Revision as of 19:09, 16 February 2019

The status of the monument

2016: some decay

Richi Verma, Callousness stains relics of history at Red Fort, Dec 8, 2016: The Times of India

Daily damage that is being inflicted on the marble structures in Red Fort, Delhi; Picture courtesy: Richi Verma, Callousness stains relics of history at Red Fort, Dec 8, 2016: The Times of India

For an agency entrusted with the delicate task of preserving the country's precious heritage, the Archaeological Survey of India has rather callously endangered the beauty and integrity of parts of a World Heritage Site. The marble piers, inlaid with coloured stone in the form of floral arrangements, in the Diwan-e-Khas at Red Fort in Delhi now have ugly welts of blue. There also are signs of abrasions on these precious relics of history .

ASI, astoundingly , appears to be unaware of the daily damage that is being inflicted on the marble structures, and it is enraged conservationists who have called attention to this neglect. What has irked the conservationists is the avoidable staining of the marble piers by blue plastic ropes tied to them to keep visitors at bay. For a heritage structure of the stature of Red Fort, the thoughtless -and damaging -expediency of having plastic ropes tied to the pillars instead of erecting a proper barricade could prove a costly mistake.

“Buildings of the Shah Jahan era, such as Taj Mahal and Diwan-e-Khas, are nothing less than priceless paintings and need to be treated with a high degree of sensitivity ,“ said a historian. The permanent damage done to the intricately carved pillars recall the horror of the damage done to the marble jaali at tached to the Rang Mahal a decade ago, he added.

ASI superintending archaeologist Daljit Singh was not available for comment, but sources in ASI said that the marble pillars would be cleaned of the stains. This hasn't enthused experts though.Swapna Liddle of INTACH explained that cleaning could easily mar the porous marble.“In theory , of course, ASI can scrub off the blue marking, but at what cost?“ she asked.“Chemical treatment can damage the structure and scrubbing, after all, involves the removal of a micro layer of the marble.“

Another conservationist observed that even if ASI had only ropes to fall back on in trying to cordon off the area, it could have used ropes made of natural materials. Rajeev Sethi of the Indian Heritage Foundation was more critical of the measure. “This should not have happened at all,“ he said.

The Diwan-e-Khas, or hall of private audience, was used by Mughal emperors to meet the nobility and was grandly decorated, with the lower portion of the piers bearing inlaid floral motifs and the upper portions gilded and painted.“The ceiling, which was originally inlaid with silver and gold, was stripped bare by the Jats and Marathas during the successive crises of the empire,“ informed a historian.The interiors of the audience hall were plundered in the aftermath of the war of 1857, and the throne, carpets and many other artefacts went missing. The current ceiling was installed in 1911.

Architecture, décor

Chatta Bazaar: paintings

Richi Verma, Mughal arcade reveals canvas, January 10, 2018: The Times of India

Restoration Of Chatta Bazaar Inside Red Fort Exposes Exquisitely Painted Ceiling-1
From: Richi Verma, Mughal arcade reveals canvas, January 10, 2018: The Times of India

Restoration Of Chatta Bazaar Inside Red Fort Exposes Exquisitely Painted Ceiling-2
From: Richi Verma, Mughal arcade reveals canvas, January 10, 2018: The Times of India

Restoration Of Chatta Bazaar Inside Red Fort Exposes Exquisitely Painted Ceiling-3
From: Richi Verma, Mughal arcade reveals canvas, January 10, 2018: The Times of India

Restoration Of Chatta Bazaar Inside Red Fort Exposes Exquisitely Painted Ceiling

The next time one visits the Red Fort, one would walk through a grand arcade. The ceiling of the historic Chatta Bazaar, which was once adorned with the most exquisite paintings, is getting some of its former glory back.

This original Mughal art is being painstakingly exposed and conserved by the science branch of Archaeological Survey of India. Conservation of the paintings started in early October last year, and it would take a few more months to complete. The beautiful floral and geometric patterns had been covered by multiple layers of lime plaster laid out over the years.

But the process to peel off the plasterwork is not easy. Unless it’s done with complete precision, there is risk of damage. “In each painting that is being exposed, up to seven layers of lime coating have been found at some points. And each layer has to be very carefully removed to ensure the original painting is not harmed in any way,” said an official.

ASI officials report that the frequent use of lime coating over the years in the fort, particularly during preparations for Independence Day, and painting work by the shop owners of Chatta Bazaar, hid the art work. “We trace impressions of the paintings wherever we can see or detect them, and then slowly work to remove the layers of lime to expose the paintings. And the plaster is slowly peeled away,” said an official.

Exposing the facade of Chatta Bazaar was planned in an effort to bring out the original design of the citadel. A major challenge here is to decide which layer of the painting should be exposed. “Some paintings have single layers. But some paintings also have multiple layers. In such cases, we usually keep the uppermost layer exposed even if there are more layers beneath. After all, each layer of painting is part of the fort’s history. Every effort is made to preserve whatever is available,” said an ASI official.

Exposing each painting depends on the condition of the lime plaster. At some points, the plaster is thicker and at others it’s thinner that makes scraping it away easier.

ASI hopes to unearth new, hidden information about the Red Fort from these exposed paintings. Through the centuries, Red Fort has undergone many changes. Historians say the fort is witness to many historical events, and each change within the fort is monumental. “The paintings over the Chatta Bazaar are similar testaments to many years of being under different rulers. Each painting tells a different story and we would like visitors to be able to view these paintings as well,” said an official.

Chhatta Bazaar

2019 restoration

Richi Verma, Chhatta Bazaar’s new look reminder of glory days, February 12, 2019: The Times of India

Chhatta Bazaar after its 2019 restoration
From: Richi Verma, Chhatta Bazaar’s new look reminder of glory days, February 12, 2019: The Times of India

Shop Owners Spend From Own Pockets For Restoration

The next time you visit Red Fort, you could see how the Chhatta Bazaar might have originally looked. Restoration work here is nearing completion, and hidden artworks on the ceiling are now fully exposed.

The bazaar has 47 shops. Its owners, at their own initiative and expense, are doing away with heavy shutters and replacing them with woodenframe doorways topped with Mughal-style arches. This will bring the bazaar a step closer to its 17th-century look.

Each of the shops specialises in handicrafts, gems, garments, scarves, silk brocade, silverware, etc. The shops are managed by descendants of the original allottees from the Mughal times. As part of an understanding with the the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the shop owners agreed to take up conservation of the front facade of their shops to give the bazaar a more authentic look. Work on some shops has been completed. ASI officials said the wooden frames were designed based on archival images of the bazaar.

“In the centre of the arch, the shop number and name will be printed in identical fonts so there is complete uniformity. Once the work is completed in all the shops, it will give visitors an authentic Mughal feel as they walk past the bazaar through Lahori Gate to see the monuments inside,” said N K Pathak, superintending archaeologist, ASI Delhi circle.

According to ASI officials, getting every shop owner to agree to the task was challenging as many had to close their shops for a certain duration to allow construction work. Each shop-owner has paid about Rs 80,000- Rs 1 lakh for the exterior work while maintenance and structural stability will be managed by ASI. “Ever since we got the work done for my shop, I have got more customers. Visitors are very happy with the new look of the bazaar and are impressed with the uniformity in design with the historical touch,” said Pradeep Kumar Gupta of shop number 1 in the bazaar. Gupta’s Indian Arts shop was the first to change its external facade.

O P Agarwal from Art Corner said the effort on the part of the shop-owners was worth it. “Ever since the new museums have opened at Red Fort, we are getting more visitors. Everyone has to pass through Chhatta Bazaar to get inside Red Fort and all visitors appreciate the work in the bazaar,” he said.

The newly revealed paintings on the Chhatta Bazaar roof are also a huge draw. Work on exposing the hidden artwork took almost a year and was completed recently. The geometric and floral patterns had been hidden below several layers of plasterwork through the years.

“We traced impressions of the paintings wherever we could see or detect them, and then slowly worked to remove the layers of lime to expose the paintings. And the plaster was slowly peeled away,” said an official. In some places, the paintings were so delicate that only small portions could be exposed and ASI did not expose the whole painting fearing damage. The work started in October, 2017 and was completed by 2018-end.

Mangey Bridge

2018: poor condition

Traffic takes toll on heritage bridge, November 21, 2018: The Times of India

The Mangey Bridge in 2018
From: Traffic takes toll on heritage bridge, November 21, 2018: The Times of India

Major Portions Damaged From Impact Of Trucks, Buses Passing Under It

A British-era bridge that connects Red Fort with Salimgarh Fort is in an extremely poor condition with major portions of the bridge damaged on impact with heavy vehicles that regularly pass under it.

The Mangey Bridge is over a century old and is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India. It is located on the busy Ring Road and has three arches. Two lanes of the road go under each arch. Traffic movement is pretty heavy here. As a result, trucks and buses routinely hit the underside of the bridge. Over time, this has resulted in large chunks coming off. Officials have identified the root of the problem to a considerable rise in the road level under the bridge in recent years due to constant relaying.

Earlier, ASI had requested traffic police to change the route taken by heavy vehicles, but it couldn’t happen.

N K Pathak, superintending archaeologist, Delhi circle, said, “The problem is that heavy vehicles drive through the bridge at high speed, sometimes hitting the structure that has led to the condition of the bridge today. I will be writing to the joint CP (traffic), asking him to erect height barriers at the two side arches to stop heavy vehicles from passing underneath. Heavy vehicles can pass through the middle arch where the road level is lower.”

Installing height barriers is routinely done by traffic police to restrict movement of heavy vehicles, and was also done at Tripolia Gateways in north Delhi—another ASI monument which suffered similar damage due to heavy vehicles passing through it.

ASI officials have surveyed the bridge and taken stock of the damages. They would soon prepare estimates to start conservation work on the bridge.

“This is a routine problem with this bridge and requires a permanent solution. The location is such that it will be hit by heavy vehicles unless their movement is restricted. Even lowering the road level won’t help much,” said another ASI official.

Conservation work was done on the bridge earlier in 2010 when ASI had roped in a British firm. That time too, the bridge had sustained heavy damage. PWD had then agreed to realign the road to ensure that all heavy vehicles pass through the arch where the road level was the lowest. But the civic agencies kept on relaying the road every year, raising the level by several inches, an official said.

Museums

2018: Four new museums

Swati Mathur, July 15, 2018: The Times of India

2018- Four museums, four themes
From: Swati Mathur, July 15, 2018: The Times of India

Come August, four new museums at the Red Fort will open to the public, enriching Delhi’s cultural scene and giving people a glimpse into 160 years of Indian history — from the First War of Independence in 1857 to Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army, India’s participation in World War I, and Jallianwala Bagh.

An initiative spearheaded by the Union culture ministry, the project will see a makeover of the large, erstwhile British barracks, which had been locked up till now. “The idea is to develop Red Fort as a museum hub,” said culture secretary Raghavendra Singh. The barracks are three floors high and have teakwood panelling, wooden floors and large staircases. Now they will have thematic representations of Indian history.

The first museum will contain original archival material and replicas related to 1857. Also on display will be 70 original paintings on the uprising, each of which are more than a century old. Singh said that some of the exhibits will also be borrowed from other museums like the Victorial Memorial Museum of Kolkata.

The second museum will commemorate 75 years of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA. The museum will have displays on the INA trials held inside the Red Fort. Several officers of the INA were court martialled here in November and December 1945.

The massacre of Jallianwala Bagh, in its centenary year now, will form the bulk of the third museum, alongside archival material on India’s participation in WWI.

The fourth museum will have artifacts from the Indian War Memorial Museum and Archaeological Museum, till now housed in Naubat Khana and Mumtaz Mahal Palace respectively. After the collections are shifted, these two original Mughal buildings will be opened to public as part of the Red Fort heritage areas.

The Archaeological Survey’s superintending archaeologist N K Pathak said the aim is to educate people about Indian valour and history. Officials said the presentation styles and the stories in each museum will be unique, using a generous mix of archival material and state-of-the-art technology to create an immersive experience for students of history.

Incidentally, a fifth museum, on martyrs of India’s independence movement, has also been planned. However, the site is yet to be finalised, although it will also be within the Red Fort precincts.

2019: 4 new museums

Richi Verma, 4 museums at Red Fort open window to battle for freedom, January 24, 2019: The Times of India

2019: 4 new museums at the Red Fort
From: Richi Verma, 4 museums at Red Fort open window to battle for freedom, January 24, 2019: The Times of India

A cap frequently worn by Subhas Chandra Bose was presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by his nephew, Chandra Kumar Bose, on Netaji’s 122nd birth anniversary on Wednesday. The cap can be seen by visitors at a new museum at Red Fort dedicated to the life of the nationalist leader and his Azad Hind Fauz movement.

The museum was among the four, all sited in the colonial-era barracks at Red Fort, inaugurated by the PM. From February 1, when the museums open their door to the public, visitors to the iconic Mughal edifice can go on a trip through key moments of Indian history and revive memories of the freedom struggle while paying tribute to the patriots.

The eight barracks were built by the British to accommodate officers after occupying the fort post 1857. These double-storey buildings have been preserved by Archaeological Survey of India as part of Red Fort’s history and developed into museums.

Barrack B1 is dedicated to the 1857 war of independence, while B2 showcases the horror of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919. B3 is focused on Netaji and the INA movement, while the fourth in B4, called Drishyakala, is a collaboration between ASI and Delhi Art Gallery on India-related art. The three older museums on the fort’s premises — Indian freedom fighters museum, Mumtaz Mahal museum and Naubad Khana — have been closed and the exhibits allotted to the new museums.

Prof Kapil Kumar, director of the Centre for Freedom Struggle and Diaspora Studies and curator of three of the museums, said that each museum had taken months of research to reveal new insights into Indian history. “In the museum on Bose, for instance, for the first time we have on display an assassination order given by the British secret service to their counterparts in Cairo and Kabul to get rid of Netaji,” said Kumar. “We also have on display the last known photographs of Netaji boarding a plane at Saigon in Vietnam.”

Regarding the Bose museum’s artefacts, Kumar disclosed, “A lot of them came from the government’s collection, but we also got others from the private collections of the descendants of INA officers.”

The 1857 museum brings back memories of the first war of independence against the British East India Company and addresses how the British historians misrepresented the event for years as a sepoy mutiny or a feudal revolt. “The museum argues through folklore, contemporary accounts, historical records and detailed accounts that Indians from all sections of society revolted against the British,” said an ASI official. Prof Kumar added that details of how secret messages were passed and how token protest were held against the British all showed an India united in attempting to oust the British.

In Yaad-e-Jalian, the museum dedicated to the massacre in Amritsar, a wall is inscribed with the names of all those who died on April 13, 1919. In addition to the Jallianwalla Bagh incident, the museum also showcases the valour of Indian soldiers during World War I. The last museum, Drishyakala, has been conceptualised by Delhi Art Gallery and houses paintings by iconic artists like Raja Ravi Varma and Rabindranath Tagore and also works by British artists representing Indian royal patronage and British monarchy.

A fifth museum in another barrack, Azadi-ke-Dewane, will be completed in another month and will be dedicated to the unknown faces behind India’s war of independence. The central government has compiled a list of names of people who contributed to the freedom struggle but remain largely unknown. These names will be engraved on a wall in the museum.

ASI officials said all the museums will be ticketed, though a decision on the price of admission is yet to be taken. It is also not yet decided whether a single ticket will allow entry to all four museums or whether there will be separate norms for each. Earlier, one could access the old museums in Red Fort for a mere Rs 5. Presumably, the new ticket rates will not be very different from that.

Netaji Museum

Richi Verma, New Netaji museum to offer rare chunks of INA history at Red Fort, February 3, 2019: The Times of India

On display at the Netaji Museum/ 2019.
From: Richi Verma, New Netaji museum to offer rare chunks of INA history at Red Fort, February 3, 2019: The Times of India

Museum Trying To Get Personal Memorabilia Of INA Veterans

The newly inaugurated museum on Subhas Chandra Bose and INA at Red Fort is likely to get rare memorabilia in the form of uniforms, medals and other artefacts that have so far been privately held.

Many INA veterans and their families have promised to either donate or lend uniforms, weapons, medals and diaries to the museum which is housed in the same barrack, B3, where the INA trials had been held in 1945.

“Lalta Singh, a 94-year-old INA veteran from Panchkula, has promised to give three medals given to him by Netaji. Another veteran, 91-yearold Lieutenant Bharti Rai used to write a diary in Japanese as a soldier of Rani Jhansi Regiment. This has also been promised to us,” said Prof Kapil Kumar, historian and curator of the museum on behalf of ASI.

Netaji’s revolver and pistol have also been promised to the museum by the son of INA supporter Seth Trilok Singh Chaawla, a Bangkok-based businessman. These were frequently worn by him on his belt. “Once the technicalities of bringing firearms from Thailand to India are worked out by the respective governments, we will have them in the museum,” said Kumar.

Families of known INA veterans are also being contacted to donate personal items from their collections. “I have contacted the nephew of Colonel Mohan Singh to donate INA uniforms and other items for display. There are also many items by families of INA supporters in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar and Japan who we are requesting to either donate or lend to the museum. We are in touch with Indian missions to contact these families,” said Kumar.

Within India itself, families of INA veterans aren’t the only ones holding on to precious memorabilia. There are files in the National Archives of India detailing interrogation reports of INA soldiers, which ASI is requesting to be loaned to the museum for display. “The Indian Army also has in its possession Japanese equipment. We have requested the Army to identify these and pass them on to us,” Kumar said.

So far, the museum has items that cover Bose’s life right from childhood to adulthood, his journey as a political leader, travels to other nations to seek support for India’s independence, even his last recorded picture leaving a plane at Saigon in Vietnam. There’s the uniform of INA leader Lieutenant Bharti Rai and Netaji’s famed sword. A chair used by him at Rangoon headquarters is also on display. It was bought in 1980 when Bose’s nephew A N Bose was in Burma. There are also medals worn by INA members, shoulder insignia, identity cards, ledger and diary of Shah Nawaz Khan.

A documentary on Bose and INA with a voiceover by actor Abhishek Bachchan will also be shown.

“For the first time, the assassination orders of Bose by the British secret service to its agents in Cairo and Istanbul have been displayed. The records kept by American intelligence have also been displayed for the first time, as is a fake news of his death in a plane crash near Tokyo in the New York Times of March 29, 1942,” Kumar said.