Understanding Cultural Heritage: Multiplicity and Contestations in Chamba Town in the Western Himalayas

Abstract

The idea of heritage is not new; originating in the West in the nineteenth century, it travelled in the world through colonial policy. However, heritage or world heritage, as it is known today, was conceived and propagated by global agencies like UNESCO in the second half of the twentieth century. The present article aims to explore the heritage status demand for Chamba town located in the Western Himalayas. Heritage is treated here not as a thing, but as a different kind of attitude towards past. Drawing form Ericksen’s idea heritage in this article is understood as different ‘historicity regimes’. Pursuance for heritage status for Chamba which was ruled by a single dynasty until Independence, having vibrant past, can be seen as part of globalization. Heritage here means for some a ‘brand’ for marketing a place for tourist attraction and for others preservation of antiquities or veneration of past which plays a decisive role in negotiating, maintaining and creating a group identity. Official and unofficial heritage practices coexist which sometimes lead to contestation over meaning and practice. Analysing categories that organize experiences of temporality in Chamba such as antiquity and heritage employed by scholars and practitioners are coexistent with folklore, memory and beliefs that are part of everydayness and differ from how practitioners make sense of past.