World Travel & Tourism Council

Hampi is not history

Smita Joshi

For more than 20 years now, an international team of researchers has been investigating the layout, architecture and art of Hampi, which is identified with the 14th to 16th century imperial city of Vijayanagara. Experts say that early Vijayanagara period shrines in and around the village of Hampi. However, the historic marvel may soon leave behind its ironically defaming popularity as the 'city of ruins' and the temple town with several weakening structures would see global efforts to restore its past glory. In what could be called as the state's first unique international exercise in the field of heritage conservation, Hampi will now see the global forums in heritage management with corporate funding also coming in. The Hampi Foundation has been successful in getting matching grants from the JSW Steel along Global Heritage Fund and the World Monument Fund to create a Rs 20 crore corpus for initiating restoration work in Hampi.

Sangita Jindal, chairperson of the JSW Foundation, revealed that the project to conserve and restore three major heritage sites in the temple town of Hampi - Chandramaulishwara, Krishna, and Somya Someshwara temples - would be complete within two years with the government's support. Work at Chandramaulishwara includes weeding out shrubs and trees, which block up the temple, also strengthening its walls and surroundings and retaining the damaged walls that are hanging close to the Tungabhadra river. At the Krishna temple, the foundation will help restore the upper brick and plaster decorated towers that have been seriously affected over time while the Soumya Someshwara temple work also includes cleaning up and bracing up the temple.

Jindal revealed that the work on the other two temples can start only when clearances are given by the state and Central governments, as the ASI has yet to give permission for carrying out the restoration work at the Krishna temple.

"The Archeological Society of India (ASI) is helping us, but at a very slow speed. It has already been a few years since the foundation is pushing files to get a chance to work on the temples. However, the restoration would be done only after taking the ASI and experts into confidence," reveals Jindal.

And the process is cumbersome indeed. Jindal and former deputy chief minister of Karnataka M P Prakash at a two-day conference held in Hampi on "Taking Vijayanagara's past in to the future" revealed that bureaucratic hassles have been delaying implementation of the conservation and restoration programme. The blueprint of the restoration has been prepared by heritage architects Abha Narain Lamba along with international experts like Dr George Michell, Dr John Fritz, Michael Tomlan and conservationist Shama Pawar after working on it for more than five years," says Jindal. Both Jindal and Prakash alleged that some vested interests in the administration were marring the JSW plan to build concrete roads from Bellary to the world heritage site and renovate the museum there.

Experts say Hampi, at this moment has entered the international arena and a new dynamic is created which precipitated a confrontation of two models of heritage management: international and local. UNESCO has a comprehensive definition of heritage that includes archaeological sites, monuments, historic centres, vernacular architecture and cultural landscape, all of which apply to Hampi.

Moreover, JSW is also offering to do the state government's job, where it is building a road between the 60 km from Bellary to Hospet from where Hampi is another 13 km. JSW has submitted a proposal to relay the road and is awaiting permission to go ahead. This will result in more tourists visiting Hampi as covering the 60 km stretch from Hospet to Bellary in more than two and a half hours was limiting tourists to visit the place.

As per experts, the decentralised implementation mechanism proposed here for Hampi thus constitutes an entirely new paradigm that should serve as a basis for a dialogue that would introduce essential social change. This would encourage the locals to participate in the protection of the heritage and developments that will benefit them. Only in this way can the extraordinary cultural resources of Vijayanagara be preserved for future generations.