A new book puts heritage squarely where it belongs: In the present

In 2017, the Hall of Industries and Nations and Nehru Pavilion at Pragati Maidan in Delhi were demolished. These modernist structures had been built on the occasion of India’s 25th independence anniversary. They were technologically advanced for their time and symbolic of the spirit of a fledgling nation. But heritage, according to Delhi’s Heritage Conservation Committee, must be at least 60 years old. The Delhi high court ruled that the structures did not make the cut, pav ing the way for the government to pull them down. Similar cut-offs in age are applied by other heritage bodies. For the Archaeological Survey of India, a monument must be at least 100 years old to count for protection. For the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Maharashtra, it’s 50.

Overall, heritage equals old. This preoccupation with age and the notion that heritage is a product of the deep past is a colonial view that was imposed on India in the late 19th century. Europe was grappling with rapid change caused by the upheavals of the industrial revolution and the past became some thing to cling to, a familiar, nostalgic, comfortable crutch in a rapidly changing world. Imported via colonisation, this reverse ageism lives on in Indian heritage policy. To be worthy of care or conservation, sites and structures need to be old.

Heritage is seen as something that happened a long time ago. Far removed from the present, it must be frozen in its x-year old avatar. This understanding affixes importance to the age of physical building material, and in doing so, elevates that material to protection and safeguarding against all odds. Fall short of the requisite number of years and the wrecking ball of demolition is just one swing away. But heritage is more than the age attached to its building blocks. While it is of the past, it is only made meaningful through its relevance in the present.

This is what I have tried to impress through my book. Mumbai Metro Aqua Line: A Time Traveller’s Guide puts heritage squarely where it belongs: in the present. It does so by telling contemporary stories about sites and personalities from the past. It uses the stops along Mumbai’s newest Metro line, the Aqua Line, a modern public infrastructure project, to animate the past and in doing so, contributes to a rethinking of heritage as something that is very much in and of the present, shaped by current mores and sensibilities and further, implicated in current tensions.

The contemporary value of heritage includes social, community, natural, and economic meanings attached to sites and structures. For example, Azad Maidan and August Kranti Maidan are historical grounds, which, in the 1930s and 1940s, were important crucibles of the freedom struggle. In 1931, Azad Maidan witnessed a mass commemoration of the first anni versary of the declaration of complete independence and Gandhi addressed a crowd of over 200,000 people. In 1942, the Quit India Movement was launched at August Kranti Maidan, with educator and activist Aruna Asaf Ali hoisting the tricolour. Today, both grounds continue to act as sites of protests.

Another example of the contemporary value of heritage is seen in the 110-year old stone cross in Mahim, holy for the Catholic community. It lay in the path of Metro construction works and was moved in 2017 to a spot 20m away so it could be preserved. Colaba Woods Garden holds value as a green, public open space. It was rejuvenated from dumping ground to wooded garden in the early 1980s. In 2015, residents fought to retain it as a public space when part of the land was slated to be taken over for Metro construction. That heritage also provides economic benefits is seen in the pottery and leather goods shops in Dharavi. These industries date to the late 19th century and continue to thrive. The leather industry that once supplied the British army with harnesses and shoes, is now the source of belts, bags, and other goods exported all over the world.

These examples show that heritage is relevant to people beyond its quality of simply being old. When heritage has contemporary value it also becomes an arena for contemporary resistance and contestation, even disenfranchisement of certain groups. When people hold a place dear, they fight for its preservation. Take the case of Our Lady of Health Church, originally dating back to 1846 and serving Sahar’s East Indian community. Its location, Sahar village, became the site of feverish construction activity in the 1980s when the international airport was being built. In 2016-17, villagers pro tested the takeover of their land for the airport’s extension and were dealt with high-handedly. Similarly, the High Street Phoenix mall was built on the former Phoenix Mills, a cotton mill set up in 1905. High-end malls and gated communities on mill sites that are now prime real estate have come at the cost of the security and livelihood of many workers and equitable urban development.

At Dadar is Rajgruha, the home of Dalit icon and national leader B.R. Ambedkar. It was built in 1933 and named after the ancient Buddhist kingdom in present-day Bihar. The house was vandalised in 2020 in what was considered an anti-caste hate crime. These narratives add layers of meaning to what would otherwise be soul less sites, celebrated only for their physi cal or aesthetic qualities. Heritage is contemporary, and there fore inevitably political. Statues and memorials, whether old or new, offer us a window into how the past is used in the present. The statue of Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray at Regal Circle (near Vidhan Bhavan station) was erected by the Shiv Sena on his 95th birth anniversary in 2021. The location was chosen so that it would be in prominent public view at all times. Similarly, an Ambedkar Memorial is being built in Dadar with a statue that is set to be the second tallest in India and the third tallest in the world. The height of the statue was even increased by the BJP-led Maharashtra government in 2019, while the memorial itself met with criticism from Ambedkar’s grandson who thought an educational institute would better honour his grandfather.

These examples stand as proof that heritage is constantly being remade. Contemporary narratives and significances can not be teased out from dry historical and archival accounts of heritage that tend to focus on architecture and aesthetics alone. The book aims to capture a moment and is bound to become dated as the sites and structures acquire and shed meaning in some future contemporary moment. This is just as well, because it would reinforce the claim that heritage is in perpetual flux, constantly being moulded to reflect its present. It is only when the whole gamut of meanings attached to places from the past are considered that the present and future stand to benefit.

Maitri Dore is an architect, researcher, and freelance illustrator. She is currently on a postdoctoral research fellowship in architecture and heritage at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.