Former Chief Election
Commissioner of India, who started his career as Delhi Metropolitan Council
official had served in Pondicherry as Secretary of Culture and Ports, and also
had been Secretary in of Town and Country Planning. After climbing to reach
great heights to become Chief Election Commissioner of this great democracy,
suddenly his views appeared in The Hindu dated 16th August of 2012
Open-Editorial page while we thought he has forgotten Pondicherry in his
retirement.
A heritage, all at Sea is
his article. Let me remind him of our heritage. I wrote in New Indian Express
on June 4th of 2005 under the title Saving the Coast, hence I was
happy about Navin Chawla’s concern for the Pondicherry Coast. “As per the study
by the School of Earth Sciences of Bharathidasan University before 1.5 million
years ago sea extended up to Madurai. Around 90,000 years ago Chennai,
Pondicherry and Vedaranyam were encircled by seas. Since sea level subsided
65,000 years ago India and Ceylon got connected. When sea level rose by 27,000
years ago both parted and when sea level fell by 17,000 years ago joined again
to part again”. I have quoted from the report in my article. So we are thinking
of our heritage not limiting our vision to the colonial period but to those
past which is emerging from darkness.
Over 2 lakh years old fossilized skull found
PTI Mar 31, 2003, 12.29am IST
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A well-fossilized human
skull, dating back to over two lakh years, has been found from within
ferricrete at a site near Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu, in a
geo-archaeological exploration conducted at the site.
Besides being one of the oldest hominid
fossils to be found in India, the study of the find could challenge the widely
held theory that a fossil would not remain intact for long in ferricrete
without sediment intrusion, Dr P Rajendran, UGC professor-scientist and
archaeologist at the Department of History, Kerala University, who conducted
the exploration said.
It is known fact the human race
emanated from East Africa 1.60 million years ago,
and if so when there is a discovery of a fossilized baby dating back to almost
same age, is it not our heritage, and should we Pondicherrians not proclaim
that ancient homo-sapiens had their home in our soil.
In and around
Pondicherry 535 stone inscriptions have been found, out of which 4 are in
Sanskrit, 2 in Kannada, 1 in Latin ,2 in French and 1 in Armenian. Should we
not preserve these heritages and should we only preserve few colonial style
buildings.
The rest in 535 stone
inscriptions 16 Chola Emperors, 8 Pandyan Emperors, 2 Later Pallava Emperors,
and 13 Vijayanagara Emperors have inscribed their legacy in Tamil. Is it wrong
to call these history as our past, and should we only think of 1800 colonial
style houses declared by Indian National Trust for Arts and Heritage
Pondicherry chapter in 1995 as our heritage relics. Navin Chawla laments that
half of these houses have undergone changes invoking the fundamental right of
the legally rightful owners of these houses to construct or alter or
re-construct their houses or dwellings in whichever architectural style of
their choice. Nowadays with increasing thefts, burglary, house breaking and
anti-socials on the prowl, is it prudent to keep houses with thinnai , and without compound or fencing
inviting anyone to sleep in the frontal areas of these houses with French
architectural style.
We are not having
pyramids in Pondicherry that calls for preservation. We have not built Kallanai
dam like Karikal Cholan or Tanjavor Temple like Raja Raja Cholan. Nor is it
that we have unearthed within the four boulevards, a site like in Indus Valley,
hence to call the area within four boulevards of Pondicherry as if it is
Jerusalem is not logical that needs preservation. The book written by Jean
Deloche titled Origins of Urban Development of Pondicherry according to 17 th
Century Dutch plans about which I wrote in New Indian Express on 13 th November
2004, reveals that “the Dutch plans of Pondicherry preserved at the National
Archives in the Hague show that the orthogonal street pattern of the town is a
creation of the Dutch. The plans of 1693 show that in Francoise Martin’s times
the streets or lanes followed an irregular pattern without any shape or
symmetry whereas the plans drafted in 1694
during the Dutch occupation one finds the design of a large new town
with a regular geometric lay out rectangular blocks of houses separated by
straight streets, intersecting at right angles.”
My humble query is
should not the Dutch legacy be hailed, and why Town and Country Planning
Department of Pondicherry over which Navin Chawla’s rule too existed for some
years, failed to follow the Dutch design when the sub urban areas beyond 4
boulevards of Pondicherry developed rapidly, and with real estate boom
everywhere in agricultural lands lay outs propped up and concrete jungles
mushroomed, and are we to demolish those townships to bring back the
symmetrical pattern of the areas within four boulevard to cover entire town
that has grown beyond control and without foresight Town and Country Planning
of Pondicherry went into slumber for decades, almost half a century.
Multi storey buildings
and flat system were absent in French rule. But when Pondicherry integrated
with Indian Union, the architectural style of rest of India made its head way
here, and with increase in population even within the so called white town,
where in 1995 INTACH identified 300 buildings as heritage buildings, multi
storey flats have come up. Our women used to wear saree and blouses, now chudidars
and pyjamas have caught up and even
jeans t-shirts have replaced pavadai
and thavani ? Are we going to say to
preserve our heritage our girls and women should wear only those old fashioned
dresses and not wear modern dress? A Temple or a Fort or a Pyramid or An
Archeologically declared site like Arikamedu can be rightfully called our
heritage. Colonial architecture which is out of fashion in modern India looses
its relevance. We are part of India and are bound to be influenced by
construction designs that prevail in rest of India.
In the first
scientific excavations conducted in 1945 and published in the book Rome beyond
the Imperial Frontiers [1954] Mortimer Wheeler left “ an impression of a sleepy
village suddenly awakened by enterprising Romans who built stone buildings and
a Port, then fell back to sleep when Roman’s left” opines Francis Peter Junior.
From the arretine
pottery table wares used by the Romans found there Mortimer Wheeler came to the
conclusion that Roman trade flourished between 14 th B.C to 25 B.C. Jean Mari
Casal conducted his excavations between 1947 and 1950 opined that much before
Romans advent Arikamedu was a prosperous Port dating back to 250 B.C. People of
that place were civilized from Iron Age claims Jean Mari Casal who found gold
jewels in the burial sites of Suthukeni and was stunned by the prosperity of
the people. Whatever may be the dating, the Port of Arikamedu is centuries
ahead of colonial entry into Pondicherry soil. Are we to uphold our Indian
legacy and heritage or are we going to attach importance to preserve an old
prison building in main market area of Nehru Street, instead of allowing its
demolition to build a parking area for the crowded market zone?
The proposed plans of
how beach road would look like after INTACH mooted modifications are carried
out as shown in the website of Pondicherry chapter of INTACH shows the Mahatma
Gandhi statue missing? Are these men inside an Indian National Trust
contemplating to throw Mahatma Gandhi into Bay of Bengal to reclaim the beach
in their way of colonial legacy preservation? May be even Jawaharlal Nehru
statue installed on the pedestal of Dupleix statue would be an eyesore to these
saviors of colonial heritage. They may even bring down Jawaharlal Nehru statue
and install Dupleix once again in his original place occupied during colonial
era.
You would have seen
protests in Indian cities, which is an every day affair. Have you heard that
the weavers of London protested in the streets of London in 1700 demanding ban
on import of Indian textiles. Indian textiles were far superior to British
products and weavers of British Isles forced their government to ban Indian
textiles. The excavations in Red Sea ports and Dutch maritime records reveal
that once upon a time India was the couturier of the world. Ms.Rosemary Crill
of the V& A Museum of London along with co-authors Ruth Barnes and Steven
Cohen published a book Trade, Temple and Court Indian Textiles from Tapi
Collections, wherein she states “The East India Company was founded in 1600 to
sell British woolen cloth to India, their ships arrived in India in Surat [of
Gujarat] in 1608 with vast quantities of broadcloth but the trade soon faltered
and died out. What changed their fortune was the discovery of cotton, which was
completely unknown in Europe.” Till 18th century from 10 th century, Indian
weavers were unbeatable in world markets. In fact most of them were Tamil
weavers.
Recently speaking at the Historical Society of
Puducherry, Professor Orse M.Gobalakichenane who published the Veera Naicker’s
diary 1778-1792 admitted that even in France, French weavers protested against
import of textiles from French India namely Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe, Yenam
and Chandranagore. Quoting Veera Naicker’s diary Professor
Orse.M.Gobalakichenane narrated on how the kaikolars, the Tamil community of
weavers were taken on three year contract to French colonies to teach local
weavers, weaving techniques. I intervened and asked, why France took weavers
from Puducherry, whereas they could have brought from their France. Economics
apart, it became evident by the Professor’s reply that French weavers protested
Puducherry textiles leading to the logical conclusion that our weavers were far
superior in their skills which made them wanted species every where.
Is it not the duty of
Indian National Trust for Heritage to preserve this heritage by reviving the
weaving techniques that were the envy of even western countries.
Pondicherry is an
intermediary port, and when Thiru. P. Shanmugam was Chief Minister; I suggested
that this Port be handed over to Singapore Government owned Singapore Port
Trust so that it can be used as transshipment harbor. Since there is nothing
much to export from or import to industries around Pondicherry, if this had
been made a transshipment harbor it would have eased congestion in Singapore
Port and brought revenue to Puducherry Government. Unfortunately my plea went
unheeded. Successive Chief Ministers developed it as fishing harbor. If it should be fishing harbor, fish cold
storage facilities should exist there. Fish or prawn packing preserving and
export processing industry must have been set up within the harbor. Nothing
happened. The rulers forgot that during French regime had built a tunnel
beneath the backwaters 100 meters away from coast near Port’s mouth which
starts from Vambakeerapalayam and reaches Veerampattinam. This underwater
tunnel was used by fishermen in that colonial era. This tunnel, a heritage
tunnel obstructs flow of water from sea or sand from river into the seas. There
is a dredger, often given on contracts to powerful media or politicians and
never to Dredging Corporation of India, a Government of India enterprise.
So vessels entering
harbor is next to impossible dream. Fishing vessels get struck as dredging is
not done by professionals and adding to the complexity of the problem is the
hidden under water tunnel, which Government is neither ready to break nor ready
to study on how to keep the mouth of the river hindrance free for shipping
boats to reach the fishing harbor.
So Navin Chawla’s
single point agenda in supporting INTACH, Pondicherry chapter which wants to
get rid off the Gandhiji’s statue in Beach, as pictures by their proposed
modernization of beach picture shown in their website has no justification even
in the name of upholding colonial legacy, when many buildings which are newly
built or remodeled within white town or even in Beach does not resemble the
buildings that existed in French India. The proposed picture of Nehru Street,
the main market area of Pondicherry, which perhaps INTACH wants to rename as
Dupliex Street, shows trees in the pavements and street appears to be converted
into a park. Are our business people aware of the INTACH plan to make Nehru
Street only usable by pedestrians and cars and two-wheelers to be barred from entering?
Indians won freedom
from colonialism but some vested interests are for clinging to colonial past,
and that too in architecture only. Let Navin Chawla get rid of his selective
amnesia.
[ I thank the hackers who have hacked my email box and who prevented me to post this moving my cursor through intrusion, for having permitted me to atlast post this message in my blog ]
N.Nandhivarman, General Secretary, Dravida Peravai
