Karan Saharya

Spatial Politics of Conservation & the Spectre of Religious Nationalism in Post-Liberalisation India

Heritage studies in postcolonial India conventionally used imperialist epistemologies to focus on the maintenance of designated monuments, and to preserve their perceived value and material authenticity. However, in recent times, the fundamental understanding of architectural heritage has been impacted by a combination of capitalism and religious nationalism. This can be attributed to two significant events that occurred in the early 1990s.

Firstly, in 1991, the growing fiscal debt crisis compelled the national government to usher in Liberalisation, that changed the mode of the economy from socialism to capitalism. This imparted a utilitarian value to heritage, making it a popular commodity for ‘touristification’ to attract capital. The purpose of conservation shifted from mere archeological protection, to instead acting as a planning tool to create aesthetic backdrops for elite real-estate, often at the cost of citizens’ right to the city. In many Indian cities, the physical transformation of heritage precincts is often preceded by evictions and demolitions, particularly of minority communities and lower-income neighbourhoods. Secondly, in 1992, right-wing mobs occupied and demolished the 16^th century Babri Mosque as part of a campaign to establish a Hindu temple at the medieval site for Islamic worship. This event marked the culmination of a long-standing socio-political territorial dispute, and the beginning of a new wave of religious majoritarianism. As the political landscape in contemporary India steadily shifts toward right-wing nationalism, heritage monuments are not viewed as mere architectural artefacts, but as culturally mutable symbols whose identity and value is determined by how they fit into a particularistic narrative.

Therefore, this research project aims to investigate the legacy of postcolonial Indian heritage, in order to investigate the interlinked issues of identity, nation-building and state patronage. The project will analyze the historical development of the preservation movement in India, and then examine its contested significance in today’s zeitgeist. The project argues that even though the use of identity-based characterizations in the name of ‘heritage’ has been weaponized in recent political discourse, this is not a recent development, but can be traced back to the racialized methods of study first employed by British preservationists in the mid-19th century. Further, the project also hypothesizes that the preservation laws set by the British for territorial expropriation based on paternalistic principles, continue to be utilized to create elite and exclusionary urban spaces.

In this regard, the idea of ‘cleansing’ takes on a two-fold role: as a physical tool to aestheticize urban spaces, as well as a political mechanism to aggravate socio-political exclusion. The research aims to answer the following questions: How can architectural historians critically reframe ‘heritage’ as a lens to analyze the embedded links between power, space and identity? What are the larger socio-cultural repercussions of ‘heritage-making’ in postcolonial nations like India? How does the changing conceptualization of ‘heritage’ impact the production of space in urban India? Finally, who is included and excluded in the process of conservation and development?

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Publications

Saharya K. (forthcoming, 2024) “Heritage Conservation & Tourism as Agents of Spatial Cleansing in Mehrauli, New Delhi” in: Maria Gravari-Barbas and Maria Garcia Hernandez (eds.) Cultural Heritage at the Urban & Metropolitan Peripheries. Routledge: Paris

Saharya, K. (2019) “Dwelling, Development & Displacement: The Politics of Space in Post-Partition Delhi” in: CEPT Essay Prize Journal, CEPT University Press: Ahmedabad

Saharya, K. (2019) “Exclusionary Geography: UNESCO in Bombay’ in: UD:ID (online), Department of Urban Planning & Design, Harvard University: Cambridge