The Hindu Business Line : The old and the new

Yes! To some, it may appear that the argument is being stretched too far. Yet, what is the difference between the two processes set out below? In the first, political leaders exhort the ‘original’ dwellers (whoever that may include) of a megacity to resist the influx of newcomers knowing fully that they do not have among such originals, people who can and will do various ‘menial’ jobs.

In the other, the elite of metros in the guise of preserving its heritage, obstructs any move to create new works in place of the old although they know that the crying need of the hour is the creation of new buildings, roads, flyovers, etc.

Power, snob appeal

The first process is carried out by inciting agitations, often turning violent and resorting to ballot box politics and is jeered on the sidelines by sound bites from the TV as a spectacle sport.

For the second, the print media employs xenophobics whose sole job, week after week, is to ferret out buildings of the past , drop names, find connections and glorify memories at the cost of existential imperatives.

People involved in the first want to come to power and in the second want merely to preserve the snob appeal. Please note that slums along the waterways in cities have been in existence for over 70 years in most metros and yet their residents have no place in this lopsided preservation.

The city nostalgics do not pause to ponder, if it is even now all right to destroy agricultural land of hapless farmers and anonymous peasants to set up factories producing ugly metal on wheels while preserving nondescript and sometimes positively hideous looking buildings with no architectural value like those of, say, a college just because some womenfolk of well known families studied there years ago.

Under heritage cover

When heritage lovers of cities write eloquent pieces and conduct walking tours, does it ever cross their minds that the very edifices and citadels they celebrate were once created by destroying mangroves and coconut plantations and, more importantly, environmentally friendly open spaces, ponds and tanks.

How right is it to justify the continued existence of the monstrosities which take cover under heritage just because they were built 50 years ago or earlier. Would it not be far better to have open spaces, preferably with greens, lakes or ponds, than memorials of brick and mortar created by some forgettable British colonialist for his toadies in the nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Zealots of the past

The common thread between opposing newcomers and fighting the changing cityscape is the fundamental propensity of human beings to resist change, which is perceived as a threat. All of us tend to be zealots of the past, clinging desperately to some misconceived notions of greater common public good except when our own individual fortunes are at stake.

Anthropologists would have us believe that intelligence and adaptability to change are the factors which have lead to the success of humans continuing as a species for the last 70,000 years ever since we started migrating from Africa.

Isn’t it time we fall back on our innate skills of survival as homo sapiens and stop nitpicking about our parochial interests, be it of newcomers or self-appointed guardians of old city skylines?

(The author is former Member, Ordnance Board.)