KOLKATA: A
two-storied building
next to
Kidderpore's Five Star market
isn't architecturally significant. Its value lies in its
historical association.
20B
Karl Marx
Sarani was home to
Michael Madhusudan Dutt
, one of the greatest personalities of Bengal Renaissance. That is why KMC's heritage committee had in 2009 listed the house as grade I heritage structure to ensure that it is preserved for posterity .
Now, the new heritage committee has downgraded the building from grade I to grade III and conveyed its decision to the West Bengal Heritage Commission. Accor ding to KMC heritage building conservation rules, once a grade I building is stripped of its status and downgraded to grade III, it grants the present owner the right to rebu ild the property after demolishing the structure. A KMC official said the property's owner would be asked to instal a bust of the bard inside the building along with a plaque that states Michael Madhusudan Dutt's contribution to Bengali literature and his association with the address.
Born in 1824, Dutt was a popular 19th-century Bengali poet and dramatist. He is considered the father of Bengali sonnet and pioneered what came to be called `amitrakshar chhanda' or blank verse.But poetry remained his first love. Among his famous works is Meghnad Bodh Kavya, a tragic epic consisting of nine cantos that is considered exceptional in terms of both style and content. According to the KMC heriA tage committee, its deci sion to downgrade the structure was due to its inability to produce authentic documents in court about Dutt's association with the house. Shortly after the house was listed as a grade I heritage building, Mohammed Salauddin and his family had moved the Calcutta high court in 2009 and challenging KMC's claim that Dutt had lived there for a long time. After a prolonged legal battle, the KMC gave in after failing to produce evidence on the duration of Dutt's stay on the premises and agreed to downgrade the house in its heritage list.
Litterateur and heritage crusader Amit Chaudhuri though, isn't convinced the KMC did enough to preserve the historic house. “When it is a well-documented fact that Michael Madhusudan Dutt had his residence in Kidderpore, how could the civic body's heritage committee downgrade the building? The very other day ,a friend of mine, a historian who had come to Kolkata from Delhi, went to visit the house in Kidderpore. This is a city which should be honouring its poets and writers and moments that make up the city's history . Kolkata is unique in showing very little regard for marking houses of personalities and writers who inspire us for generations,“ said Chaudhuri.
He further questioned how the KMC heritage committee had listed the building as grade I in 2009 if it had no documents to prove Dutt's association with it.
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