Kharaghoda is an industrial village, located at the
east edge of the Little Raan of Kutch. Here, the salt farmed by agariyas working in the
desert is processed and transported across India. The twentieth century saw the rise
and fall of colonial life in Kharaghoda. Buildings constructed and then largely abandoned
included a polo pavilion, a club with swimming pool, the Lucas Library and
the Bulkely Market, said informally to be India’s first covered shopping arcade.
Today traces of the colonial history of Kharaghoda are fast disappearing and this DRP
begins the process of documenting a vanishing town.
While the practical aspects of this study are designed to capture the remnants of a
world that will soon be lost, the wider questions it addresses are historiographic.
Students will firstly confront the neglect of villages in the writing of India’s twentieth
century architectural history. Secondly we will consider the uses to which such history
might be put. How might understanding the history of colonial Kharaghoda or
documenting and preserving the remaining buildings benefit the contemporary
largely impoverished town?
Students will make measured drawings, conduct oral history interviews and search
records in the India Office of the British Library.
