Recently, an institution managing 150-year-old properties along the Hooghly unveiled a new tagline: “heritage-led development”. The occasion was the leasing of the 19th-century Chote Lal Ki Ghat to a hotel conglomerate. Possibly coined by a social media team, the tagline revealed the yawning gap between slogan and substance.
The Hooghly’s banks are not decorative peripheries but the amphitheatre where the city’s destiny has long played out. They are among the world’s great historic
waterfronts — departure point for indentured labourers and the stage for the Bengali Renaissance. Yet today, the site is overshadowed by a leased-out building, a bar, and a café, its meaning drowned by loud music and the waft of alcohol.
There are more such dispiriting examples. A maritime museum is now a dumping ground; Kumortuli — a historic ghat — has been leased out to a politico-corporate behemoth; the Judges Ghat has been conserved recently after five years of sustained non-governmental effort — this shows that protection comes not by default but through struggle. Doric ghats, Palladian facades, Glasgow iron arches, warehouses fallen into neglect, illegally occupied, some crumbling, tell a moving story.
Volunteers write blogs, organise festivals and photo walks, but their voices remain fragile against commercial appetite.
Beyond the riverfront, the pattern repeats. A report in this newspaper said that the 1854 relic that was part of the Chandernagore station was razed without notice despite the railways boasting a ‘Heritage Committee’. Countless ancient temples, old houses, graves, godowns across Bengal remain abandoned. They could enrich heritage tourism but fade into obscurity because the state looks only where commercial returns glitter.
Marine ecology is severely ignored. The Hooghly faces rising seas, soil loosening at its bends, salinity, endangering marine species such as the Gangetic dolphin. The historic Botanical Gardens is at risk of subsidence. Yet kiosks and cafés crowd the waterfront while ecological alarms go unheeded. In cities like Amsterdam or London, ecology and heritage are inseparable. In Calcutta, the river is asked to bear the load of commerce, recreation, and waste, but is rarely given care. The Durga Puja is heritage but the river which takes the brunt of immersion is not.
At UNESCO’s World Heritage session in 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said: “Heritage is not only history, it is a shared consciousness of humanity,” coining the slogan, “Vikas bhi, Virasat bhi”. Noble words, but permissions, leases, and facades tell another story.
Kalighat shows the dilemma. A multi-crore renovation widened pavements and added a skywalk. Officials saw order; conservationists saw rupture in the shrine’s centuries-old rhythm. In Kashi, corridors opened sightlines to the Ganga but erased mohalla textures; in Delhi, the Central Vista imposed a new monumental narrative. Each case shows redevelopment outrunning conservation’s first principle — significance must
be understood before intervention. By contrast, the United Kingdom’s guidelines define conservation as “managing change in ways that best sustain significance”.
What might this mean for Calcutta? Think precincts, not just monuments. Dalhousie Square, College Street, Bow Barracks, the Hooghly ghats — their value lies in rhythms of life as much as in facades. Reject the false choice between access and authenticity. Kiosks and plazas are not destructive in themselves, but when leasing drives design, the result is generic spectacle.
Citizen movements are showing the way: heritage walks, student mapping,
petitions to save cemeteries. International practice shows that civic engagement is essential. Some reinventions prove that balance is possible. The Alipore Jail museum evokes memory while creating new meaning.
Development without heritage breeds placelessness; heritage without development risks neglect. The task is balance.
Gautam Chakraborti is former adviser, Security (and Heritage), Kolkata Port Trust