden has never recovered”, even though several motors have been installed which most of the time are not working. The flow, pressure, speed and clarity of the water, tuned to exact parameters, kept the 410 fountains working to perfection on three levels of terraces for centuries. That was immediately lost. Additionally, the eastern walls have been damaged by encroachments and the governments, all of them including the current one, are incapable of conservation and curative steps, let alone restore the damage. No one is bothered any longer.

Now to our beloved Chauburji crossing. The chief minister then, brother of the Shalimar water filtration plants destroyer, decided to build an overhead railway line at an amazing and suspiciously high price. The problem was that it cut across six rare historic sites in Lahore, including the Shalimar Gardens. The Chauburji site ran into legal problems after conservationists challenged the plan based on the vibrations that would occur. It was a scientific and exact complaint. Thanks to a pliant bureaucracy and a legal system that bends ‘appropriately’, the line was built. Slowly the vibrations are cutting into the monument. It is a matter of time, as the experts tell me, that the historic monument will come down with a massive thud. Rest assured no one is bothered now, or will be in the future.

Now on to the old walled city of Lahore. This is the city’s oldest historic place. The ancient pre-Akbar portion is well over 2,000 years old verified after two traces of archaeological evidence in the shape of pottery finds (in the fort and inside the ancient city) pointed to it being near the 4,000 year mark. No work has been done there. However, work on conservation at the inside Delhi Gate side has produced excellent results, that must be said. The Shahi Hamman and the ongoing work on the Wazir Khan’s mosque stand out. But to my mind the initial Aga Khan ‘demonstration’ project in Gali Surjan Singh is the most important. That the LWCA has not maintained the place points to what lies ahead.

But the worse aspect of preventive conservation that should have taken place in the ancient portion of this great historic city is totally absent. The trader class constantly, again with the proverbial official ‘blind eye’, keep felling historic buildings to replace them with concrete ugliness, much that it is denied. It is criminal to say the least. But then again, no one is bothered any longer.

Let me touch upon the walls of this historic city. The first criminals to knock down portions of the northern and southern walls were the British colonialists, who after 1857 were scared of another siege like the one in Delhi that almost cost them ‘their empire’. Come 1947 and the new trader classes who had moved in from the East (they came the same route as the British) they slowly knocked down the walls for use in constructing new markets, which today take up 65 per cent of the old walled city. The legal commercial limit is 15 per cent of the total area. This itself is illegal. But who is bothered.

Mind you in history it are traders who destroy and also change regimes, and hence are a dangerous lot. But will these walls ever be rebuilt as a ‘restorative’ measure as recommended by Unesco? Again no one is bothered any longer.

Now let us touch upon the Lahore Fort. This masterpiece has 21 smaller masterpieces. Of recent a new one was added in the shape of what is called ‘The Royal Kitchen’. Bang in the middle of this ‘kitchen’ is a small room where the late ZA Bhutto and the labour leader Hassan Nasir were kept, and may I add tortured. Hassan Nasir was killed in cell 13 on 13th November 1960. Other students and leaders have been through these dungeons, including the one locked away from public eyes. Quite a few were killed, or ‘disappeared’.

Should they be remembered, even if it means by hundreds of plaques? We know that Guru Arjan was kept and killed there as were hundreds of others by the Mughals and the British and, lest we forget, by Pakistan. They all need to be remembered. Surely that will add immensely to the mystique of this magnificent ancient fort.

But let me end this piece by going over the strategy adopted to halt the deteriorating condition of the fort. The LWCA has, using subtle image enhancing social media, informed that work has started on bringing all the 21 treasured monuments inside the fort to ‘prime condition’, but in a step by step effort. That makes sense. My concern is that if the steps are ‘preventive conservation’ and ‘curative’ in essence, then it is fine and very good and needs to be lauded.

But if the effort is allegedly ‘restorative’ as has been said, and entails rebuilding lost portions as was sparingly done in the Shahi Hamman case for supportive purposes only, then it must be said that a certain set of rules be followed, making sure that the restored portion did not exceed 5pc of the total conserved monument. The Aga Khan Trust must be commended for following these rules in the Shahi Hamman case. That Pakistan never honours them is another sad story.

But if a totally new set of walls for the current ‘restorative’ monuments has large portions added, then an effort must be made now to not let this happen. Also to allow public functions to take place in the fort calls for a re-reading of the rules. At this stage as the preventive and curative restoration work is on, we must all be very wary that now reconstruction work does not soil the originality of our precious monuments. Does anyone care? My view is that it is about time we did.