This week, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage celebrates its 20th anniversary. It was the creation of Indira Gandhi, who, with Pupul Jayakar and a group of enlightened professionals, realized and acknowledged the desperate need to build a body of citizens who would watch over and protect our unusual legacy encompassing a range of diverse cultures. In its early days, commitment was what inspired voluntary work at Intach. Soon, the foundations were set. Intach became a catalyst that assisted conservation work outside the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Survey of India. Today, two decades later, socialites, retired bureaucrats, politicians et al lobby actively to be on its various committees. Conservation, like environment and gender studies, is the new mantra.

Having said this, the strange reality facing us is that most of the trained, young conservationists are working outside Intach. This only proves that it has moved away from what it was intended to be. It is seen to be a quasi-government institution, without the energetic spirit of its youthful days. It belongs to the past and has not captured the changing ethos, definitions and parameters of culture. That is the truth. Most of its members are over sixty years of age, if not seventy!

It has become a base for retired people. It functions in the mould of a staid bureaucratic institution. Where it was meant to be the facilitator, the link for private and public participation, the body that could work on changes in the laws that govern culture, and play a special role, it became a large NGO.

Big fish, small fish

Maybe the time is right for a new forum, one that will be a helpline for those trained conservationists, who need to be connected with the many agencies, funding bodies, governments, municipalities and political bosses who call the shots to allow them to get on with their work in the private realm. Gurmeet Rai and Abha Lambah are two such women who have recently received awards for their successful projects from UNESCO. More such conservationists and their endeavours need to be supported. Old paradigms need to be cracked and unsullied ideas initiated. Large institutions must play a similar role and not swallow the small fish. Small is beautiful. Monopolies are out, particularly in this space. Politics should not intervene either.

Mani Bhavan, in Gamdevi, had got money sanctioned for the trust, by Sonia Gandhi and the then chief minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, for its repair. It was to become a small museum in the heart of Mumbai to honour M.K. Gandhi and what he stood for. It was here that he taught himself to use the charkha. From May this year, the cheque from the state government has not reached the hands of those who made the demand for the restoration of Mani Bhavan because vested interests, who wanted the job, managed, through individuals in the bureaucracy, to stall the release of the money until the time of writing. A larger fish wants the prestigious project.

Would it not be wonderful to have a group that could access five Bombay-based industrialists to form a collective for the restoration of Mani Bhavan and keep the government and the quasi-government out of the fray? It is time such interventions happen with private support. It is time we preserve what is ours and not leave it to the babus. India is littered with many such instances.

Frustrations are rampant. Despite that, the thin silver lining on the distant horizon is beginning to sparkle. Professionalism in India is finally being recognized internationally, young conservationists are being celebrated and the future is bound to trigger an attitudinal change. Tired methodologies, archaic diktats and centralization will all fall by the wayside sooner rather than later. That is the ray of hope.