A couple of weeks ago, on 18 April, the annual ‘World Heritage Day’ came and went almost unnoticed in Kolkata. It is usually a moment when a city looks at herself, at old buildings, inherited rituals, and spaces that remember more than people do. But this year was different. West Bengal was in the middle of an intense election season. Rallies, speeches, slogans, and arguments filled the air. In that noise, heritage stood little chance. Even the regular ritualistic media articles were missing.
When political cacophony grows that loud, culture retreats. Then, a few days later, something curious happened. On 24 April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a boat ride on the Hooghly during his campaign. The opposition dismissed it as theatre. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it was not. But for a brief moment, the river returned to public attention, leaving behind a simple question: why must she wait for a political moment to be seen? The Hooghly is not merely a river passing by the city of Kolkata. As a tributary of the Ganga, she travels through the districts of West Bengal for roughly 260 kilometres before meeting the Bay of Bengal.
In Kolkata, she rests along the western edge of the city for about twenty kilometres, a patient witness who has outlived every generation that has leaned over her waters. The Hooghly has witnessed the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the Great Revolt of 1857, and the rupture of Partition in 1947. Long before Kolkata became a metropolis, the river had begun shaping her fate. When Job Charnock arrived in 1690 and settled in Sutanuti, it was the river that made that decision viable. Kolkata became what it became because of the river. From me dieval Sutanuti, Gobindapur, and Kalikata to the 19th-century colonial port that grew into a restless metropolis, the river has remained threaded through the city’s life. She carried goods, people, rumours, and ideas.
She bore the mood of the Swadeshi movement and the slow assembling of a political conscience. People call her “Ma Ganga” out of something instinctive. Yet today, that relationship feels strained. The Hooghly is not as visibly distressed as the Yamuna in Delhi. But that comparison offers little comfort. Long stretches of her 20-kilometre riverbank remain neglected, difficult to approach, and edged with waste, sewage, and abandoned industry. The ghats, the steps leading to the river, once built with care, stand worn and unattended. It feels, at times, as if Kolkata has turned her face away. This neglect is striking when one considers the ghats themselves.
Nearly a hundred line the river, mostly built in the 19th century by families who saw public space as a shared responsibility. These were not private indulgences. They were meant for everyone, for ritual, public utility, and respite. Such civic generosity is rare today. Architect Charles Correa once observed that in cities like Paris or London, rivers are inhabited. People walk beside them, return to them. Kolkata seems to have unlearned that rhythm. There have been recent attempts. Millennium Park offers a cleaner stretch. Some ghats are marked for restoration.
Plans appear now and then. But these remain fragmented, lacking a cohesive vision. The problem is not effort, but sincerity and continuity. There is also the question of how the river is understood. Too often, she is treated as an edge, something to be decorated or managed in parts. But a river resists fragmentation. She belongs to a larger ecological and urban whole. Then comes a quieter question: who still lives with the river? Mostly, it is ferry passengers, small vendors, pavement dwellers, and devotees. For them, the Hooghly remains immediate. For much of the city, she has slipped out of daily consciousness. And that is the problem. Because the Hooghly is not an artefact. She is a living heritage.
And when something living is neglected, the urgency is not preservation alone. It is survival. This aligns with the theme of the current World Heritage Day: ‘Living Heritage and Emergency Responses’. Heritage is not only what we inherit; it is what we continue to hold. Neglect does not let it fade quietly. It diminishes it. Marcus Aurelius wrote that one must act rightly not for reward, but because it is right. Kolkata’s responsibility to her river does not require spectacle. It requires continuity. At present, the gaps are clear: inconsistent maintenance, delayed enforcement, and limited citizen participation. Heritage remains compartmentalised, separate from planning or environmental thinking. Elsewhere, cities have chosen differently.
Barcelona, Paris, and Prague have woven past and present together. Kyoto sustains continuity through careful stewardship. In Zanzibar’s Stone Town, preservation is lived. These are not distant ideals. They are working models. Kolkata, too, has shown what she can do. The UNESCO recognition of Durga Puja reflects a capacity to sustain tradition at scale; Hooghly asks for no less. There are signs of movement to revive the riverbank. But coordination remains uneven. Without alignment, even sincere efforts falter. What is required is modest: continuity and attention. The Hooghly does not need rediscovery. She needs to be remembered.
(The writer is a narrative history author and columnist.)