A Haveli, a Heritage, and a Higher Calling: Why Kapurthala’s New Cultural Partnership Matters
A Unique Partnership Conserving Physical Heritage and Intangible Culture—Through the Music, Instruments and Rāgas Associated with the Sikh Gurus
Author credentials
KBS Sidhu, IAS (retd.), served as Special Chief Secretary to the Government of Punjab. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The KBS Chronicle, a daily newsletter offering independent commentary on governance, public policy, and art, cuture and heritage.
A Haveli, a Heritage, and a Higher Calling
Kapurthala, seat of the erswhile princely state in Punjab, is witnessing a partnership that deserves national attention—not because it is merely restoring an old building, but because it is rethinking what “heritage conservation” should mean in India. In a country where the default template for conservation is increasingly a Rajasthan-style conversion into boutique hospitality and weekend tourism, a quieter, more serious model is taking shape: conserve first in the building’s own architectural language, and then use the restored space to protect a living tradition.
Anād Foundation: Conservation of Sound, not Spectacle
The Anād Foundation is a not-for-profit cultural institution led by Bhai Baldeep Singh, its Managing Trustee. For multiple generations, his family and lineage have worked to preserve the musical instruments associated with the Sikh Gurus, and to sustain the rāgas in which Gurbāṇī is composed. This is not nostalgia; it is stewardship. Gurbāṇī is inseparable from its rāga framework, where each rāga shapes spiritual mood, time, and discipline. Preserving that structure—and the instruments, pedagogy, and performance practice that carry it—means preserving a core dimension of Sikh civilisational memory.
Bhai Baldeep Singh’s Mission: Instruments, Rāgas, Transmission
The critical word is transmission. Instruments do not survive by being placed behind glass; they survive by being played, repaired, taught, and passed on. Rāgas do not remain living forms through documentation alone; they remain alive through daily practice, apprenticeship, and a community of practitioners. The Anād vision is therefore not to create a museum of Sikh music, but a living conservatory: training, archiving, instrument restoration, and disciplined musical practice rooted in Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt.
Dr Sanjeev Chopra: Public Service, Scholarship, and Kapurthala Roots
To this cultural mission, Dr Sanjeev Chopra brings the indispensable physical anchor—Haveli Diwan Hari Chand in Kapurthala—along with a lifetime devoted to public service, scholarship and institution-building. Having superannuated as Director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, he continues to influence public discourse and governance thought in several capacities: as Senior Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Studies, The Prime Ministers Museum and Library; and as a Member of the Academic Council of the National Centre for Good Governance.
He is also widely recognised as a historian, columnist and festival director—best known in cultural circles as the driving force behind Valley of Words: The International Literature & Arts Festival, Dehradun—an initiative that reflects his enduring commitment to intellectual and cultural life beyond the corridors of government.
These profiles matter because they explain why this initiative is not an after-retirement hobby. It is an extension of a life committed to ideas, institutions and public culture—now anchored in a place of personal heritage and memory.
The Haveli as a “Living Centre,” not a Heritage Hotel
This is where the project becomes disruptive. The haveli is not being “saved” so it can be monetised through tourism. It is being restored so it can serve as a living centre—an ecosystem for endangered intangible heritage. Conservation, here, is not a makeover; it is a discipline. The building must be repaired with respect for materials and craft; the reuse must be aligned with purpose; and the institutional activity within must honour the tradition rather than dilute it for easy consumption.
Why Kapurthala District Matters: Sultanpur Lodhi and the Civilisational Context
Kapurthala district is not merely a convenient location; it carries profound Sikh historical resonance. Sultanpur Lodhi—within the district—is remembered as the place where Guru Nanak Dev Ji, after meditating in the waters of the Bein (Bain) rivulet, emerged and made his first great public declaration: that there is neither Hindu nor Muslim. Whatever one’s preferred phrasing or interpretive frame, the point is civilisational: Sikhism begins as a radical spiritual universalism, not as a narrow identity.
To place a living institution of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt in the same district is to reconnect music, message, and memory. In Sikh tradition, music is not ornament; it is a vehicle of revelation. The preservation of rāga-based Gurbāṇī is, therefore, not cultural hobbyism—it is fidelity to the form through which the Gurus chose to transmit truth.
Where I Fit In: Facilitating, not Owning
I have known both Bhai Baldeep Singh and Dr Sanjeev Chopra and, when the idea of a joint mission began to take shape, I did facilitate the connection and encourage the dialogue. Yet the vision, passion and moral energy are unmistakably theirs. My role—at most—has been to help align two streams already moving in the same direction. The project belongs to their conviction, and its success will depend on their sustained leadership and the community’s willingness to support an institution that refuses to reduce heritage to commerce.
A Template India Needs: Tangible + Intangible Conservation
India’s heritage debate is overdue for a reset. We protect monuments, but we often neglect the living practices that give those monuments meaning. We celebrate architecture, but forget sound; we restore façades, but let traditions disappear in silence. This Kapurthala initiative offers a powerful template: conserve the physical with integrity, and use it to conserve the intangible through training, apprenticeship, archives, instrument-making, and daily disciplined practice.
The Call: Contribute Our Mite to Sustain a Long Mission
Such work cannot survive on sentiment alone. It needs sustained patronage, seriousness of purpose, and a community willing to contribute its mite—not grand gestures, but steady support over years. If this partnership stays true to its founding idea, Kapurthala may gain not another tourist attraction, but something rarer: a living conservatory where stone shelters rāga, and heritage becomes responsibility rather than spectacle (photo gallery).
Truly a noble venture which merits pursuit to it’s logical culmination.
A great initiative.