The Aurangabad Centre of the Indian Institute of Architects recently hosted a Maharashtra Level Convention. The Theme of the Convention was Heritage & Tourism. As I was practicing there for about 30 years, I can appreciate the frustration people who live there would feel about the status of affairs. We had a similar conference about 15 years ago, which was attended by most of the decision makers and policymakers in the town, yet nothing has actually happened in all these years. It sometimes feels as if we are fighting for a lost cause.
To the
outsider, Aurangabad is the city of Ajanta & Ellora, a tourist city. It
evokes many images simultaneously. Though the capital town of a backward
region, it boasts of four official industrial estates, has an international airport,
presumably for the tourists, but sustained mostly by the local industrialists,
who have a stake in the development of Aurangabad, and would like to promote
Aurangabad as a destination for many more ventures. Aurangabad was in national
& international news in 2010 when a group of Industrialists and their
friends bought 150 Mercedes Benz cars, the single largest order in the history
of the company. In August 2013, the
Times of India reported that now the cars have largely gone missing from the roads, parked as they are in the safety of
their owners' garages. Fearing damage and dents to their dream drives, the
owners said they cannot risk them on Aurangabad's potholed roads.
Aurangabad
was once famous as the fastest growing city in Asia. This is an interesting but
highly misinterpreted fact. The rate of growth was high because the original
city was very small - the absolute growth of the Aurangabad can not be compared
to a larger city like Delhi or Mumbai. The high rate of industrial growth is
matched now by the highest number of sick units in Maharashtra and there is a
largescale shift of converting the Chikhalthana Industrial area into a
residential neighbourhood. By a happy coincidence, this area is adjecent to
N-1, the highest priced residential locality in CIDCO. It makes a lot of
practical sense now that the owners of the industrial land would like to take
advantage of the enhanced property rates, instead of manufacturing goods and
waiting for returns in a highly unpredictable global economy.
The city
used to be quite clean, but has relented now. It seems that people who used to
keep it clean have now got tired of clearing the mess, and nobody else cares. To
add to the mess we repair the main spine of the city, Jalna road, perpetually. This
is our local past-time. Added to this the Jalna Road has multiple flyovers only
to make the city look good to the visitors who would expect flyovers in a large
city, and we do not wish to disppoint them. Of these the Kranti Chowk flyover
has already become a tourist attraction, for its unique design. Every time I pass
along this junction, I keep wondering whether any other solution to this
flyover would have created such a spectacular design.
History
The city has
been part of a politically important region for more than 2000 years. Paithan
(Pratishthan) was the capital of Satavahanas, and there was a succession of
various other regimes who had their major settlements here including
Rashtrakutas & Yadavas, Mughals, Nizamshahi from Ahmednagar, Adilshahi from Bijapur & lastly the Nijamshahi
regime from Hyderabad. It is thus that the city and its surrounding area has a
large number of historical monuments dating from 400 BC to the 1950s. Of these
Ellora & Ajanta caves are now given the status of World Heritage Sites by
UNESCO, but there are many more which would also qualify for that status if we
make a concerted effort to document them.
The city of
Aurangabad is the brainchild of Malik Amber who established it in 1610, on the
site of a village called Khadki. Apart from the many buildings & gates that
Malik Ambar created here, he also developed a system of pipelines for water
supply to the entire city. The pipes were made out of burnt clay & the
system worked on the principle of siphon. The pipeline originated in the hills,
and carried all the water by gravity alone. Called Nahre-Ambari, the system
worked well till 1960 i.e. for about 350 years. By this token alone, it is a
feat of engineering. Even today, the systems works in some places, though a lot
of it has been fallen in ruins. The INTACH Centre of Aurangabad has been after
the authorities to declare it as a national monument, and the effort may succed
in the long run.
Issues for Conservation - Monuments
Of the
well-known heritage buildings and places which are already listed as monuments,
the problems are related to management. The restoration work is funded by ASI
and recently the Japanese government too granted a few hundred crores for
restoration of Ajintha & Ellora. So as far as restoration of the major
monuments is concerned, funding is not a problem, nor there is any problem of
expertise, though restoration by ASI lacks the sensitive approach these monuments
deserve. But that is a subject for a different paper altogether.
The problems
of management of all these monuments lies in the mindset of the ASI and all the
official agencies which are controlling various aspects of maintainance of
these places. They have borrowed the British mindset of treating the local
population as an undesirable element, that needs to be kept away to conserve
the purity of these places, and the conservation effort is primarily directed
to the unnamed foreign visitors.
It is
therefore no wonder that the entire sets of private service providers at these
locations - the food vendors and vendors selling all kinds of tourist guides
and similar items, shops selling all kinds of crafts and so on operate almost
as if they are the encroachers on the place - in made up shanties which
disfigure the place instead of being seen as providers of a much needed
logistics support to the tourists.
This is in
spite of the fact that the none of the governmental agencies that operate in
these places are providing any of these services. They only wake up to the task
when a VIP or a VVIP decides to visit these places, and create an efficient
display of management for a short duration. For the rest of the year the
tourists are left to fend for themselves.
We keep on
harping the importance of the Tourist Industry, but fail to address the basic
issues in tourist management. It is not enough just to keep the monuments
intact and the area clean, the issue is of the total experience the tourist
has, right from the time of his/her landing in India till the time he/she goes
back.
This
includes his/her interaction with the Taxi-drivers and Hotel operators, the
quality of service at the Hotel, the transport facility to the monuments and
the quality of roads, the sanitation & food facilities at the sightseeing
places and the interaction with all the governmental & non-governemental
organisations during the entire period of stay. Our record on all these fronts
is so absymal that most of the foreign tourists go back with a vow never to
return. Not only that, in the virtually connected world of today, their
experiences are shared with the world, and there are only a few who would be
willing to risk an unpleasant confrontation with all the obstacles just to have
a glimpse of the World Heritage Places that we possess.
It is not a
matter of how much money we have – lack of budget is a normal excuse for the
shabby state of affairs you get in almost all seminars on tourism. So many
organisations - particularly the Governmental ones like ITDC & MTDC - keep
on citing lack of money as the major problem confronting development of
tourism. This is not to true. Tourists do not mind poverty, but what they can not
tolerate are the unhygenic surroundings & apathy of the service providers.
This is true not only of Aurangabad, but almost all places of tourist
attraction in India.
Domestic
Tourists are willing to tolerate a bit of dirt but not the apathy. They are in
fact served better by informal service providers at all these locations – a
contribution not accepted by the officialdom. Unless we include all the private
players in giving a comprehensive package to the tourist, the sitution can only
worsen.
If we really
intend to improve on this score, we need to accept certain basic facts.
Government & its agencies ASI, ITDC, MTDC et al) are best when it comes to
administrative & security matters, but rank worst in providing any kind of
service. I am not saying that all the private operators are good, but the
Government agencies can act as monitors & controllers, deciding the norms
for the private sector service - providers and enforcing these norms through
disciplinary actions, instead of trying to provide these services themselves.
To do this,
we need to accept the other fact that the private service providers are an
integral part of the tourist industry, and must be supported by the government
& its agencies. All over the world, private service providers are respected
and given prime importance in all matters of tourist management. No
self-respecting person or organisation in private sector will be willing to
work with the Government agencies without such acceptance at the Government
level.
We do have
plenty of spaces under the control of ASI or the Government agencies which lie
unutilised today near most of these monuments, where ancillary tourist
facilities can be planned with public-private participation, which can give
infra-structural support to all service providers. This support will not only
enhance the image of the place, it will be make the private operators partners
in the enterprise and make it possible for them to cater to all levels/classes
of tourists, and generate more revenue.
Alongwith
this, we also need to institutionalise all service providers and give them
recognition. A tourist - be it domestic or foreign, is more willing to accept
the official classification for a service provider - be it a taxi-service or
hotel booking. People are wary of getting cheated and would prefer some kind of
official stamp on the service operator. We have been doing this to some extent,
but have not constituted sufficient controls to see that the operators indeed
deliver the goods and are answerable. This may look quite simple on the face of
it, but is actually a tall order. Just to quote one pointer – the Municipal
Corporation of Aurangabad has a large establishment for keeping the city clean-
but is unable to enforce cleanliness at any point of time in the past few
years. Managing cleanliness on a day-to-day basis is a hugh task, and needs a
dedicated management. Same is the case of almost all the items listed above.
Taxi-drivers do not suddenly start being civil to visitors just because of one
advertisement featuring Amir Khan, a city needs to inculcate a culture of
respecting visitors. Aurangabad was once known for its ‘tameej’ and ‘najakat’,
influenced by the Lucknow Navabi mannerisms and courtsey, a feature we need to
bring back as an integral component of experience of the city for the tourist.
Conservation
issues of unlisted heritage
In Aurangabad
a wide variety of buildings and places exist that have heritage value, but
majority of these structures not in the list of either the Central or State
ASI, and thus have no legal protection. A legal protection may not help
conservation directly, but it paves the way for systematic conservation effort.
There is an urgent need for us to intervene since it is this heritage that we
are rapidly losing.
In
Aurangabad, for example, we had 52 historical gates, marking entry to the
original walled city, out of which only 21 remain, and only 3 of them are now
on the heritage protection list of the state archeology. Many of these are
deteriorating day by day. Unfortunately this has not received the attention it
deserves in terms of its historical importance. If the situation continues,
there is an imminent danger of loss of the distinct character and identity
which these buildings and precincts have given to the City of Aurangabad.
A major task
is to create awareness amongst the local population about the heritage value
(and possibly a commercial value through enhanced tourism if properly
preserved!) which alone can gurantee the survival of all this heritage places. A
case in point is the destruction of almost the entire fort wall around the old
city, the stones from which were used by the local residents to build their own
houses. The free raw material may have served a short term objective, but has
destroyed the heritage permanently.
Conclusion
We have conserved the Monuments we have listed already, but have
forgotten to support them with the kind of logistics support that make Heritage
Tourism viable. The situation can be improved by incorporating private service
providers as equal partners with the Government agencies, giving them
recognition & respect, while simultaneously instituting a check on
reliability and accountability.
A concerted effort is needed to bring the so far unexplored
monuments & precincts on the list of heritage places. To do this we need
public-private partnership, but we also need support of local population and
their involvement in the conservtion effort.
Finally, Heritage needs to be preserved for its own sake as an
indicator our culture, and by inference defining our own identity as a people.
This is not a baggage you can afford to drop on the way to development - it makes
your journey through life more meaningful and enjoyable. That it can also help
generate some revenue through its management for the tourist should be seen as
an incidental benefit of keeping your own house in order.
