By Reshmi R Dasgupta

Writer Amit Chaudhuri’s impassioned appeal to save south Kolkata’s unique ‘modern’ architectural heritage —predictably supported by the ubiquitous Amartya Sen — has made waves among the cognoscenti, especially those living outside Kolkata. But, unfortunately, any hope of their idea succeeding really hinges on a whole lot of people who probably do not know either of these esteemed Bengali bhadralok and vice versa.

These denizens live, eat, wear, talk, read and enjoy things that are hugely different from what those Chaudhuri and Sen are familiar with or have affections or concerns for. A short walk down Rashbehari Avenue or Harish Mukherjee Road — bordering the 1930s-era South Kolkata bhadralok neighbourhoods whose legacy Chaudhuri and Sen are heroically championing — would show how different the worlds of these two sets of people are. The pavements are full of teeming bodies whose sibilant conversations would be anathema to the two refined Oxbridge inheritors of the Bengal Renaissance. Yet, these are the people for whom Kolkata is more than a soul recharge station or an annual destination during the city’s brief salubrious winter. And builders are remorselessly demolishing the Bengali bhadralok heritage to accommodate them.

Celebrity endorsement of a cause can only draw attention to the urgency of a situation. And the importance of preserving heritage cannot be tagged to its potential to attract international tourism, which is the focus of US-based economist and Kolkataphile Esther Duflo’s argument. For any real change to happen, not merely laws but also mindsets need to be changed. But in developing economies like India, aspirations must be considered too.

Most of today’s Kolkatans neither built the venerable homes now being targeted by the developers Chaudhuri so despises, nor do they have any empathy for Art Deco edifices. They do, however, aspire to be part of the upscale neighbourhoods occupied by the bhadralok homes that are now probably owned by their disinterested NRI descendants — absentee landlords with no love lost for their inheritance. Financial or tax initiatives to save old buildings from the developers’ bulldozers would have limited appeal unless the current owners — and future buyers — see value in preserving anything not already Archeological Survey of India (ASI)-protected. And that is practically impossible in a country where from kindergarten, children are taught to value science over history, utility over spirit, and pragmatism over posterity.

In this context, Kolkata is no different from every other major Indian metro where urban renewal and upward mobility is seeing the metamorphosis of many old localities and the demolition of buildings characteristic of earlier eras. Most Indians, it must be admitted, prefer new over old when it comes to personal possessions: shiny new jewellery, personal gadgets and vehicles. Homes can hardly be an exception to this rule.

If India’s wealthiest families are inexorably changing the skyline of iconic old neighbourhoods in Mumbai and Delhi — as, say, Russian oligarchs and Arab investors are doing in London — it is a bit rich to expect considerably more modest Kolkatans to desist from monetising their smaller plots. And asking them to do so in the name of an increasingly irrelevant historical curiosity — the bhadralok legacy — is doubly futile.

Modifying rent laws and incentivising restoration can probably save a few homes from the wrecking crews and stanch the influx of new residents with different sensibilities and priorities in Kolkata and other Indian cities. But the battle to save history — architectural and cultural — is a long and complicated operation, and must be backed by sweeping attitudinal changes at all levels.

That is not to say that the sentiment guiding Chaudhuri’s appeal is misplaced. Having just completed a two-year restoration of a 1930s-inherited home in South Kolkata, I am all for preservation movements. But like Sen, our family is no longer domiciled in this city. Had the house been a necessity rather than an indulgence, would we have restored rather than monetised it?