Word: thakur
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...bright, bustling 52-year-old known for her uncompromising sense of purpose, Thakur found her calling as a conservationist when she moved from Madras?"not a beautiful city"?to New Delhi in the 1970s to study architecture. Awed by the 2,000 Mughal, Hindu and British buildings in the capital, she considered becoming a tour guide until her professor persuaded her to write a thesis on Nizamuddin, the city's Muslim quarter. She soon realized she was the first to systematically chronicle the area and was effectively "rediscovering a city." After stumbling upon a whole palace complex in the Mehrauli...
...Walking through Nizamuddin's back alleys, past tombs that have been converted into shops or houses, Thakur acknowledges that conservation is inevitably an afterthought in a developing country. India is "so crowded with people and monuments," she says, that it's hard to justify evicting families so that the historic buildings where they live can be properly preserved. And, she adds, preservation is often complicated by politics. The most socially divisive issue of the past two decades, for example, was a dispute over Ayodhya in northern India, where in 1992 Hindu mobs tore down a 16th century Mughal mosque they...
...India's biggest problem, says Thakur, is that it lacks the manpower and financial resources to manage its historic riches. The ASI employs no qualified architects or conservationists, and monument care is split between a confusing cluster of local and national authorities, NGOs, religious orders, businesses and individuals. The Taj and its immediate environs come under six government agencies: the ministries of culture, environment and tourism, two city authorities and one state body. Thakur is careful not to condemn the ASI or the ministries, describing their staff as sincere professionals faced with an almost impossible task. But she also complains...
...powers to take charge of monument preservation. And Tourism Minister Renuka Chowdhury has vowed to clean up India's 26 World Heritage Sites and exploit their business potential so that they pay for themselves. Tourism Joint Secretary Amitabh Kant is perhaps the only person in India more outspoken than Thakur about heritage. "Encroachments have been terrible," he says. "Upkeep is awful." To a great extent, he blames Indian officials for what he calls a "total lack of civic governance and discipline." In a plan that delights Thakur, Kant says all shops, hotels and stalls built on historic sites will...
...Thakur sees her 120 disciples as another vital component of India's nascent preservation movement. These devotees include Golden Temple expert Gurmeet Rai and Taj Mahal specialist Meetu Sharma Saxena, who says of her mentor: "We are all her children." Declares Thakur: "If I need inspiration, I just need to look at them and see how inspired they get." Watching these heritage advocates in action, it's easy to see why Thakur hasn't abandoned hope. On a recent day-trip south of New Delhi to check on the Taj Mahal, Saxena tenderly strokes some new cracks she's spotted...