Preservation or erasure? A closer look into the Jallianwala revamping project
Published on: 23 September 2021, 07:50 am
The Jallianwala Bagh restoration project has received widespread criticism for its inconsiderate beautification of a solemn site of tragedy. SAMRIDHI SHUKLA writes about the need to heed international guidelines on the restoration of historical sites, and to avoid politicization of the collective history of the country.
———————-
THE recently completed Jallianwala Bagh restoration project undertaken by the Government of India has been decried across social media platforms and scholarly circles.
Once emblematic of one of the most brutal State-sponsored massacres in British history, the site has now been reduced to somewhat of a picnic spot, with manicured lawns and a light and sound show to boot. Many outraged citizens have raised questions regarding the tone-deaf manner in which the restoration has been carried out.
It is thus important to delve into the potential legal ramifications of the Disneyfication of a mass murder site that invokes strong patriotic emotion and carries with it such a bloody past.
The renovation flouts several international guidelines on restoration of heritage sites
In 1964, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) released the Venice Charter that laid out several points to pay heed to while restoring a site or document of historical and cultural value. Article 7 of the Charter recognised a monument as "inseparable from the history to which it bears witness and from the setting in which it occurs."
The Jallianwala Bagh restoration is blatantly incongruent to this. Instead of standing true in testimony to a brutal State-sponsored massacre of the people of Punjab, this "complete revamp" of the Bagh has virtually erased the raw emotion the pre-renovation structure invoked.