And I am about to write about a fine author whose books I have followed these years. He is one of my favourite writer and he has come out with his new book “The Last Mughal: fall of a dynasty, Delhi 1857”. Its about the 1857 mutiny and the subsequent fall of the last mughal Bahadur Shah Zafar. Those who have read “The Age of Kali” and “City of Djinns” would know the kind of scholarly work William Dalrymple authors. Mr Dalrymple has pretty good insight into things and matters regarding our history. He writes without bigotry which is rare for a Scotsman. But that is what makes him an excellent historian. Mr Dalrymple shared his opinion and gave some excerpts from the book which were published in Outlook. In these lines he describes the neglect of Delhites towards historical monuments, heritage and generally everything that is old.(......... Shame on us)
“Delhi feels as if it is moving away from its Mughal past. In modern Delhi an increasingly wealthy Punjabi middle class now live in an inspirational bubble of rising shopping malls, espresso bars and multiplexes. On every side, rings of new suburbs springing up, full of call centres, software companies and fancy apartment blocks, all rapidly rising on land that only years ago was billowing winter wheat. These new neighbourhoods, most of them still half built and ringed with scaffolding, are invariably given unrealistically enticing names- Beverly Hills, Windsor Court, West End Heights- an indication, perhaps of where their owners would prefer to be, and where, in time, they may eventually migrate.
This fast emerging middle-class India is a country with its eyes firmly fixed on the coming century. Everywhere there is profound hope that the country’s rapidly rising international status will somehow compensate for a past often perceived as a long succession of invasions and defeats at the hands of foreign powers. Whatever the reason, the result is tragic neglect of Delhi’s magnificent past. Sometimes it seems as if no other great city of the world is less loved, or less cared for- as the tone of the recent Outlook cover story highlighted. Occasionally there is an outcry as the tomb of the poet Zauq is discovered to have disappeared under a municipal urinal or the haveli courtyard house of his rival Ghalib is revealed to have been turned into a coal store; but by and large the losses go unrecorded.
I find it heartbreaking; often when I revisit one of my favourite monuments it has either been overrun by some slum, unsympathatically restored by the ASI or, more usually, simply demolished. Ninety-nine per cent of the delicate havelis or Mughal courtyard houses of Old Delhi have been destroyed, and like the city walls disappeared into memory.”
P.S: The write-up is a part of the feature published in Outlook, July 2006 issue
