CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VI (1) Contemporary-Eurasia-VI-1-engl | Page 70

SUBRAMANIAN KRISHNAN MANI
expenditure on archaeology and succeeded in passing the Ancient
Monument Preservation Act in 1904 9 .
Despite these measures, what remained unclear was the precise
way in which preservation should be undertaken, which as late as the
early twentieth century remained ad hoc and unregulated. Curzon’s
early response to the way in which the colonial state in India went
about the task was unequivocal: “[...] there is neither principle nor
unity in conservation or repair, while from time to time horrors are
still committed that make the student shudder and turn grey” 10 . The
appointment of John Marshall, with his experience of working in
Crete, Turkey, and Greece, was expected to change all this. Marshall
himself tried to define the task that the Director-General of Archaeology
in India should undertake: the most important of his functions is to
secure that the ancient monuments of the country are cared for, that
they are not utilized for purposes which are inappropriate or
unseemly, that repairs are executed when required, and that any
restorations, which may be attempted, are conducted on artistic lines 11 .
But what were the principles of preservation that Curzon and
Marshall were referring to? Curzon’s choice of the terms
“conservation or repair” is an unwitting reference to what was a
central issue in the debate on preservation that had been going on in
Britain and Europe for the better part of the nineteenth century, i.e.
how were the material remains of the past to be presented to the
present? Were they, with the help of modern technology, to be
restored to their original form? Or should they be conserved in the
state of decay or ruin that they were in, in order to preserve their
historical authenticity? These were the questions that John Marshall
9
For instance, in 1898–1999, the total expenditure of the Government of India
and all provincial governments on archaeology was a total of £7,000 a year; by
1904, this had gone up to £37,000. IOL, IOR/L/PJ/6/674 File 803, President of
the Council of the Governor General, or Viceroy Curzon, 18 March 1904,
Proceedings of the Legislative Council, Ancient Monuments Preservation Act,
Act VII, 1904, Judicial and Public Dept.
10
Sourindranath Roy, The Story of Indian Archaeology, 1784–1947,
Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, 1996.
11
Chakrabarti D. K., A History of Indian Archaeology from the Beginning to
1947, Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 2001, p.122.
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