In Kolkata, a judge’s passion for heritage brings a forgotten past into the light

Judicial officer Biplab Roy has transformed himself into a heritage conservationist, recovering 12 cannons from Kolkata and West Bengal, and hundreds of stone and metal sculptures. He has opened a storeroom of the Office of the AGOT, containing glass negatives, weapons, uniforms, and paintings, and plans to set up a State Judicial Museum and Research Centre. His efforts have enabled a never-before peek into history and understanding of society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

On September 22, an exhibition of rare photographs, mostly developed from glass negatives, depicting Kolkata from 1870 to 1920, was opened to the public at the city’s iconic Town Hall. Some of the photographs in the exhibition titled ‘The City of Kolkata and its Life, 1870-1920’, including an aeroplane landing at Eden Gardens, and women performing final rites at a crematorium at Kalighat, offer a never-before peek into history, and also an understanding of society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s not only the photographs that make this exhibition stand apart from other such presentations on the city, but the story behind their discovery, and the transformation of a judge into a heritage conservationist.

A cannon with a Persian inscription dating to the pre-Mughal period can be found outside the office of Biplab Roy, Administrator General and Official Trustee (AGOT), West Bengal, on the tenth floor of the New Secretariat building in Kolkata’s Dalhousie area. There are scores of old guns, and Mr. Roy is surrounded by dozens of stone and metal sculptures recovered from various parts of West Bengal over the past two years.

“Before taking up this office, I was Additional District Judge, Krishnanagar, and had no interest in heritage,” Mr. Roy said. It was the opening of one of the storerooms of the Office of the AGOT on the ground floor of the New Secretariat building that got the 53-year-old judge interested in heritage conservation. At the time of its opening on October 30, 2021, the store had been kept locked for decades. Mr. Roy recalls finding not only the glass negatives but old weapons, uniforms with gold buttons, and some paintings.

“If it was not for Biplab Roy these photographs would never have been found. In the past, several persons have occupied the Office of the AGOT, West Bengal but nobody has shown the enthusiasm that Mr. Roy has shown for the conservation of heritage,” Saikat Dutta, who restored the glass negatives, said, adding that it had taken about 18 months to restore the photographs and curate an exhibition with about 70 of them.

Over the past two years, Mr. Roy has also recovered 12 cannons from different parts of Kolkata city, Chandannagar, and Dumdum. Apart from British era cannons, some of them date to the Dutch period.

Amitabha Karkun, a well-known expert in cannons and old guns, who has been associated with the process of identifying and dating these cannons, said that by recovering the historical artefacts, Mr. Roy had elevated himself from a judicial officer to an explorer of India’s national history.

“Biplab Roy is no longer only a judicial officer; he has transformed himself into someone who is committed to restoration of heritage,” Mr. Karkun said, adding that cannons are not only instruments of war but artefacts that denote the historical context, socio-political environment, scientific progress, technical development in an era, and the financial strength of a ruler.