While Maharaja Gaj Singh was sipping his afternoon beverage at the splendid Umaid Bhavan, he chatted with Iknoor Kaur about preserving national heritage
Dressed in a crisp white kurta-pyjama, Bloody Mary in hand and a plate of mixed vegetables placed in front of him to nibble on — Maharaja Gaj Singh, fondly known as Baapji, was celebrating World Tourism day at Umaid Bhavan. We sat down to chat with him on his experience of preserving the Indian heritage. “I grew up with it and inherited all of it when I was four. I went to England when I was eight and returned in my 20s. By the time I came back, I saw how heritage preservation had taken off and how everyone was using their properties. Palaces were becoming hotels and forts were becoming museums. It was only when this palace was converted into a hotel that I started lobbying for conservation.”
He took a sip of his drink and cleared his throat when a thought struck him, “It isn’t easy to manage such things. It is an extremely long process and requires a lot of money. Most heritage properties need to be upgraded to get accreditation. Five star ratings mean having every inch of the hotel in proportion to the standard measurements. Not all can afford it. So, smaller properties don’t fit into the star category. So to solve this problem, ultimately about a dozen property owners came together and made an association.”
This association classified these heritage properties for the benefits of clients, he added. “The clients need to know what they are getting. So the luxurious hotels were called ‘Grand’ then came the stylish ones called ‘Classic’ and eventually the simple ones called ‘Heritage’.
This classification ended up involving people from other states as well. They wanted to know what we have done. Then came the national body in 1990, Indian Heritage Hotel Association (IHHA),” he explained.
The IHHA started with 15 people and today is an association of 180 people from all over the country, he said with pride at the second Annual Convention of the association in Jodhpur.
The dessert was placed on the table and Baapji elaborated on the challenges of preserving culture and heritage today. He said, “A lot of things depend on the state government. First comes taxation and then there is infrastructure. Most of the heritage properties are in small towns or rural areas so connectivity is a problem. Even telephones are difficult to arrange. If you go and ask for loans they ask you for ownership papers. In most cases these property owners give papers to other people — they were the authorising body, but they never make it for themselves.”
He also mentioned the role of policies, “What we have tried to do now is make policies with the state. like Rajasthan has its own tourism policy but within that they have a clause for heritage hotels. Plus, tourism is now an industry.”
He went on to add that changing the mindsets of people is important in order to preserve heritage. “In this day and age, everyone looks for a value of a particular piece of heritage. I may own a 100-year-old statue but as long as I am assured the value of this statue is a lot, I will probably junk it. This palace was a liability for me, but today it is generating income.”
While he wrapped up his meal and ordered another drink, the issue of unreliable ownership came up. He shared, “Personally I would always encourage families who own a heritage property to take care of it themselves, but sometimes what happens is that there is no body from the family to do so. So, in that case selling off the property makes sense.”
The IHHA makes sure this is done in a filtered manner, he continued, “There is a clause while building heritage hotels that at least 50 per cent of the hotel should be original. There are people who take only one room of the heritage property and build an entire new building around it. In such cases we don’t title those hotels as ‘heritage hotels’. Of course modification is necessary but we need to retain half of the original infrastructure.”
Baapji feels that the involvement of young children is helping the process of conservation move faster. “This is one positive thing. As far as Rajasthan is concerned, I feel hospitality comes to them naturally. So they are helping in bringing the standard up and hopefully if this goes the way it is going, India should soon be a 100 per cent culturally preserved country,” he signed off.