‘Ladakh rock carvings could be lost forever’

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=4&id=193870&usrsess=1

‘Ladakh rock carvings could be lost forever’

Ladakh, an ancient land located in the northernmost part of India, is the gateway to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the west, Central Asian countries to the north, Tibet and China in the east and the plains of Chenab-Beas-Sutlej and the Ganga in the south. It has, therefore, seen a lot of cultural exchanges and intermixing of people. The vastness of this region has preserved in itself the footprint trails of these civilisations. Scattered throughout Ladakh are unique rock carvings made by ancient people who used the glazed surfaces of huge magnetite rocks and boulders as canvas to carve out various pictures depicting an array of activities of their day to day life - economic activities, religion, culture, beliefs, and customs. The credit of bringing these rock carvings of Ladakh before the world goes to Mr Shiv Darshan Singh Jamwal, an Indian Police Service officer presently posted as SSP Vigilance, Jammu. He has been working on the subject since 2001. Mr Jamwal has not only made an impressive inventory of rock carvings in Ladakh, but is also aware of the fact that human vandalism and rapid development are two major threats to the ancient rock carvings. Thus, he has been actively advocating the conservation of this non-monumental yet historically significant archaeological heritage. Mr Jamwal talked to KAVITA SURI about his growing passion towards the rock art in Ladakh and the need to conserve it.Excerpts: You have done a commendable work in the field of rock art in Ladakh region. How did it start? I got interested in this art form after my transfer to Leh as superintendent of police. Rock art is scattered through the entire length and breadth of Ladakh but very few people in that region and even outside knew about it. Rock art is basically images and designs on rock surfaces. It is of two types - petroglyphs and pictographs. Petroglyphs are rock carvings or the images carved on rock surfaces by various methods like pecking (striking the rock surface with tools so that the newly exposed outer rock surface forms a design or symbol.), incising (scratching the rock surface by hard tools to form images.), chiseling (cutting the rock surface by chisel and hammer), and drilling (making holes on rock surfaces mostly by metal tools). Pictographs are rock paintings made usually by ancient people in the protected areas like caves, cliffs and hanging galleries using natural colours (coloured minerals) or pigments of plant (plant dyes, chlorophyll) and animal (blood, urine). After my chance discovery of rock art on the Leh-Kargil road when my vehicle broke down and I was wandering in the area, what followed was extensive travelling through the entire length and breadth of Ladakh which was otherwise also part of my duty. I always made it a point to carry cameras and other equipment required for excavation work. And soon I realised that something needed to be done for recording of these rock carvings and their conservation in Ladakh. Was this kind of work done by or even mentioned by someone prior to you in Ladakh? No, nobody had worked on the rock art of Ladakh. And we needed to do something seriously for its conservation. The reason being that at many times, we found that rock carvings we had discovered in our previous trip to a particular area did no longer exist. In Ladakh, rocks are extensively used in construction work in the form of blocks which are made by cutting the rocks. Many unique rock carvings have been lost forever to this activity and they continue to do so each passing day. Another main reason for their destruction is the road construction and expansion work which is taking place throughout the length and breadth of Ladakh. Since most of these carvings have been found along the ancient foot tracks and the present day roads have been constructed along these tracks, such construction work spells doom for these rock carvings. We have recorded many photographs where large number of rock carvings can be seen in the rubble of rocks, broken to small pieces. And finally, when the awareness spreads among the people and especially because of a large number of security forces and tourists, who know about these carvings, there is a tendency of stealing such rock carvings But then how were you able to explore more of this precious heritage? As my interest grew in rock carvings, I started searching literature about them. Though some work has been done in the past by various scholars and researchers (Karl Jettmar, Dr AH Dani, Rohit Vohra, BR Mani and others.), none of these authors had worked in Ladakh. Probably, I and my team were more fortunate than these scholars on one aspect. Being a border area, most part of Ladakh is not open to foreign tourists and research workers. Even for Indian nationals special permission is required from the district magistrate or district superintendent of police for most parts of Ladakh and some areas are totally out-of-bounds for them also. As the district police chief I didn’t have this problem and this proved to be a great advantage for myself and my team. I also had facility of travelling by helicopter and I used this facility for documentation and recording of rock carvings from such far-flung areas which otherwise would not have been possible. How did you and your team record these rock carvings? Well, initially me and Tashi Dawa, my friend who worked with me, faced one major problem. None of us was a trained archaeologist or geographer. A visit to the Archeological Survey of India office in Leh was of no help as they didn’t know much about rock carvings and since these artifacts were not covered under ancient monuments, there destruction didn’t amount to any offence technically. Besides, there is also no legal provision which can be of much help so that I could have prevented the destruction of these rock carvings, being a police officer myself. We felt that if the safety of these rock carvings was to be ensured, the only way it could be done was by involving people in their conservation and spreading awareness among them about their importance and need to protect them. But before that, we needed a data as to where all these rock carvings are located before their conservation is thought of. And to locate these rock carvings in the vast deserts and rugged mountains was a really uphill task. However, we employed various means to get information about them. We clicked some photographs and I sent copies of these photographs to different police stations and police posts in Leh and Kargil districts where they could be shown to village chowkidars and nambardars who regularly report to the police stations. We also showed these photographs to villagers, monks, shepherds grazing their cattle and labourers engaged in construction work so as to find whether they have seen rocks with such carvings. We trekked many miles on foot, and drove all along Ladakh, looking for such rocks, and in about two months we managed to have a collection of about 1,000 photographs. Please tell us in detail about your findings? See, our work was very difficult as these are scattered all over Ladakh, but we were able to do it. Since all these petroglyphs were scattered in different parts of Ladakh, we first divided Ladakh into five different regions. These were Indus Valley (areas of Leh, Sham, Dah-Hanu and Batalik), Nobra Valley (Diskit, Panamik, Sasoma areas), Changthaang (Karu, Chumathang, Kyari, Nyoma and Tangse etc) and Kargil area - Suru Valley, Chiktan, Mulbek, Sanku areas and lastly Zanskar Valley. We made a map of Ladakh and marked the sites where rock carvings were found by our team. We used the “Garmin-120” GPS system to record the exact geographical location of these rock sites. Individual rock carvings were photographed and record was maintained. So far, we have covered only Indus Valley, Nobra Valley and the Changthang area. We covered the Kargil area and Zanskar Valley in the summer of 2004. Your rock art findings throw light on some linkages with Central Asia? Yes, masks found in Nobra have close resemblance with those belonging to the “Okunevo” culture of Mongolia and the Altai region of southern Russia from 2nd to 3rd century BC. “S” patterns of drawings which have mostly been used to fill the bodies of animal figures, as documented from Domkhar, Khalsi and chilling areas in Ladakh have been dated 8th to 9th century BC. How far have you succeeded in your conservation efforts with regard to the rock art of Ladakh? As already mentioned, rock carvings in Ladakh are under constant threat of getting lost forever. Therefore, I, along with my co-workers, tried to educate local people about their importance. We met a cross-section of people to educate them about their importance. We showed our collection in a number of exhibitions and presentations. We took the help of the print and electronic media to spread our message, but soon realised that if drastic steps were not taken, many of these treasures of history would be lost to mankind for ever. During our tours, we would invariably come across many rocks having beautiful carvings destroyed by rock cutters or rock pieces scattered along the roadside, lost to road expansion and construction work. We ultimately decided to occupy a large chunk of land near Taru village, about 20 km from Leh on the Leh-Kargil National Highway. We selected this site because many rock carvings existed there and since the spot was near Leh town and right on the National Highway, tourists and art lovers would have easy access to the site. After talking to the local people and the district administration, we occupied about 1,100 kanals of land at the site and in fact a temporary police post was established there to ensure that the rock carvings remain safe. We also started transporting rock pieces having carvings and such rocks which were in immediate danger of being lost to this rock garden. But before we relocated these rocks, we took the GPS locations of such rocks so that their original location is available which might be helpful for any future reference. Before I was shifted from Leh, we had relocated about 20 boulders to this new location by making use of huge machines and cranes. I would like to mention here that my entire work of conservation and documentation of rock carvings in Ladakh is now being sponsored by Jammu and Kashmir Police under the civic action programme. You have involved an internationally acclaimed rock art expert on this project? Yes, in fact while searching the information on rock carvings on the Internet, we got in touch with Dr Harald Hauptmann of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Germany. The professor is a world renowned archeologist. Beside many other projects that he has done, he is presently doing a similar project on the Pakistan side of the Indus in the northern areas of that country. We sent him some photographs of our collection and he was so much impressed with our work that he visited Ladakh with his wife Salva. Professor Hauptmann and his wife have been to Ladakh twice on our invitation and they are helping us document and do our work on scientific lines. We have also started an NGO, the Upper Indus Rock Art Society with its headquarters at the Central Institute Of Buddhist Studies. We are planning to document more rock carvings from unexplored areas.

(The interviewer is Special Representative of The Statesman based in Jammu)