New Delhi: Historian, professor, and Delhi’s chronicler Narayani Gupta’s work is part of shaping the capital’s past and preserving it for decades. A tribute to her work at a time when Delhi is going through its worst week of pollution was both ironic and a key intervention.
And Gupta made it clear she was very much in touch with Delhi’s immediate reality, saying historians must move beyond narration and interpretation.
“Now they should move to anticipating. Before we choke in bulldozer-generated dust or drown in overflowing water, we have to turn the crisis around,” said the 82-year-old historian at Delhi’s India International Centre (IIC) recently.
A fully packed CD Deshmukh auditorium saw the celebration of her long engagement with the city’s past and present and her efforts vis-à-vis urban conservation. The event marked the release of the book titled Cities, Citizens, Classrooms and Beyond: Essays on Narayani Gupta, a tribute to the historian. The audience mostly comprised historians and history students. The evening saw historian Swapna Liddle, anthropologist Lokesh Ohri, conservation architect Ratish Nanda, professor Amar Farooqui come together for a discussion on the work Gupta has done over the decades.
A recitation of Urdu poetry by Saif Mahmood, author of Delhi jo ek sehar tha: The city in poetry, made the audience aware of the history of the capital city through the lens of Urdu poets.
The book, which Gupta called a festschrift, contains memoirs and essays on urban history and conservation, with records of Gupta’s activism and pedagogy.
“Narayani Gupta is perhaps the most self-effacing scholar. In an academic world replete with credit hunting, hardly anyone has been such a furtive benefactor to so many,” said Indivar Kamtekar, associate professor of modern history at the Centre for Historical Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He added that it is hard to think of Delhi and its history without Narayani Gupta.
More than four decades after it was first published, Gupta’s Delhi Between Two Empires (1803-1931)—a chronicle of the city’s sociopolitical history—continues to be cited in academic circles as the go-to point for understanding a critical period in India’s past.
“Narayani’s knowledge about Delhi from the time of the tanga to the e-rickshaw is incomparable. Her enthusiasm for urban history and Delhi has spilled beyond the confines of research and the classroom,” he said.
Kamtekar said that Gupta has stood for the integrity of the local against the sometimes-heavy hand of the national.
“She has taken spirited stands on whether we need to rename streets — on how many medieval structures and sub-modern structures need to be protected, the communalisation of history, and in general, on how our city needs to be intelligently moulded to the benefit of all.”
Beneath Gupta’s gentle affability lie nerves of steel, as she confronts the many issues, historical, archaeological, and ecological that beset our beloved but beleaguered city.
‘Historians can be part-time activists’
Gupta emphasised the importance of urban history, conservation, and local initiatives in understanding and addressing the challenges faced by cities. She also highlighted the need for interdisciplinary approaches to urban studies, combining insights from history, sociology, and architecture.
“Some centuries ago, people used to trace their routes by the position of the stars and looked up at the sky. Now, the stars are blurred and the skies are shot through with flying vehicles,” said Gupta.
She added that historians can be part-time activists because they have a sense of perspective — both temporal and physical.
“Equally, those who work on the ground could be part-time learners of history, not WhatsApp history but something a little nearer to the truth.”
For her, conservation is based on knowledge gleaned from history and implemented through skills. “Writing urban history always gives joy. It has no rigid boundaries, no template, no scale,” she said.
Gupta acknowledged a growing community of people writing about various towns and cities and the approach they take to share stories but cautioned against using two words.
“Just avoid two words: awesome and amazing,” she said with a gracious smile, and the audience erupted in laughter.
A ‘forever historian’
A former Jamia Millia Islamia professor, Gupta has worn many hats in her long and illustrious career. She was a member of Delhi’s Urban Art Commission and associated with the INTACH. She also headed the committee on middle school social science textbooks for the Delhi SCERT in 2002-04.
Gupta has actively engaged with the conservation of monuments and urban landscapes and even filed a case in the Supreme Court on the issue of redevelopment of Central Vista.
For her, teaching history to children is first and foremost about communicating values that are integral to her worldview, compassion, and respect for diversity.
“She is uncompromising in her commitment to secular values,” said Farooqui, adding that she always insisted that textbooks should be attractive and colourful with lots of illustrations. Farooqui said finding ways of making history comprehensible to school students has been dear to Gupta’s heart.
For historian Beeba Sobti, Gupta’s capacity to store and retrieve historic data is what makes her the Malika-e-Tariq.
“She (Gupta) is an urban historian up close. She does not work from afar and actually engages with the subject matter as a living palimpsest,” said Sobti, adding that Narayani is a forever historian, very much like Delhi being her forever city, her vision being both unprecedentedly broad and unusually cosmopolitan.
Liddle recalled her first encounter with Gupta’s book Delhi Between Two Empires. Its first page had Altaf Hussain Hali’s Marsiya-e-Delhi-e-Marhum.
“That for me was such a wonderful way of opening a book — with a poem,” said Liddle, adding that Gupta’s range of writings is very wide.
Apart from writing on the history and heritage of Delhi, Gupta has also engaged with the visual archive.
Nanda called Gupta a “conservation mother”.
“For me, she was God sent,” said Nanda, recalling his interaction with Gupta 35 years ago at TVB School of Habitat Studies through an assignment. The event brought him to the field of conservation.
Mahmood recited a couplet of Urdu poet Agha Shayar Qazalbash as a tribute to Gupta.
“Hamin hain Maujib-e-baab-e-fasahat hazrat-e-shayar
Zamana sikhta hai hum se hum vo delhi vaale hain (We are the cause of that chapter on eloquence, the world learns from us, we are those Delhiites).”
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)
Every single name mentioned in this article is a part of the Left-liberal cabal which has held institutions such as JNU and Jamia Millia captive. Their hegemony has run supreme across all institutions of higher education across India. Each ane of them has been a beneficiary of the Congress-Left era largesse – be it funds for research activities which promoted a specific Left-liberal point of view or frequent foreign trips for conferences/seminars.
Their “commitment to secularism” is what made them the darlings of the then ruling establishment, under whose patronage medieval Indian history was sanitised. As a result, one does not find any mention of the barbaric atrocities committed on Hindus/Sikhs during these centuries. Even Aurangzeb got portrayed as a “secular” emperor.