Author: Soutik Biswas
Publication: Outlook
Date: February 26 2001
IT'S a truly majestic 18th century
palace, ironically flanked by a modern-day 500,000-litre water tank. If
you ignore this brick-and-mortar monstrosity, the Darbargadh in Morbi-a
bustling 800-year-old trading outpost for some 230 villages in western
Gujarat-is a revelation: fine ashlar masonry-masonry of hewed or square
stone-on handsome yellow sandstone where strains of neo-Gothic and Graeco-Roman
styles clash happily in a high noon of eclecticism in architecture. Look
down from the palace and you see indelible signs of European city planning:
a straight processional road flanked by what used to be a pretty, 120-year-old,
low-slung bazaar of 300 shops with semi-circular arches. Walk down the
road and you reach a town-gate tower, the cast-iron for which was shipped
in from Birmingham. With its crescent-shaped boundary and low buildings,
mostly two-storey with colonnaded pillars, Morbi looks like a dusty, frayed,
tropical echo of a 'classical' English town like Bath.
But all that was largely before
the fateful January 26 earthquake that flattened most of the historic town
of 150,000 people and left 250 of them dead. Glorious history has now become
depressing detritus. The palace is badly damaged and out-of-bounds, with
the debris spilling out on a narrow town roundabout. A 134-year-old, red-tiled
girls school, the first in Morbi, opposite the palace has crumbled. The
famous 72-year-old Manimandir, a great specimen of 19th century regional
style with a perambulatory path, carved timber pieces and red-tiled roof
built at a cost of Rs 100,000, has been damaged. The historic bazaar, which
the king rented out to traders for a rupee a shop, looks carpet-bombed.
"I am numbed by the sight," says Delhi-based architect Hemen Sanghvi, who's
returned to his quake-ravaged hometown to explore the damage. "I can't
relate to Morbi any longer."
The quake has been a great leveller
in more ways than one: it has swallowed up the present and the past in
its fell swoop. The upshot is incalculable damage to Gujarat's historic
towns, palaces, monuments and antiquities. For one, nearly half of India's
580-odd princely states were located in quake-hit Kutch and Saurashtra.
So, entire towns have lost their unique character and signature Indo-colonial
architecture. Historic monuments protected by the Archaeological Survey
of India (asi) have also been either destroyed or badly damaged. Of the
213 asi-protected monuments in the state, a 'good number have been damaged',
according to D.R. Gahlot, the Vadodara-based superintending archaeologist
of the circle. In Ahmedabad alone, nearly half of the 53 asi-protected
monuments-most of which are mosques and tombs with their fabled swinging
minarets-have been damaged, at least ten of them very seriously. "After
the loss of human lives, the loss of antiquities in Gujarat has been enormous,"
says Rabindra Jayendralal Vasavada, fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects
and member of the Intach, Gujarat chapter.
He's right. What gave, for example,
Dhrangadhra, a once-pretty and proud town of salt makers, cotton growers
and stone-cutters in Surendranagar district, a historic touch was its 110-year-old
palace belonging to Kumar Siddhrajsinhji, the 47th-generation scion of
Harpal Dev, the local king. Thirteen years ago, his wife Kavrani Kanchande
converted this beautiful palace-now home to a half-blind watchman and an
ailing nanny-into a school.
Till the quake cracked its floors,
walls and part of a stunning 80-ft dome, prised open its arches, and tore
apart its rich teak doors, 30 teachers used to turn up daily to teach some
1,000 local children. In terms of human loss, Dhrangadhra, a once-fortified
city whose cowdung-plastered walls have collapsed, was luckier: only six
people died in this town of 70,000 people. Nestling amidst bat-infested
trees, the gorgeous, 500-year-old, sandstone palace in Halvad, a sister
town, some 30 km away, has also been damaged badly: the foyer roof has
caved in, sturdy handsome wooden panels with engravings have collapsed
and broken stone, plaster and bricks lie all around. The 80-ft-high ornate
watchtower with a wooden staircase and 40 balconies, the piece de resistance
of the 18-room palace, has developed cracks and needs urgent repairs. Caretaker
Prabhat Bhouba says the tower swayed like a storm-tossed boat during the
quake and it is "surprising that it didn't fall down."
No such luck, of course, lay in
store for Aina Mahal, once the showpiece of Bhuj, the town which bore the
brunt of the earth's wrath. Writer Bill Aitken, on a visit to the 248-year-old
palace, had once quipped that he was 'greeted by a clatter of mail-catalogue
art objects that 19th century royals ordered with abandon' inside its Durbar
Hall. Still, it drew 80,000 people a year up its marble stairways to gape
at the Belgian glass paintings, dresses, sepia-tinted rare photographs,
embroideries and textiles in the collection. Today, the king Rao Pragmalji's
old palace, designed by a seafarer-architect who cut his teeth in Holland,
is in ruins. Next door, the sturdier-looking ornate Italian marble and
sandstone Prag Mahal or the new palace, is also severely damaged with its
roofs and balconies crumbling. A fortnight after the quake, the caretakers
haven't been able to enter the palace. "How are we going to fund the restoration
of these palaces?" asks a dishevelled scion, Raghuraj Sinh Jadeja, who's
been camping in the courtyard since the quake to prevent thefts of antiquities
strewn around. "Repairing this will not get any politician votes all right,
but this antiquity belongs to all."
Many people in Bhuj, which drew
a fair share of tourists because of its palaces and monuments, are asking
the same question. Along with Aina Mahal, another big crowd-puller in the
city was the 123-year-old Kutch Museum, the oldest in Gujarat. Originally
know as the Fergusson Museum after its founder James Fergusson, a governor
of Bombay, the museum had a large collection of Harappan artefacts, 17th
century miniature paintings of traditional Kutch architecture, a 7th century
statue of Buddha, jewellery and diamonds, rare weapons, including an inscribed
18th century cannon gifted by Tipu Sultan to the Kutch ruler. It also had
a collection of coins in circulation before World War II, and vintage wooden
artefacts and embroidery from the region. Today, the museum is in a sorry
shape: the facade has cracked, the roof has caved in on its collection,
and even its gates are lying open on a busy Bhuj street. Only the cannon
standing in the courtyard seems to have survived. There's no caretaker
in sight. "The museum was an unique capsule of Kutch culture," says Kalpana
Desai, director of the Mumbai-based Prince of Wales Museum.
The 452-year-old town, founded by
Rao Khengarji I, who started a 400-year-old dynasty of Jadeja rulers in
the region, has lost more than a palace, museum and a vintage crafts bazaar.
Even its famous chhatris (memorials
to the former rulers) have been reduced to rubble. Standing to the west
of Hamirsar lake, the most imposing of them all, Maharao Sri Lakhpatji's
chhatri, once a polygonal monument with stylistically covered roofs and
a central dome, is in ruins. For the last few years, the chhatris had become
a favourite Bollywood location: caretaker Mohammed Bacchu remembers Salman
Khan and Aishwarya Rai cavorting under the chhatris during a 17-day-shoot
for Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam a few years ago. Even director J.P. Dutta shot
the picturesque cenotaphs for his Border.
For Ahmedabad's legendary shaking
minarets, this was the second jolt in nearly two centuries. Most of the
city's mosques and tombs-some of them were partially damaged in the earthquake
that struck Gujarat in 1819-date back to the 15th century Sultanate. They
have been a major tourist draw for decades now in spite of a 15-year-old
asi ban on visitors going up the spiral stairways to the top to shake the
minarets. Why the minarets actually sway if one just physically shakes
the topmost portion of one of them remains an enduring mystery.
Now, according to V. Nair, Ahmedabad-based
senior asi conservation assistant, some of the minarets have developed
"dangerous cracks". Take, for example, the Bibi-ki-Masjid, a famous 547-year-old
mosque in Rajpur whose 40-ft-tall minarets have suffered extensive damage.
The mosque is one of the finest examples of synthesis of Indo-Islamic architecture
in western India. Years ago, one of the minarets was damaged after lightning
struck it, now the others have been damaged as well. Even the city's famous
Jamia Masjid, the 577-year-old oasis of peace in the noisy old city bazaar
with its sprawling 87,096 sq-ft open courtyard, an ornate 256-pillar prayer
hall, corbelled domes and coloured marble has suffered damage: the entrance
porch to the south side has developed cracks, the stones have opened up,
and the grilles have fallen.
A part of the city's rich history
has also been obliterated after extensive damage to Bhadra fort, the city's
oldest, which once housed royal palaces and had beautiful gardens. The
brick masonry of the stone-clad fort on the southern side of the tower
has collapsed and wide cracks have developed in the minarets. Carting the
debris away is another problem as it has piled up high. "The fort seems
to have suffered maximum damage among all the monuments in the city," says
Nair. That's not all. Three mansions, owned by the Sarabhai family, have
developed cracks: the Shanti Sadan estate, the 100-year-old Sarabhai family
home outside the old city, which was used as a school, is the worst hit.
The restoration of towns and monuments
is certain to stir up a controversy. Already municipalities are making
noises about pulling down damaged palaces and towers and building anew.
In Morbi, for example, the municipality is mulling over the possibility
of pulling down the damaged bazaar. "They could shore up the bazaar. But
they will pull it down and hand it over to promoters," fears architect
Sanghvi. Then there's the question of funds: the asi alone will require
Rs 1 crore, according to a preliminary estimate, to restore its damaged
monuments. The state archaeological department is in near-penury: it reportedly
has an annual upkeep budget of Rs 30 lakh.
As for the palaces damaged, nobody
in the government seems to be bothered.This despite the fact that large
areas of these palaces now house unkempt government offices, banks and
godowns paying paltry rent. In fact, the Dhrangadhra authorities told Siddhrajsinhji
to demolish a cracked palace dome in "24 hours" when there was no equipment-cranes
or bulldozers-available in the town. It's another matter that most of the
palace now houses government offices. "Just how are we supposed to do it?"
asks Sinhji. Good question. Neglect and mutilation of history is nothing
new in India. Gujarat, however, will have to live with something more painful:
the obliteration of some of its history and the passing away of the wisdom
that goes with it.
