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Why Destroy Our Heritage

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The Spokesman Weekly
#602, Sector 10-D
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India

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Anandpur's Historic Fort Demolished

Major (Sardarni) B.K. Sohi AMC (retd.)

In December 1986, we had gone to Anandpur Sahib, along with our son and his American wife. This was her first visit to India. She was very much impressed to hear about Guru Gobind Singh's martial training and teachings, besides the social and spiritual aspect of our religion. The Anandpur's historic fort was very much in good condition and it lent strength to my narration.

On March 5, 2000, we took our daughter to Anandpur Sahib (she had come from USA after many years). We were shocked and dejected to notice the absence of the original fort, along with the dera of the sant who had promised me (in 1986) that he would maintain each and every part of the fort, along with the debris of some parts of it, because he knew the value of these items.

We and our leaders should give a deep though to what we are doing for the preservation of Sikhism.

Look at the nation that has suffered for millenia, has gone through worst of tortures, yet maintained their culture, identity and even got their homeland. Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, though millenia old, is still preserved. Similarly, 'Masade Hill Fort' keeps alive the memory of Jews killed by Romans. When Israeli Air Force pilots fly past the Masade Hill Fort they take a vow to "uphold their traditions and protect their country against any aggression". This they do before taking their final Commission and getting their wings.

What a contrast to us Sikhs whose martial tradition is just 3 centuries old and instead of even dreaming of preserving it for the millenia, we are out to demolish and destroy the proofs of our valor and martial tradition, foundations of which were laid by our unique Prophet, Guru Gobind Singh. The only fort built by any Prophet of any religion in the whole world, which was intact till last year, has been demolished and disfigured, in the name of tricentenary celebrations. The fort of Anandpur Sahib was strong and functional. From here Guru Gobind Singh fought battles and won them too.

If it were preserved in times to come, it would have been revered like Masade Hill Fort. Not only that it would have become a model of infantry and cavalry warfare, for the soldiers and officers doing warfare courses all over the world. It was the Prophet of Sikh religion who made martial art an essential part of Sikh religion.

Centuries ago, in North Western India, when the pujari just played in the temples, foreign invaders looted and demolished those very temples in their presence. A strong reason why Prophets of Sikh religion made martial art an essential part of religion. This made their followers so strong that they changed the course of history of India. Till Guru Gobind Singh instilled martial spirit into the blood of the Sikhs, all the invaders came from North. But after the martial tradition reached its zenith and Sikhs became strong enough to establish their rule, no invader dared attack India from the North. Nations like Afghanistan which couldn't be subdued even by the most powerful countries of the present era (Russian & USA), were easily conquered by the Sikhs and they became a part of the Sikh Kingdom.

Operatiob Bluestar was perpetrated by anti-Sikh Indian rulers, but I am ashamed to say, living examples and images of our martial traditions, like the fort of Anandpur Sahib have been demolished by our own Sikh leaders. They have tried to crush the martial spirit of the Sikhs, which was a gift and blessing of Guru Gobind Singh. Guru Gobind Singh was the only Prophet in the world who amalgamated martialism with spiritualism, thus making his followers strongest in both these spheres.

Now our leaders have degraded him and are trying to revert the Sikhs to the status of mere pujaris who can only pray but can take no action to save themselves, their traditions and their country. When the Sikhs are thus being made weaklings by their own leaders, others are bound to step into their place by adopting their martial traditions. Our leaders should forget about their aggrandizement for the time being and think of raising the status of the Khalsa.

We should remember that Sikhs are not just living in Punjab. They are spread all over the world. Whichever country they go to, they bring about its prosperity. Some are amongst the richest in their country of adoption. Many are doctors, scientists, traders and making name in almost every field. Some are even world famous in their profession. History of the Sikhs is parallel to the history of Jews. They would like to come back to Punjab and pay homage to their religion and historical monuments. Preservation of these for posterity is the responsibility of the Punjabi and Indian Sikhs. We all know that the Sikh regiments are the most highly decorated in India. This tradition was maintained even in Kargil. Most recent example of the impact of the martial spirit instituted by Guru Gobind Singh was seen in the role of Sikhs in Kargil:

"Kargil was as much a battle of mind as it was of men. Granthi Daler Singh attached to the 21 Sikk knows it. He was there. And he remembers: It was a very arduous climb upto the Tololing peak. The sheer exhaustion of climbing with rations amd ammunition in the roar of enemy fire had disheartened the troops. When the Unit's Commanding Officer confided his anxiety about the low morale, I called the troops and gave them an inspiring talk on how Guru Gobind Singh had fought. I could see their faces brighten and before long they were up and shouting the battle cry of Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal...." (Mind over Matter, Brig. B.N. Kelson, Director, Indian National Integration Institute, Pune. The Express Magazine, April 23, 2000)

If the Anandpur Sahib fort had been preserved and revered like Masade Hill Fort of the Jews (one of the bravest soldiers of the world), our Sikh soldiers in every field of defence services would have come here to pay homage, seek blessings and gain highest possible morale before proceeding to the battlefield.

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Tigers being neglected in land of the Taj

By SHEKHAR GUPTA
© Earth Times News Service


EW DELHI--Years after the conservative English columnist Bernard Levin had got us so outraged we have now provided evidence -- with 12 lifeless bodies -- that he was absolutely right. Dead on the money.
Levin, after visiting India, had written that the world was making a serious mistake in entrusting Indians with the Taj Mahal. He found the monument in a state of decay. The Taj, he said, was part of the heritage of the entire world, not just India. Therefore, it was the responsibility of the international community to take it over from the Indians. The column, widely quoted in our media, had caused instant outrage. Today, Levin could well turn around and ask us to hand our tigers over to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), if not to the Woodley Park in Washington.

The tragedy at Orissa's Nandankanan zoo is not merely that 12 tigers have died, most probably due to medical negligence, or that another five may die. The real tragedy is that it underlines our deep-seated callousness and lack of concern for our own heritage, whether natural, historical or architectural.

In any civilized society a scandal of this kind would have caused wide outrage, filled the front pages and primetime news bulletins for days. At least some heads would have rolled. Here we merely have some officials on TV cameras trotting out excuses but refusing to even say sorry, as if what happened was no more than a normal blip in a day's work.

It is unrealistic to expect heads to roll for the deaths of beasts in a society which abhors the very idea of accountability. Where not even a havaldar loses his job after 10,000 Pakistanis occupy the heights of Kargil for months, it is difficult to expect that senior officials would be fired for the deaths of 12 tigers. But what is more worrying is the general equanimity with which our people, by and large, have responded to this.

Would they have reacted just as coolly if one of our great historical landmarks, the Sun Temple at Konark, for example, had collapsed, instead? Or the Taj Mahal? The worrying thought is, perhaps, they would have. Of all the nations and societies that inherited great historical, architectural and natural wealth, we Indians are probably the most callous and unconcerned. The saddest, and starkest, example of that mindset is the Taj. For decades, we let it decay under pollution and vandalism. In fact, if it wasn't for rising international concern and a combination of NGO andjudicial activism, the Taj would have looked a lot worse than it does now.

What is common between the tigers and the Taj? The answer is quite simple. Both are vital symbols of our heritage. So is the one-horned rhino, the caves of Ajanta, the lions of Gir, the temples of Thanjavur, the wild asses of Kutch and the ruins of Hampi. But do we really care? There is something inherent in our national culture that makes us so insensitive to this. The Taj may have been saved by the Supreme Court. But please take a look at the other great monuments. The Sun Temple at Konark is under grave threat from decay and erosion. We have left it in the custody of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and forgotten all about it. Please visit it to see how little the ASI cares about it. The only place where you will find its personnel is at the booth selling entry tickets and chances are they will chide you for bothering them on a lazy afternoon.

If an MP only asked the ASI, one of the most ridiculous and ludicrously secretive of all government departments, the figures of its collections at the entry gates of our great monuments, they will prove one of two things-- Either that we Indians don't even care to visit them, so why bother protecting them? Or, that they are only being run like government-funded private properties, to be milked by touts and corrupt officials for now and forgotten later. Some kind of archaeological Nandankanan, the zoological parks of our history.

Even a religious connection does not always help. Sikh religious organizations, in the name of celebrating the tercentenary of the Khalsa, have destroyed and "rebuilt" their old heritage, lining ancient gurudwaras with modern marble, demolishing ancient buildings, filling up medieval wells to widen the highways taking you to the major gurudwaras. The only protests have come from a very small, committed minority of Sikhs like Patwant Singh and Meeta Rai based in Delhi. Even in Punjab, the dominant response has been, history is fine, but you have to get a move on in life.

This, when the rest of the world is learning the value of these assets. The natural and historical heritage is also a money spinner. Even in a so-called Third World country like Brazil, the rain forests are not only being preserved now, they are being "exploited" as a powerhouse of eco-tourism. Scores of eco-friendly resorts have come up and are usually filled to capacity with tourists flown in from around the world. For all their fame and awesome size, the rain forests do not have the kind of wildlife, the big cats and cows that you find in the Indian bush. But our wildlife does not even attract a fraction of the tourists Brazil does. And when they go back, they cannot even take back a `I saw the Tiger' T-shirt.

From trivializing our wildlife resorts into kitty party huts to defacing our monuments, from killing tigers by the dozen in our zoos to burying our historical sites with rubbish and worse, we display the same, very Indian, Nandankanan index of callousness. A tourist will have to be particularly brave to reach out to the incredible ruins of Hampi and then have to survive the filth and the stench while admiring the great works of craftsmanship in that open-air latrine. Go to the magnificent rock temples along the beach of Mahabalipuram. Then smell the evidence of the same criminal callousness in the black rocks piled alongside. They were ostensibly put there to save the temples from erosion, but nobody remembered to build adequate toilets in the vicinity. So tourists, mostly devout Indians, use the gaps in the rocks instead.

There has to be a reason why the treasures we have inherited attract so few foreigners. Just the city of Paris attracts 20 times more tourists than all of India. Tiny Austria gets 10 times as many as India. In fact, for every Austrian, eight tourists visit the country annually. Even little Maldives brings four times its population each year to its coral islands. In another decade, this "poor Third World" nation of less than a million people may attract more tourists than all of India.

Maybe Levin was right. Maybe what he really should have said was that we did not deserve this wealth in the first place, that God was unfair to the rest of the world in parking so much of it in callous, uncaring India. Or maybe those tigers should have been in the Amazonian rain forests or at least in the Woodley Park Zoo, instead. Who knows, then, they may still have been alive.

Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.