Post-secular Heritage: Mapping Wonder and History in Contemporary Ahmedabad

Abstract

Common perspectives on heritage management in postcolonial India invite us to view such activities, and thus their historical and regional visions of the nation, as the preservation of a past that is widely known and shared across its inhabitants. Yet with the rise of a post-secular landscape, these historical and regional visions in fact have entailed some degree of religiosity. To fully understand this dimension of heritage work we must therefore understand the construction and representation of religious sites, not just archaeological or historic ones, and their relationship to the past and region. Reflecting on the Hindu Swaminarayan tradition’s conceptualization and organization of the Shree Swaminarayan Museum in Ahmedabad, India’s first UNESCO World Heritage City, located in the western Indian region of Gujarat, this paper suggests ways in which religiosity is spatially arranged to intersect with notions of heritage, history and region, exploring public persuasion, communal identity, accessibility, and the slippery terms of secularism. Why was the Museum, showcasing historical materiality, located at a distance from the Old City, the very center of heritage preservation in Ahmedabad? How has an account of regional history been circuitously forged through the narrative of colonial-era Hinduism? Where does the Museum’s interpretation of heritage stand in the spectrum of the region’s long Islamic history? How have certain voices been both enfolded and excluded in their access to the site’s religious materiality? What does sacred and wonderous heritage entail in postcolonial India?