GOOD COP

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=19&id=70374&usrsess=1

Having been moved from fighting mujahideen in turbulent Jammu and Kashmir to the more peaceful environs of Ladakh, an IPS officer embraces a project of an equally gruelling nature, writes Kavita Suri FIGHTING terrorists in troubled Jammu and Kashmir was his cup of tea so when the young and dynamic Shiv Darshan Singh Jamwal was posted to mystic Ladakh a few years ago he was upset. For most, Ladakh would mean a peaceful place far removed from the maddening “mehman mujahideen” or “guest terrorists” as imported hardware is known in the troubled state, but for this IPS officer it felt like being put out to pasture. But go he did to those freezing temperatures and in a little more than two years as Superintendent of Police, Leh, he worked wonders in calling attention to the rock art of Ladakh, winning accolades from conservationists, art lovers and historians. In fact, Ladakh did more for him than eight years spent as a police officer in Jammu and Kashmir. Scattered throughout Ladakh are unique carvings done by an ancient people who used the glazed surfaces of huge magnetite rocks and boulders to etch various pictures depicting the journey of existence. Most of these carvings date back to the 8th-5th century BC, some as old as the 2nd century BC. Jamwal, now SSP, Traffic, Jammu range, has been working on the subject since 2001 and has made an impressive inventory of rock carvings in Ladakh, advocating the conservation of this non-monumental yet historically significant archaeological heritage. Though some work has been done on Ladakh rock art by a few scholars and researchers like Karl Jettmar, Dr AH Dani, Rohit Vohra and BR Mani, none of them actually did anything extensive. And since most of Ladakh’s rock carvings were headed for oblivion, something serious needed to be done to document their existence and make people aware of this monumental heritage. Enter Jamwal, and by sheer chance.It so happened that his vehicle broke down near Taru village some 20 km from Leh on the road to Kargil and while his driver set about fixing the engine he looked around at the rocks and boulders and saw heritage that made his eyes pop. He could not believe this had remained hidden all these years. The petroglyphs stayed on his mind and when he returned to Leh he discussed these with Tashi Ldawa, a college and university colleague and now a lecturer in zoology who had a photographic collection of such rock carvings. The two of them began to look for more rock carvings on their travels together in Ladakh. “As our interest grew, we started searching for literature about them,” says Jamwal. As SSP, Leh, he had the resources and manpower. And the privacy, since Ladakh, of much geopolitical significance, isn’t open to foreign tourists and research workers. Even for Indian nationals, special permission must be obtained from the district magistrate or district superintendent of police to visit and some areas are totally out of bounds.“At times I also had the facility of travelling by helicopter and I did so to document and record rock carvings from such far flung areas that would otherwise not have been possible,” recalls Jamwal . As extensive travelling in Ladakh was a part of his duty, he always carried cameras and allied equipment.But he soon enough realised something needed to be done to conserve this rock art. And the urgency was spurred by the fact that some rock carvings they’d recorded on previous trips to a particular area no longer existed when they went calling again because blocks are cut from the rock in Ladakh for extensive construction usage. A practice that takes its toll of heritage with each passing day. During their field research, Jamwal and Ldawa would come across many beautifully carved rocks destroyed by cutters or scattered along the road side because of the massive road construction and other expansion work being taken up across Ladakh, especially since the Army is expanding its base there. They have a collection of photographs to prove as much. And given the local awareness of how important these may be, rock carvings are often stolen.While recording their findings in Ladakh, Jamwal and Ldawa faced a major problem. Since neither of them are qualified archaeologists or geographers, they approached the Archaeological Survey of India office in Leh in what proved a futile exercise. The ASI didn’t know much about Ladakh rock carvings and since these artifacts were not covered under ancient monuments, their destruction didn’t officially amount to any offence. “There was no legal provision also which could help me, a police officer, in preventing the destruction of these beautiful rock carvings. Ultimately, we thought that the only way to ensure the safety of these rock carvings was by involving the people in their conservation and spreading awareness about their importance and the need to protect them. But before that, we needed detailed data as to where all these rock carvings were located. And to locate these carvings in the vast cold desert and rugged mountains was really an uphill task,” says Jamwal.What followed was a gigantic task. They adopting various means to get information about rock carvings, clicking photographs and sending copies to different police stations and outposts in Leh and Kargil districts to be shown to village chowkidars and nambardars who might regularly divulge information of any relevene. “We also showed these photographs to villagers, monks, shepherds grazing their cattle and labourers working on construction sites to find whether they had seen rocks with such carvings. We trekked many miles on foot and drove all along Ladakh looking for such rocks. Our efforts bore fruit when in just two months we got a collection of about 1,000 photographs,” says Jamwal. Since all these petroglyphs were scattered in different parts of Ladakh, Jamwal divided Ladakh into five different zones for their research. The first one was the Indus valley area that included parts of Leh, the Sham, Dah-Hanu and Batalik areas. Nobra Valley included Diskit, Panamik and Sasoma areas followed by the Changthang area which covered Karu, Chumathang, Kyari, Nyoma and Tangse. The Kargil area included the Suru Valley, Chiktan, Mulbek and Sanku areas. Zanskar valley was the last in the five zones. “We made a map of Ladakh and plotted on it the sites where rock carvings were recorded by our team. We utilised the Garmin-120 GPS system to record the exact geographical location of these rock sites. Individual rock carvings were photographed and a record was maintained.”So far, says Jamwal, they have covered the Indus and Nobra valleys and the Changthang area. Work on the Kargil area and Zanskar valley is yet to start. Various types of rock carvings recorded by them include animals like the ibex, antelope, yak, leopard, elephant, bison, dog, wolf, stag, horse and camel; birds like the peacock, eagle, duck and the kyung (a mystical bird); celestial bodies like the sun and moon; religious symbols like the trident, swastika, chorten; other symbols like masks, dots, circles, mountains, palms and tamgas; and heraldic signs like the dragon cat. Certain inexplicable symbols involve certain anthropomorphic figures like humans hunting and performing rituals, group dances, duelling, worshipping, mother and child. Besides some carvings have human-like figures of demons or spirits. There are certain weapons and tools that include spears, axes, bows and arrows, swords, shields, daggers and sticks, as also certain inscriptions in the Kharoshti, Tibetan and Chinese scripts. Some of the carvings of masks found in Nobra closely resemble those belonging to the “Okunevo” culture of Mongolia and the Altai region of southern Russia between the second and third century BC. The “S” patterns of the drawings, which have mostly been used to fill in the bodies of animal figures, as documented from Domkhar, Khalsi and the colder areas in Ladakh, date back to the eight and ninth century BC. Jamwal’s efforts to conserve Ladakh’s rock art have been recognised locally, nationally and internationally. He educates the locals about their importance and has held a number of exhibitions and seminars, but he also knows that unless there is some drastic intervention many of these historic treasures will be forever lost.With such dark thoughts clouding his kind, he has decided to occupy a large chunk of land near Taru village where many rock carvings exist. The spot is near Leh town, right on the National Highway. After much talk with the local people and the district administration, he has occupied about 1100 kanals of land at the site and a temporary police post has been established in this “rock-garden” to which the rock carvings are being transported.Jamwal had relocated about 20 boulders to this new location through the use of huge machines and cranes and now has the guidance of Professor Harald Hauptmann of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Germany, a world-renowned authority on rock art and who is working in the northern areas of Pakistan on a similar project. “We sent him some photographs of our collection and he was so impressed with our work that he visited Ladakh with his wife Salwa, also an archaeologist. Both of them came to Ladakh twice on my invitation and they are now helping us in the systematic exploration, documentation and conservation of Ladakh’s rock art sites. We have also started an NGO, Upper Indus Rock Art Society, headquartered at the Central Institute Of Buddhist Studies, Leh, and we are planning to document more rock carvings from areas as yet unexplored,” says Jamwal. The entire project is being sponsored by the Jammu and Kashmir police under a civic action programme.