Borrowed Notion of Authenticity: Viewing Authenticity of Historic Houses in India using a Western Lens

Authenticity is considered by UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as the link between attributes and Outstanding Universal Value (OUV). It is the ability of a property to truthfully, credibly, and genuinely convey its OUV through the attributes. However, these attributes or values are dependent on the site’s cultural associations and context. Therefore, the concept of authenticity is vague and may be subject to different cultural and social interpretations. Since authenticity is measured in time, there are multiple layers of authenticity which can be interpreted differently with diverse value systems. Since the notion of conservation is European in origin, so is the understanding of authenticity. In the Indian context due to a colonial past, the understanding of heritage protection and conservation with all the associated concepts are a borrowed notion from the Western world. This leads to the dilemma where a Western methodology for values and attributes is applied to assess the authenticity of the historic houses in India, based on which the authenticity of Indian historic houses becomes questionable when compared with international standards.