Archaeology is the umbilical cord to tourism, feeding the latter with substance that constitutes the real takeaway by visitors from historical sites. Cities and places that attract visitors must cultivate and reinforce the sense of conserving and showcasing history through a variety of means. These could be achieved through installing plaques at monuments, providing brochures, producing toy-like memorabilia and organising heritage walks.
Several artists, architects, writers and historians who gathered at the first of the series of monthly memorial lectures titled ‘Bangalore through the Ages” at Tipu Sultan’s Palace last Monday expressed the need for initiating measures to inculcate awareness of the historicity of Bengaluru. Participants regretted that the city was getting drowned under the influx of immigrants who barely develop any belongingness to the city and respect for its ethos.
The lecture organised by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) coincided with the birth anniversary of Sir Alexander Cunningham who is remembered as the ‘Father of Indian Archaeology’ and was appointed the first Director-General of ASI. Rich tributes were paid to the memory of Cunningham, whose explorations unearthed an enormously worthwhile material on Indian history, especially in the field of Buddhist monuments, coins, and inscriptions in classical languages. His ASI reports and nearly a dozen books provide rich insight into the history, especially the Buddhist phase, of ancient India.
Incidentally, his younger brother Francis Cunningham who served in the Madras Army was appointed secretary to Mark Cubbon and lived in Bengaluru for several years. Cunningham Road in the City is named after him.
No documentation
Suresh Mona, a retired NCC officer, who did a comparison between Bengaluru and London, said the city’s historicity has not been properly showcased as is the case with London. He said London was devastated in several fires and plagues and all that was well documented through a variety of means. But no such documentation was available with regards to Famine of 1876, Plague of 1898, Hooch Tragedy, Venus Circus Fire and Gangaram Building Collapse (all between 1981-82) pertaining to Bengaluru. Even sizeable portions of walls of the Roman fortress around Londonium (as it was previously known) could be seen.
Mr. Mona said while River Thames has been cleaned up thoroughly, Vrushabhavati has turned into a festering sewer. “London’s gardens, palaces, heritage buildings, transport evoke a sense of continuity of the past into the present, while the relentless development in Bengaluru has robbed the city of its greenery, serenity, and old world charm and has severed it of all its antiquity,” he lamented. Mr. Mona said London’s legendary buses, telephone booths, Big Ben, Ferris Wheel, and soldiers of the Queen’s Guards could all be had in the form of memorabilia, but nothing of the sort was available with regard to Bengaluru which is otherwise gifted with monuments like Kempegowda Tower, Bangalore Palace and plethora of war memorials.
Mr. Mona recalled that London had a Bangalore Street and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and preserved several original photos of erstwhile Bangalore. Prof. Marr had written enough about Bengaluru while Prof. Rolf Killius studied instruments of ritual music.
Changing character
Prof. Yashaswini Sharma of the Dept. of Architecture, Dayanand Sagar College of Engineering, explained through a variety of maps of medieval Bangalore that the earliest planners had organised the Pettah area as a mercantile town with bazaars and quarters for various occupational groups and some of them named after the commodities they offered. The city began to change its character to a defence town with the rise of Kote (Fort) in Kalasipalyam following the purchase of Bangalore by Chikkaraja Wodeyar of Mysuru from Aurangzeb.
She said that temples in the city resonate with temples of Vijayanagar empire. As modern age dawned, the city came to be known as a scientific and intellectual hub with a number of research institutes being set up here. Still later, it attracted modern educational institutions and now with Information Technology taking roots, the city has been turned into “Silicon Valley of India”, she added while shedding light on the changing character of the city and tenor of the life in it.
Praveen Kumar, a research scholar from Deccan College, Pune, said most prehistoric sites around Bengaluru were found in river basins of Pinakini, Vrushabhavati, Kumudavati and Arkavathi. He pointed out that pots full of Roman coins were unearthed from Yeshwanthpur and current sites in 1891 while T. Narasipura was identified as an ancient site of burials.
T. Arun Raj, Superintending Archaeologist of the ASI, Bengaluru Circle, said the ASI would organise monthly lectures on some aspect of life, history and development in the City and the State coinciding with anniversaries of personalities related to them.
