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Exploring Identity Constructs and Nation-Building Narratives at the Hampi World Heritage Site

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Exploring Identity Constructs and Nation-Building Narratives at the Hampi World Heritage Site ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Exploring Identity Constructs and Nation-building Narratives at the Hampi World Heritage Site KRUPA RAJANGAM Krupa Rajangam ([email protected]) is with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru and Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. Vol. 56, Issue No. 16, 17 Apr, 2021 The author would like to thank all the respondents and participants she interacted with for making her research possible. Specifically, she would like to thank Bishnu Mohapatra for a fruitful discussion on politics, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage for a partial fieldwork grant, and the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) for their doctoral fellowship. An early version of this essay titled “Shifting meanings, mutable materiality: material culture in nation building narratives at Hampi World Heritage Site” was presented at the NIAS National Conference titled “Nation, Community, and Citizenship in Contemporary India,” which was held in January 2017 in Bengaluru. While critical scholarship, across disciplines, has analysed the link between heritage and exclusive group identity, how is this pairing constructed in the everyday, as an ongoing process? I address the link between heritage and exclusive group identity in this photo essay, which is based on 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork, and visual and archival research in Hampi, Karnataka. Hampi is recognised as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). I observed that various identity constructs connected to the site’s heritage imagination, comfortably straddled “scale,” whether big or small, regional or national. For instance, in the colonial period, the ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 site was “nationally” constructed as an absolute Hindu empire, while in the nationalist period, it was constructed at a “subnational” level as representing Kannada nadu. In the contemporary period, it is constructed “regionally” as north Karnataka’s heritage, and “locally” as representing Madiga inheritance (caste identity). “Nation” appears to be the key to unpicking the ease with which Hampi’s heritage imagination encompasses multiple identities. While the link between nation, identity, and heritage is well-established, I argue that, even while the process is fraught with tensions and contested along diverse axes (religion, language, region, and caste), it is the ability of both “heritage” and “nation” to simultaneously occupy different scales (understood as size and level) that makes the pairing of monuments/sites with specific group/community identity appear natural and commonsensical, and the process harmonious and uneventful. Introducing the Site and Principal Locations From a rather marginal existence, heritage sites are regularly creating front-page news in India due to exclusive claims by groups or individuals, and perceived neglect of monuments or sites. The photos in the essay are telling of how the link between heritage and exclusive group identity is reproduced and reiterated visually. I will provide context and an explanation along with each photo. Figure 1: Local area map of Hampi, loosely congruent with Vijayanagara capital region, a 236 square kilometre (sq km) boundary encompassing 29 villages. The core area of the ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 ruins, which is about 40 sq km, is marked using a red circle. The Virupaksha temple complex and Bazaar Street (marked using a green oval) are located north-west of the inner fortifications (black shape within red circle). Within the green oval, Virupaksha temple complex (orange rectangle) is located to the west, Mathanga Parvata (grey blob) is located to the east, and Hampi Bazaar Street (green dashed line) is located in the middle. Source: Author; overlay on the base map was obtained from the Hampi World Heritage Area Management Authority. Seeking the Iconic Figure 2: The Stone Chariot at the Vithala Temple complex (left). One of the many “iconic” locations on the site, made popular through travel blogs, portals, and social media posts (right). Source: Author. “I accidentally came across this iconic image, a stone chariot … [I’ve] been wanting to see it.” “…been waiting to see this iconic location at Hampi, with [the] tree and [the] shrine.” These are common responses by those who visit the site when asked why they are visiting Hampi. Apart from how such “iconicity” circulates, I am interested in its origin. In Hampi, the “grand” narrative appeared to be the glorious, monumental, historic, ruins representing the ancient South Indian Hindu Vijayanagara Empire (UNESCO nd). ‘The Glorious Ruins of Hampi’: Representing Ancient India’s ‘Hindu Kingdom’ ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Figure 3: The Virupaksha Bazaar Street (red oval) photographed by Edmund David Lyon in 1868. It shows the site’s ruined state as selectively described by Sewell and likely as observed by Alur Venkata Rao. Source: British Library Online Gallery, British Library Board shelfmark: Photo 212/7(14), Item number: 212714, reproduced with permission. The narrative that characterised Hampi as ruins belonging to a “Hindu Kingdom” appears to have originated in colonial England. Glendinning (2013) argues that colonial administrators institutionalised the approach to protect monuments and sites “as-is” because they represent discrete cultures. Moreover, the administrators believed that monuments represented India’s “lost” “glorious past” that could be reinstated by strong central rule (Guha-Thakurta 2004; Singh 2004; Stein 1989). Consequently, the ruins at Sanchi, Hampi, and elsewhere were exposed and excavated. Challenging the Oriental Narrative and Its Contemporary Circulation ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Figure 4: Front page of Bangalore Suryanarain Row’s book (left). Hoarding by a farmers’ group seen within the site to celebrate a member of legislative assembly’s (MLA) birthday (right). It reads “Best wishes to Shri Anand Singh, the ruler of Vijayanagara.” Image courtesy: Left: archive.org, Right: author. Written accounts like Robert Sewell’s (1900) A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): a Contribution to the History of India bolstered the site’s imagery as a strong centralised Hindu empire that challenged a “wave of foreign invasion.” Suryanarain Row’s (1905) book, a response to Sewell’s, challenged his claims that Vijayanagar’s contributions were forgotten and emphasised that the dynasty's contributions were “never to be forgotten.” Currently, the imagery of powerful Hindu rule continues to circulate—the MLA in Figure 4 is garbed as Krishna Deva Raya, the “iconic” Vijayanagara ruler. Vijayanagara: ‘A Kannada Nation’ ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Figure 5: Alur Venkata Rao (left). Bhuvaneshwari shrine within the Virupaksha complex (right). Source: Left: cityidols.blogspot.com. Right: Unnikrishnan 2012: 161. In the nationalist period, the label “Kannadiga” was added to the grand narrative. Alur Venkata Rao (1880–1964), popularly Kannada Kula Purohita, High Priest of the Kannada people, visited the Virupaksha temple. Upset to see the “Kannadiga” empire’s ruins and “lost glory” spread across five administrative divisions, he was inspired to write the “Kannada nation’s” history (Ellakavi 2007; Khajane 2015; Srinivas 2012). His 1917 work Karnataka Gatha Vaibhava (the glory that was Karnataka), gave impetus to Ekikarana, the Kannada unification movement. Rao propounded “Karnatakatva,” a “unifying ideology for Kannada-speaking people in terms of territory and culture” (Gavaskar 2003: 1114). Rao also symbolically linked the movement to goddess Bhuvaneshwari, whose shrine is located within the Virupaksha complex, by proclaiming her to be the state’s “mother goddess” (Unnikrishnan 2012). ‘Subnational’ Imagery Continues to Circulate ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Figure 6: Puja at the Bhuvaneshwari shrine on 1 November 1973. RHS, which is the eve of the day Mysore was renamed Karnataka (left). The Department of Information’s float at the 2016 Utsav shows Bhuvaneshwari holding the state flag (right). Source: Left: Unnikrishnan 2012: 161; right: author. Rao’s narration portrayed the classical heritage of Karnataka as “exclusively Hindu, and Islam continue[s] to be [seen as] external to Karnataka's history” (Nair 1996: 2813). This is how the state’s religious linguistic identity—as signified by Thayi (mother) Bhuvaneshwari—continues to circulate. North Karnataka’s Hampi Utsav: ‘Regional’ Celebration ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846 Figure 7: An image of Bhuvaneshwari is placed in the centre of a map of Karnataka in a 2016 Utsav float. Images of Krishna Deva Raya and the Vijayanagara emblem are placed above and the accompanying text reads “Hampi.” An image of M P Prakash, a regional political leader instrumental in initiating the Utsav takes pride of place (right). The float is wrapped in the colours of the state flag. Source: author. In the contemporary period, regional identity gets added to religious and linguistic identities. The state’s linguistic re-unification was not an unequivocal success; this and many other fault lines are well-documented (Gavaskar 2003; Patil and Shastri 1994; Rajasekhariah et al 1987). M P Prakash was a vocal critic of the neglect of North Karnataka’s social, political, and economic spheres. He initiated Hampi Utsav annually to shine a light on Vijayanagara as symbolising the north’s ancient glorious culture. He scheduled it for November, just after Rajyotsava (state unification day). He sought to counter south’s Mysore Dussehra, celebrated as the nada habba (state festival). Moreover,
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