The Hindu Business Line : Restoring a historic city

One patch of bad restoration work in an old royal palace at Jaisalmer made a freelance-writer from the UK set the conservation initiation in motion. Rasika Dhavse on Sue Carpenter and her campaign.

Sue Carpenter

It was one patch of badly done repair work in an old royal palace that set Sue Carpenter on her mission to save the city of Jaisalmer. Taking up the issue, this British freelance-writer met local conservation architects, wrote extensively about the dangers facing the desert city, got like-minded individuals involved and initiated a campaign called Jaisalmer in Jeopardy (JiJ).

Since its inception in 1996 in the UK, JiJ has raised £140,000 in aid of restoration work. What's more, it has succeeded in getting the international and national focus on conservation of Jaisalmer and created awareness among the residents to protect their historic architectural legacy, thus ensuring a permanence to its own work.

The story goes back to 1994, when Carpenter came as a tourist to India, also looking for stories to work on. She fell in love with Jaisalmer, its aesthetics and timelessness reminding her of the stone-city of Oxford. But then one day, something seemed not quite right. "I was sitting on a rooftop in the main square — Dussehra Chowk — looking at the Maharaja's Palace, and saw that one part had been repaired using thick grey cement," remembers Caprenter.

"I just couldn't understand how there couldn't be building regulations in such a uniformly historic and beautiful city. In fact, it turned out there were regulations, but they were not being adhered to," she says.

She then asked around for details and finally met a conservation architect doing an inventory of heritage buildings for the local chapter of INTACH. He told her the plight the city was in. The situation was more than grim. "He said he gave Jaisalmer 10 years, and without intervention it would not survive."

Carpenter then got down to understanding the exact problems. It turned out that water was the city's greatest enemy. Increased consumption and, therefore, waste, due to growing tourism and population, had put unbearable pressure on the aged infrastructure.

Jaisalmer is built of dry sandstone on foundations of clay, sand and rock. The old drainage system — open galleys at the sides of streets — was adequate as long as wastewater was minimal. However, the city's needs increased with time to about 12 times the amount originally used. The increased wastewater has seeped through decayed drains and penetrated the hillside, saturating the foundations of the fortress city, resulting in cracks in buildings. In places, the retaining wall at the base of the hillside had burst apart, while the bastions were unstable.

The devastating monsoons of 1993 left about 250 historic buildings partially or totally devastated, including the oldest existing Rajput palace — the Rani ka Mahal.

The veracity of the architect's words was proven. An inner voice prompted Sue Carpenter to do something, take some proactive measure to protect the city, even though she herself had not much to do with restoration or conservation work on a professional level. And she responded to that voice. She returned to the UK and wrote an article for a publication called New Scientist. This generated a lot of response and there was no looking back. She was then asked to give a lecture at the Nehru Centre (the cultural wing of the Indian High Commission in London). Two people then approached her with offers of assistance, and `Jaisalmer in Jeopardy' saw the light of day.

"All along I felt a strong sense of responsibility that I shouldn't let people down, and having started something I should go as far as I could to take action," says Carpenter. "So together we formed JiJ, with us all as trustees, and I registered it as a charity in 1996."

One of JiJ's earliest and most significant achievements was its work that led to the selection of Jaisalmer Fort for the inaugural `World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites in the World' in 1996. This earned them the Fund's maximum grant of $100,000. The grant helped JiJ finance the first project in the city, the restoration of the Rani ka Mahal, which now houses the Jaisalmer Heritage Centre — its new look a confluence of contemporary museum design with traditional craftsmanship. JiJ funds have gone towards creating two galleries within the Centre, on art and cultural heritage. The Centre is also designed as a community space for Fort residents and is also home to a crafts centre for women and a children's library.

Another ambitious project taken up under the aegis of JiJ is the Streetscape Revitalisation Project. Two phases of this project — in Jaisalmer Fort, and the streets of Chaugaan Pada and Kund Pada — have been successfully completed. The primary aim of this project is to bring the streets to their former beauty by removing modern materials and restoring the old fabric of the streets.

It also works to stop the destruction of the Fort caused by wastewater seepage through cracks in the old drains and into the hillside. Facades have been cleaned and repaired, ugly pipe connections concealed, lavatories installed and services generally upgraded. The project was awarded a Honourable Mention in the 2002 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Conservation Awards.

"The impact of the two phases means that half the households in the Fort now have an improved standard of living with better hygiene and sanitation, and a safer, more aesthetically pleasing environment," explains Carpenter. "With the award of a third grant of approximately £24,000 from the Staples Trust in the UK, we are now commencing on the third phase," she adds.

"We are also co-funding (£30,000) the vital stabilisation and restoration of part of the Maharaja's Palace, where the wall is about to collapse onto the road. This could kill people as well as destroy this historic palace," she says, speaking about JiJ's future plans.

Art exhibitions, events, lectures, grants, sponsorship, donations and sales of Christmas and Diwali cards, postcards and JiJ merchandise are the means employed to raise funds. Two big parties and lectures at the Royal Geographical Society in London in 1998 and 2000 generated £15,000 and £20,000 respectively. Till date, it has succeeded in directing over £140,000 towards the protection of the desert city. While JiJ functions primarily out of UK, the actual conservation projects in Jaisalmer are handled by the local INTACH chapter.

At this point, it is difficult to say if JiJ shall continue to function as an ongoing endeavour. Carpenter is of the opinion that they may, perhaps, decide to wind up once all the Streetscape renovations in the Fort (four phases to be completed in two years) are done. She is hopeful that now, since awareness about the problem has increased, and that INTACH is looking into the matter, the work shall continue without the active involvement of JiJ.

A lot has been achieved in a considerably short period of time, and Jaisalmer's degradation halted at many levels. No doubt, it has been an uphill task for Carpenter and her team.

The woman behind this dedicated campaign to save a city points out to bureaucracy, suspicion at all levels in India, criticism, and an initial reluctance of the locals to change as the major obstacles in her way. Plus, the fact that she hailed from the old colonial power piled up prejudices against her.

"Of course, one person can make a difference," she says with conviction. "Look at all the great leaders and worst despots — they all made a difference."

So has she made a difference? "I think I helped set the conservation initiative in motion, and it has grown to include other conservation work that was not generated by us."

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