How India can save its urban heritage

One of the first projects that Lambah worked on in 1998 was to establish conservation guidelines for Dadabhai Naoroji Road, a commercial spine of Mumbai, plastered with shop fronts, signboards and hoardings. At the same time, she joined hands with a few others to establish the Kala Ghoda Association and started working with the Horniman Circle Association, both comprising locals who were keen on conservation. “There was no funding agency, no grant programmes and very low awareness. People didn’t even know what a conservation architect did,” she says.

As part of the pilot project, they approached financial establishments in Horniman Circle, and asked them to donate ₹1 lakh each. Though they managed to raise just ₹6 lakh, they used it to restore the facade of Botawala building, which was in terrible shape. At Kalaghoda, the team used donations to restore the facade of Elphinstone College. “Different people came together because they felt a sense of responsibility towards their city, where heritage is what you engage with every day—schools, stations and libraries. From Mumbai, it spread to cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Nagpur and Hyderabad,” says Lambah.

Although groups of citizens began to get interested in conserving, the tools for doing so were still missing. Lambah recalls working with general building contractors and trying to raise their skill set to work on specialised conservation projects. She had to innovate as well, such as mount irrigation sprinklers on a scaffolding and sync it with a timer to create enough mist to clean stone surfaces without damaging them.

Dilawari came across many layers of paint that had been applied in the name of conservation to Flora Fountain in South Mumbai. It took two tedious years to scrape it off and reveal the original colour of the Portland stone. There were also times when the only documented evidence were black-and-white photographs, making it impossible to know what some structures originally looked like. “When no reference is on hand, it’s mostly a conscience call. It’s an attempt at perfection in order to do it in the best possible manner,” he says.

“There are a lot of forensics involved, besides historical research. For instance, while working on the master plan of Viceregal Lodge in Shimla, it was Lady Dufferin’s diary that revealed the colour schemes. For Opera House in Mumbai, we found a little brochure that had been published during its opening in 1916. And for the Moorish Mosque in Kapurthala, it was Brigadier Sukhjit Singh, the grandson of Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala, who remembered the colour palette,” Lambah says.

Once restoration itself is over, conservation architects are also known to present a periodic maintenance plan, where funds are often generated through on-site events or by leasing out sections to commercial establishments, as in the case of Bikaner House in New Delhi. In a few projects such the Muljhi Jetha fountain in Mumbai, the owners of a few restaurants in the vicinity volunteered to take responsibility for security and gardening.

On-ground challenges are aplenty, starting with funding, given that India has numerous heritage structures across the country. For state-owned structures, restoration is at times funded by municipal bodies or money that comes via corporate social responsibility funds; the latter, mostly, going to projects that draw eyeballs. “The concept of urban heritage conservation started in 1967, when the UK enacted the Civic Amenities Act, but we’ve made rapid progress in the last 15 to 20 years and are at par with global efforts. But there remains a gap between policy and implementation,” says Tipnis. “But whenever there is going to be a battle between real estate development and conservation, you know the former will win.”

Conservation becomes a testing process in the case of private properties, where landlords continue to collect measly rents. For instance, buildings that fall under the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999. This has resulted in tenants paying a pittance, while refusing to vacate the property, which makes it hard to maintain them. Modifications first require permissions from the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee.

“On one hand, it’s called the city’s heritage while at the same time they don’t have any funds to maintain it. So, the public asset now becomes a private liability,” says Harshad Bhatia, an urban designer. “Our guidelines have been framed with a sepia-tinted, picture postcard view of what it was back in the day. You have to look at it from the living heritage point of view and the growing needs of the population.”

One of the key projects that urban conservationist Kamalika Bose has worked on is the Chinatown quarter of Kolkata. At first, the locals couldn’t understand the interest that she and her team had in their area. “They lacked an identity, since they had been marginalised in all sorts of ways over the years. So we first had to get the community on board and get them to take pride in their neighbourhood,” she says.

Bose first produced a book that documented the heritage of the area and handed it out to each household to mobilise the community. Two years later, they transformed a common space into a Cantonese restaurant. Over time, even tourists to the area started to have a more meaningful experience.

“Gradually they started thinking that maybe there was something to look into after all. It’s had a ripple effect today, where smaller initiatives like pop-ups and festivals are being celebrated with a wider audience. Only when they feel a sense of belonging as equal citizens of Kolkata, will they make efforts towards saving their heritage,” Bose says. “Conservation needs a holistic approach that goes beyond restoring a few buildings.”