The Mandi House area in the Lutyen’s Delhi is
particularly busy on weekends. The miniscule minority, which identifies itself
as theatre lovers, descends on the three public auditoriums to get their fill
of art and culture. On rare occasions one might get to watch an engaging, high
quality production. On other occasions one has to make do with either Taj Mahal
ka tender or Gadhey ki barat. Taj Mahal ka tender, a satire, is what came to my
mind when opinions and comments on Red Fort started pouring in on my social
media timelines. The Dalmia Bharat Group has adopted the Red Fort under the
government’s Adopt a Heritage initiative, which requires spending on public
infrastructure and no profit making. The adoption was widely covered in the
media, sometimes with misleading headlines like, “are
Marwaris taking over our national heritage?”
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| I can really do with some upkeep |
As expected, the rent an outrage section of “intellectuals”
started twisting the story. They were “appalled” and “heartbroken” because the
Red Fort has been “auctioned”. Even the
wannabe comedy rag ScoopWhoop compiled all the outrage in an image heavy post,
full of lies. At this point AltNews should have picked up the fake stories on
Red Fort auction and set the record straight. Oh! But wait, AltNews is only
interested in what the liberals consider to be fake. Since the liberals
themselves were howling to “save” the Red Fort, AltNews perhaps gave this fake
story a miss.
So what is the story behind the so called
auction of Red Fort? The government in 2017 decided to do something about the abysmal
standards of public services provided at our national monuments. Lack of proper
signage, toilets, clean drinking water, sitting spaces, etc. steal the joy of
visiting our heritage. In an attempt to improve the facilities, which the
government obviously failed to deliver on its own, the Ministry of Tourism
decided to invite private participation.
The Ministry’s demands were assessed by a
Standing Committee of the Parliament. The committee was headed by none other
than Shri Derek O’ Brien, Member of Parliament, Trinamool Congress. Others prominent
members in the committee (31 members) were former aviation minister Praful
Patel, former minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, Shailja Kumar,
former CPM member Ritabrata Banerjee and former RJD MP Pappu Yadav.
The Committee after deliberations made its
recommendations on March 1, 2018. The report can be read here.
Paragraph 112 on page 48, of the report says, “The Committee notes
that the initiative of Adopt a Heritage is a welcome step on the part of the
Ministry of Tourism.” The parties, whose members signed on the
report are now spreading fake news, telling people how the government is
selling off national monuments. Foremost being Shri O’ Brien himself.
The fact is that there is no sell off of any
monument. The guidelines of the Adopt a Heritage scheme can be read here.
The prime focus of the scheme is to rope in a private agency, which according
to the report can be an NGO, individual or a company, to build, operate and
maintain public facilities. The organisation will not be involved in any restoration
work of the monument, neither will it “own” the monument.
All the outrage among the liberals, as usual,
is not motivated by facts but by feelings. And facts don’t matter when their
agenda is only to criticise the government. As long as they can create hysteria
by peddling their lies, it serves their agenda. Then there is the gullible janta, which eats out of their hands and
exponentially spreads their lies, without any fact check.
