Restoration Drama
Ratish Nanda grew up, like so many others, on stories of the Persian influence on Mughal architecture. Then, about a decade ago, the conservation architect got the chance to visit Iran. “I travelled around for a month, looking for structures that influenced Humayun’s tomb, the first grand example of Mughal architecture. I found nothing,” says Nanda, whose
work led UNESCO to dramatically expand the area of Nizamuddin classified
as a World Heritage Site in November. The grand scale, the site plan, the material used, the four-dome layout—it was all unprecedented, he says. There are some influences from Central Asia and Iran, but there’s evidence of Mughal influence on Iran, too: “Not too many places other than India have deposits of red sandstone and marble in the same region. What we have is something original, something of great value.”
What value? Several kinds, it turns out. For one, it can provide employment to women from the nearby Nizamuddin basti. Under an urban renewal pro-
“IT’S NOT ABOUT PRESERVING BUILDINGS. IT’S ABOUT LINKING PEOPLE AND THEIR LIVELIHOODS WITH THEIR HERITAGE”
gramme of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), which Nanda leads, scores of women have been trained in making tourist souvenirs, there are cultural events like qawwali evenings, there are food stalls. The basti, which gets overrun by thousands of visitors during the annual fairs (urs), has a sanitation problem. So the trust has built and maintained toilets that hundreds of visitors and residents use. Municipal schools and utilities have been renewed. Old structures in the basti, including a stepwell, have been restored.
These activities are linked to the restoration and conservation of the tomb, which AKTC has undertaken along with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the Central Public Works Department. “It’s not merely about preserving buildings. It’s about linking people and their livelihoods with their heritage,” says Nanda. The seeds of this project lie in 1997, in a gift given on the 50th anniversary of India’s independence. At the time, the Aga Khan, leader and 46th imam of all Nizari Ismaili Shia Muslims, offered to restore the gardens surrounding Humayun’s tomb. The task was then handed over to the AKTC. First laid out in 1571, the gardens had been ravaged by decades of neglect and had been remodelled by the British. During the garden’s restoration, completed in 2004, the trust struck a partnership with the ASI, to determine via historical sources how the garden had originally been laid out. The logical next step was to then work on the restoration of the tomb
and the surrounding buildings. “ASI and the trust have been able to prove that this entire area is of historic and architectural importance,” says Nanda.
The 26-acre site had already been declared a World Heritage Site in 1993. Last year, the ASIAKTC partnership earned that status for the entire complex of about 63 acres, covering 11 additional monuments. “Conservation is not an end in itself; it is a means to a larger end. This collaboration has provided livelihoods to hundreds of master craftsmen, whose skills do not find patrons these days,” says the architect, standing atop the Lakkarwala Burj, at the edge of a newly laid out garden inside the famed Sundar Nursery, adjacent to the tomb. Along with the Purana Qila complex and the Delhi zoo, this is a vital green belt for New Delhi. Nanda believes it could one day be turned into something like Central Park in New York, only with far greater history and heritage.
The nursery, established about a century ago, is the third end of this urban renewal project. The all-new garden, designed by landscape architect Mohammed Shaheer, has close to 300 kinds of trees, and up to 78 bird species have been sighted here. “That includes the first sighting of the ultramarine flycatcher in Delhi,” says Nanda, as a flock of rosy starlings dance overhead, swooping and diving in concert. The birds are on their way to their summer capitals in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Nature connects in a way that even history cannot.