Destroying Heritage
One of the traumas of living in Karachi is to discover overnight
decisions to cut down a huge banyan tree, or to obliterate the view to the graceful
Kothari parade with a network of ugly overpasses. A street with lilac flowered
lignum trees is suddenly cut down ruthlessly to make way for new planting of
Conocarpus trees, that in turn are
chopped down to ugly stumps. A beautiful building on M A Jinnah Road with its
sleepy wrought iron balconies is reduced to rubble to make way for an ugly
concrete building to maximise shops and offices. Beautiful pre-partition Amil residences of Gurumandir are continuously
“modernized”.
Some decisions are planned quietly behind the scenes while
others are whimsical. That familiar trauma and despair was felt by Karachi citizens
after a sudden decision to scrape the wooden floors of the 1865 heritage
building Frere Hall, and remove nets inviting pigeons to peck at, and nest near
Sadeqain’s painted ceiling. This, while
restoration proposals had been submitted to the Sindh Government’s Heritage
Committee.
Destruction of heritage sites because of wars or natural
disasters, tragic though it is, is understood to be an inevitable consequence. Destruction due to ignorance or neglect is a
wound that doesn’t heal. This city is filled with unnoticed exquisite heritage
buildings that are hidden behind coils of electric wires and shop signs. While
as many as 422 buildings are listed as heritage, there is no implementing body
like the Walled City of Lahore Authority, to systematically restore these
buildings and their environs. We rarely hear of them until one collapses.
Managing heritage buildings and districts in cities that
need to expand to accommodate growing populations, has been debated by city
planners all over the world. Recent theories propose restoration and
revitalization of precincts, rather than just buildings. Fez city is an example
where new buildings are allowed only in the Nouvelle Ville or new city
district. In Karachi the old city is a defined space between Lyari and Malir
rivers and from Kemari to the City Jail – just 72 square miles of a city that
has grown to almost 1500 square miles. Karachi’s master plans make no mention
of heritage, which remains hanging on by its fingertips.
Pakistan is not the only country where heritage faces ruin
and pillage. Southern Italy has thousands of abandoned churches and Roman ruins
that have been pillaged and turned into rubbish dumps. Too often, restoration in
Pakistan does not follow scientific protocols. The original tiles of both the
Multan Clock Tower and the Shah Jahan mosque were simply removed and replaced
with new ones. Cracks in the Ranikot Fort, the largest stone fort in the world,
were plastered over untidily with cement
Pakistan has an extraordinary heritage from 45,000 year old
Paleolithic sites, the several thousand
year old Juniper forest of Ziarat, the 9000 year old city of Mehergarh, the sophisticated 4500 year old cities of Moenjodaro and Harappa, and
much more still awaiting discovery. In documented times, from Gandhara, to
Mughal and British times, there is a rich legacy of art and architecture . In the surprising absence of modern
archaeological training institutes, our handful of passionate archaeologists
await international funding and expertise, to uncover and preserve our history.
Successive governments remain trapped in the dilemma of our identity as a new
country or custodians of ancient lands.
Pakistani people remain connected to traditional customs,
are proud of their family lineage, and judging by the many social media sites
sharing history, would be open to playing their part in preserving heritage.
But so much of our politics and planning follows the tabula rasa or clean slate
policy of discarding the initiatives of previous civil servants, and making
fresh policies, that it prevents the long term planning that restoration of
heritage requires.
Durriya Kazi
October 5, 2020
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