Indian Town Struggles to Balance Architectural Heritage and Living Heritage

When the Hampi World Heritage Area
Management Authority (HWHAMA) bulldozed homes and businesses in the bazaar adjacent to the archaeological treasures of the former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, they may have helped protect the city's "dead" architectural heritage, but it came at the cost of destroying the "living" heritage of 300 families, "who had made their living selling
handicrafts, bottled water, banana pancakes, and other tourist
goodies to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who hit Hampi each
year," writes Rachel Proctor May. 

"Officially," says May, "the structures that were destroyed had no right
to exist in the first place, although the same could be said for
many, if not most, of the structures in a country where land
titling is still poorly documented and subject to dispute."

Although the destruction of the bazaar followed at least a decade of
discussion over "how to best manage both Hampi's
wealth of architectural heritage and the living heritage of its
residents," May writes that "the
debate is far from over."

"Hampi as a whole is over 100 square
kilometers peppered with thousands of ruins, and other families who
make a living among those ruins. Local activists are pushing UNESCO and the
Indian government for a number of reforms, including a more
thorough compensation package, true citizen involvement in how to
manage living and historical heritage, and a stronger institutional
role for local democratic institutions rather than the
unaccountable bureaucratic agency of HWHAMA."