Jalianwala Revamping: Preservation or Erasure?

[Sukla Sen]

Murdering (Collective) Memory.

This madness has a (fiendish) method underlying.

The purpose is to legitimise in public perception the arrival and anointing of the Founding Emperor of "New India" over the ruins of the (old) "India" - already under demolition, which had been conceived in the crucible of the epic anticolonial freedom struggle spanning over at least half a century and got to be born at the successful culmination of that process.

For that erasure of collective (sacred) "memory" is too vital.

That's how also the "redevelopment" of the iconic Sabarmati Ashram and the Central Vista Project that (effectively) vandalises so much of invaluable national history.

Once emblematic of one of the most brutal State-sponsored massacres in British history, the site has now been reduced to somewhat of a picnic spot, with manicured lawns and a light and sound show to boot. Many outraged citizens have raised questions regarding the tone-deaf manner in which the restoration has been carried out.

It is thus important to delve into the potential legal ramifications of the Disneyfication of a mass murder site that invokes strong patriotic emotion and carries with it such a bloody past.

(Excerpted from: <https://www.theleaflet.in/preservation-or-erasure-a-closer-look-into-the-jallianwala-revamping-project/>.)