The Evolving Heritagescape in India’s Hindu Pilgrimage City of Varanasi: Contemporary Relevance and Contestations

ABSTRACT The three-century-old city of Varanasi stands at crossroads between choosing to preserve its Heritagescape and generating a new-age urban landscape. The paper begins by exploring the concepts of Heritage and Heritagescape by taking a contextual stand, whereby it is constructed around the core argument that heritage is a tool in the hands of the powerful and what tangible and intangible aspects of the natural and human world shall be designated and retained as heritage is only a matter of power and power relations. The paper makes a conscious attempt to critically analyze the present-day urban transformations that the city is undergoing owing to its commitment toward a Smart City Mission and the resultant destructions and the contestations that emerge as a response to that. It concludes thereafter that the Smart City Mission in Varanasi has led to manipulative handling of heritage. Though it was launched with the promise of creating urban opportunities without having to pay up for the consequences, it seems unsuccessful in winning over the soul of the city and failing to the idea of sustainability in the process. The paper uses photographs and information from the field, digital and print media, and scholarly articles to substantiate the arguments made. It is more like an analytical essay, justified through evidence from the ground.