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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  A house for the Chaudhary
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A house for the Chaudhary

No more memorials in Lutyens Delhi, as the government rubs out a colonial legacy

The Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial on 6, Krishna Menon Marg in New Delhi’s Lutyens Bungalow Zone is just one of at least five memorials in the area. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/MintPremium
The Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial on 6, Krishna Menon Marg in New Delhi’s Lutyens Bungalow Zone is just one of at least five memorials in the area. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

New Delhi: The photographs of the smiling man with a cherubic face, one of the tallest leaders of his generation, but now almost forgotten, stare down at the rare visitor.

In one, he is on a diplomatic visit.

Another catches him at an unguarded moment, with his family.

The photo exhibition of the life and times of the late Jagjivan Ram is hosted in the annexe of the house where he once lived.

The house itself is not open to visitors. A helpful security guard says that the process of converting it into a museum will soon begin. Right now it is locked.

Not that there are many visitors. One of the writers of this piece visited it on 20 October. The previous visit was on 14 October.

The Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial on 6, Krishna Menon Marg in New Delhi’s Lutyens Bungalow Zone is just one of at least five memorials in the area.

The memorials are in the news because of an 18 October decision by the government to not dedicate any more bungalows in Lutyens’ Delhi—think sprawling lawns, a main building, an office annexe, quarters for the help, garages, all fenced in by imposing decades-old trees, many of which are home to the assorted and surprisingly rich birdlife that can be found in the city-centre—to memorials.

The flashpoint was 12, Tughlaq Road, a Lutyens bungalow that was home to Ajit Singh, a minister in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. The UPA lost, so did Singh, but he was loath to move out. So, after the government served him an eviction notice, Singh came up with the demand to make the bungalow a memorial to his late father Chaudhary Charan Singh, a farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh who served as India’s Prime Minister for six months without ever facing the Lok Sabha. When the government didn’t respond, in mid-September, he trucked in protesters from Uttar Pradesh and tried to lay siege to Lutyens’ Delhi.

Singh finally vacated his bungalow, but his tantrum forced the National Democratic Alliance government (NDA) to revive a 14-year-old decision taken by another NDA government—a ban on conversion of bungalows in Lutyens' Delhi, each between 3000-8000 sq. ft large, into memorials for departed leaders.

The decision will not apply to existing memorials, although the government will no longer pay for their maintenance.

Earlier, in July 2013, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court said that no memorial could be housed in government houses earmarked for residential accommodation, but the UPA found a way around this by leasing 6, Krishna Menon Marg (that had been the official residence of Babu Jagjivan Ram till his death in 1986) to the Babu Jagjivan Ram National Foundation in August 2013 for 25 years.

The bungalow has been unallotted since 2004.

Babu Jagjivan Ram’s daughter and former speaker Meira Kumar, who was then minister of social justice and empowerment in the UPA-I government, was allotted the bungalow, but she did not occupy it.

In 2007, the government also allocated bungalows No. 12, 14 and 16 on Gurudwara Rakabganj road to the Bahujan Prerna Trust for constructing a three-in-one bungalow memorial for its leader Kanshi Ram. Others with memorials in the Lutyens area include former prime ministers Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

“A memorial is usually seen as the assertion of an identity, whether political or caste- based. That is why we see so many statues of B.R. Ambedkar while travelling through the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar hinterland. A memorial, be it a statue or a place, usually has symbolic value which (only) comes out if the memorial is desecrated. If every political party wants a memorial in Delhi, things will become a trifle difficult," says P.K. Datta, professor in the department of political science, Delhi University.

From cenotaphs to parks to statues, there has always been a long tradition of commemorating events and people, though the establishing of memorials is part of a colonial legacy.

“A specific location yields itself to being a memorial if an important political event, one which is part of the country’s memory, has occurred there," says K.T. Ravindran, former head of urban design at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

Other cities and governments have moved on to more non-intrusive ways of remembering places associated with famous people. London, for instance, has the blue plaque scheme started in the early 19th century which commemorates the link between a person and a building in which he or she lived or worked in with a blue plaque.

Identity, though, is not the only reason descendants of political leaders want memorials in Lutyens' Delhi.

The insistence on turning a government bungalow into a memorial for leaders who don’t have an association with Delhi history can also be construed as a property issue.

M. Ramachandran, former secretary, ministry of urban development, feels bungalows are allotted by the government and politicians have no birthright over them. “If people need memorials then they should get them built in the leader’s constituency or his place of action," he says. “These are just games played by some to get a free house which the government will maintain for them."

There is also the issue of modifications carried out in a zone where no structural changes are allowed. Right to Information (RTI) activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal, through his RTI responses, found out that Central Public Works Department officers who wanted to check on illegal extensions in the Kanshi Ram Memorial were not even allowed to enter the premises.

The bungalows themselves are priceless. Apart from identifying the resident as someone powerful enough to live in Lutyens' Delhi, they are immensely valuable. In the first half of this year, a bungalow on Prithviraj Road was sold for approximately 200 crore.

The public and media might judge politicians harshly for wanting to build a memorial in one of the world’s prime real estate zones, but family members of leaders insist that the sentiments behind these demands are genuine.

Neeraj Shekhar, son of former prime minister Chandra Shekhar has sent requests to allot 3, South Avenue, his residence, to a trust named after his father.

“My father stayed in this house for forty years from 1967 to 2007. He spent so many years in the service of this country and a token of appreciation would have been nice," he says.

Shekhar had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi also with the request, but says that the government’s decision is binding and he respects it. Ironically, he admits that his father frowned upon this practice. “My father used to say that bungalows are not memorials but his family and supporters felt that this work place would have honoured his legacy."

Shekhar was issued an eviction notice along with Ajit Singh, but got a stay order from a court. He says he is now “in the process of moving out".

All the memorials are usually handled by a trust and open to the public with no entry fee. Unlike the Jagjivan Ram memorial, the Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial, inaugurated in 2005, is well-maintained, with the rooms in the same state as when the former prime minister used them. A few rooms in the building exhibit the gifts he was given during his various visits both within the country and abroad.

“There were already memorials to Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi when the proposal was made for a memorial for my father," says Sunil Shastri, son of the late Shastri. This was in the early 2000s when the NDA was in power.

According to Shastri, the house used to get a regular stream of visitors anyhow, who would want to come and see the tiny room where ‘Shastriji’ would work. “When the idea was mooted we welcomed it whole-heartedly and even vacated the premises," he says.

Shastri, now a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member who divides his time between Delhi and Lucknow, does not support the demands of others. He says the government’s decision needs to be appreciated. “If a trust wants to build a memorial, then they can acquire a plot of land from the government and construct their own memorial."

From the point of view of urban design, converting accommodation meant for government representatives into memorials is a bad move. It creates a housing problem, apart from lending a certain passivity to what should essentially be the hub of governance.

“More memorials lead to more passivity. Yes, memorials attract visitors, but this also leads to the ‘museumisation’ of the centre of the city which is against the spirit of the capital," says Ravindran.

The cabinet’s decision has been applauded and welcomed by different sections of the society, but the true test will come when the BJP might have to apply it to itself.

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Published: 22 Oct 2014, 12:55 AM IST
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