The Politics of Heritage

This article conveys the author’s understanding of the research work addressed by Ms Anar Parikh on 5th August, 2014. Ms Parikh is currently a research candidate at the Brown University. Her research is based on participant observation of the heritage walk, interviews with heritage practitioners and urban development plans incorporating heritage.

Since mid-1990s, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has been attempting to revitalize the walled city. In 2001 AMC signed a memorandum of understanding with the French government and for a broader understanding and development of heritage; AMC and AUDA (Ahmedabad Urban Development Association) with assistance from CEPT worked a consolidated development plan as a part of the 2006 Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. AMC in its ambitious plan to develop Ahmedabad as a world class city in Asia emanated the campaign of Ahmedabad for world heritage city to engender interplay of the past and present. Since the embarking of heritage walk by the AMC, the campaign gained momentum from the state administration as well as from private entrepreneurs and businesses. Either as their social responsibility or for revenue generation, whichever might be their motive, many private heritage clubs have emerged and some private players have even developed heritage research centers. The media has been packaging the story very well, but the real scenario differs from what we are being presented.

The campaign for Ahmedabad as the next heritage city has been initiated since a while, but the application to UNESCO was submitted recently in 2011 along with those of Delhi and Mumbai.

Although AMC has started consolidating heritage sites in the urban development plans like the recent Bhadra Plaza project and rehabilitating ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) sites like the Sarkhej Roza, other aspects are still at a nomadic stage.

Many local leaders have taken up the task to ameliorate the important bottom line of community participation but sadly this top-down approach has not been quite effective.

The heritage walk was launched by the AMC with the intention of generating local community awareness but the participating audience has majorly been limited to students, tourists and non-resident Indians. The guides conducting the tour lack the much needed vigour to convey the message as they have not had a training by the AMC. A controversy encompassing the heritage walk is marginalizing minority cultures by excluding their monuments from the walk. Despite having sixty-five ASI sites within the one and half kilometer walk, it mostly covers temples and derasars while the Jama Masjid is the only included Mogul-Muslim monument. This fact has drawn criticism towards the state government for promoting a selected culture at large. The private players, businesses or entrepreneurs, are trying to develop business models for generating revenues out of the ageing buildings by rehabilitating, restoring and repurposing the spaces for commercial establishments like cafes, art galleries or heritage hotels. But transformation to lavish establishments may cast out the local community while the vegetarian propaganda would exclude cuisines from other cultures.

Heritage is a conglomerate entity which requires coalescence of all the cultures to effectively convey the amalgamated heritage of the place; any alteration for including personal interests can debase the original essence.

In case of Ahmedabad certain sanctions have induced a dilemma whether the heritage movement is an organic one for the betterment of local community or value addition policies accompanied by benefits for private players.

As far as the physical restoration is concerned, AMC and private players have been working with local and international agencies for expert aid in restoration. But physical restoration is just half the part; if you observe the heritage cities like Rome and Athens, they appear to be frozen in time, but the urban space dynamics at the walled city in Ahmedabad is very fluid. The population has been evolving with time, altering the architecture and space to cater to its ever changing needs.

Cultural restoration within the walled city is difficult to achieve owning to the continuously evolving dense population.

Much of the population has not shifted to the new city due to cultural differences, livelihood insecurities, exploding real estate, etc. But whatever the reason is, need might arise to shift a major part of the population to restore the space and freeze it in time.

A lot has been accomplished in terms of planning and currently major restoration projects like the Sarkhej Roza and rehabilitation-restoration projects like the Bhadra Plaza are being executed, but a lot of work is yet to be done. The proposal to UNESCO is at a tentative stage as the technicalities for developing a concrete management are yet to be worked out and with the current ground scenario Ahmedabad’s status of world heritage city is far from reality.

This article was originally published on CEPT Portfolio.

Header Image Source: Flickr user Jagadip Singh