Fading Urban Memories: Status of Conservation of Historic Samsthan/Zamindari Palaces in Small & Medium Towns in Telangana, India

India adopts a three-tier legal system for preserving monuments and heritage at National, State and Local levels. At the local level, different urban and rural local governing bodies viz., Urban Development Authorities, Municipal Corporations and Municipalities are expected to take up Listing and Conservation of Urban Heritage in their respective jurisdictions, incorporating Conservation policies, programmes and guidelines in statutory Master/Development Plans. Though Urban Heritage listing is mostly taken up by bigger metropolitan cities in India and in Hyderabad, capital of Telangana, one of the five States in southern India, heritage conservation is almost a non-starter in other smaller and medium cities and towns which have had rich historical past and surviving heritage. From Mid-17th century till Independence in 1947, besides the territory under the British rule, India was ruled by various Princely States. The present State of Telangana was a part of one such Princely State ‘Hyderabad’ under the Nizam of Hyderabad. Across India and in Nizam’s Hyderabad State too, during the colonial period, land revenue administration systems were adopted, wherein sub-regional authorities called ‘Zamindars’, ‘Samsthans’, ‘Rajas’, ‘Jagirdars’ or any other such title, ruled/administered demarcated jurisdictions under the overall rule of the British or Nizam. These Samsthans/Zamindars/ Jagirdars were ‘Chieftains’ of their own territories and ruled from ‘Palaces’ located in their Capital city/town. Most of the Capitals of Samsthans/Zamindaris developed over the last two centuries, building around their historic inner core and heritage of palace complexes, becoming present day Small and Medium cities/towns. The palaces and historic areas of old Samsthan/Zamindari settlements represent local histories whose significance, memory, heritage needs to be preserved for posterity. But due to lack of awareness, initiative and insensitive urban planning, heritage in Small and Medium towns is in the danger of being lost and erased from collective memory of even heritage aficionados. This paper presents the issue of how uninformed and insensitive urban planning is perpetuating the risk of losing heritage, physically and from peoples’ memories by taking illustrative case examples of Small and Medium Towns of Telangana and erstwhile capital cities of Samsthans of Gadwal, Wanaparthy and Kollapur. These three palace towns represent different case examples of present ownership/ management, used for public/private purposes, but yet all of them remain ‘unrecognized’ for their heritage status in Master/Development Plans. The case studies presented in this paper are from the ongoing doctoral research work being done by the author at School of Planning and Architecture, Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, Hyderabad, on the topic of ‘Planning for Conservation of Samshtan/Zamindari Palaces of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh’