New Delhi/Patna, May 18: As India and the Netherlands elevated their ties to a strategic partnership, historians and architects from both countries expressed hope that it will lead to better preservation of Dutch-era built heritage in India, unlike the Patna Collectorate building that was demolished exactly four years ago.
The painful images of bulldozers clawing down the historic landmark in May 2022 are indelibly seared into the memory of those who had fought to save the centuries-old Patna Collectorate — a cluster of heritage structures, parts of which, including the most iconic Record Room building, were built during the Dutch period, and also during the British era.
Endowed with magnificent pillars in its frontage, the striking Record Room building till recent years stood as a rare specimen of Dutch architecture in the heart of Patna. But on May 17, 2022, the iconic landmark was razed to the ground despite public uproar.
And, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Netherlands from May 15-17, and the two countries elevated their ties to a strategic partnership, many Bihar natives, from Patna to Berlin, recalled the significance of the sprawling Dutch-era heritage site and lamented its loss.
Berlin-based Diptanshu Sinha, who is currently pursuing a master’s degree at a leading university in Germany, said, “We will never forget it, the demolition of the Patna Collectorate wasn’t just unwise, it was a colossal loss of a shared heritage”.
He hoped that the visit of Prime Minister Modi to the Netherlands and the elevation of ties between the two countries will bring a better future for the remaining Dutch-era heritage buildings in Bihar and elsewhere in the country.
Sinha said a lot is also being said about India-EU ties and the two regions have cultural connections historically, but perhaps the most “tangible way” this connection is felt by people on both sides is through the heritage buildings of that era.
Trade and commerce was taking place between various Indian cities and several European trading companies, which had constructed their trading posts in these cities, including in Patna, several centuries ago.
“The Bihar government in the past two decades has erased one Britsh-era public building after another in Patna, and then in 2022 they dismantled the Dutch-era Patna Collectorate, which should have been preserved and restored and reused as a cultural hub to draw foreign tourists, especially from Europe,” he lamented.
After the demolition of the old Patna Collectorate complex, “a big Dutch connection that we had, has been lost”, heritage experts in Patna concurred.
Sinha (30), a Patna native and trained conservation architect, was part of the Save Historic Patna Collectorate movement that fought for six years to save the public landmark from demolition.
Among other key heritage structures lost in the Collectorate demolition include the British-era DM Office Building, Dutch-era District Engineer’s Office Building, SDO Office Building and the Land Requisition Office Building.
Eight pillars from the facade of the now-demolished Record Room building were salvaged in compliance with the Patna High Court order of 2020, which had asked not to bulldoze the pillars of the Collectorate, and displayed in a corner of the new Collectorate complex inaugurated in December 2024.
Dutch historian Lennart Bes, who had advocated for the conservation of the Patna Collectorate, said, “I hope the new strategic partnership between India and the Netherlands will generate more attention for the Dutch heritage in India, so that it won’t be destroyed anymore, as unfortunately happened to the Patna Collectorate”.
Bes currently teaches at Leiden University in the Netherlands, located in Leiden city near The Hague.
In April 2016, the then Dutch ambassador to India, Alphonsus Stoelinga, in a letter to the then Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had appealed not to demolish the Patna Collectorate, and described it as a “shared built heritage of India and the Netherlands”.
“I sincerely believe that this built heritage depicting the Indo-Dutch history can be restored and alternate uses can be planned. I am writing this letter to appeal to you to list the complex of buildings as per the norms of the state archaeological department,” Stoelinga had written in the letter.
Patna has a multi-layered history, and barely a couple of Dutch-era remnants are left in the city — the Administrative Block of the old Patna College and the old structures of the government press at Gulzarbagh.
“In Berlin, I see such iconic buildings which have been preserved without bias. We in Patna, had a ‘piece of Europe’ which was squandered away in the name of development. When I read about the PM’s visit to the Netherlands to boost bilateral ties, I couldn’t help think how this Collectorate, despite a contested history, could have been transformed into a site for cross-cultural conversations,” he told PTI over phone from Berlin.
The Patna Collectorate, along with several other historic buildings of the city, featured in a 2008 book “Patna: A Monumental History”, published by the art and culture department of the Bihar government.
Patna-based scholar and author Prabuddha Das, who was one of the co-authors of the book, said, “We have lost a gem that Patna Collectorate was, and many more afterwards. But efforts should be made to preserve what built heritage Patna and the rest of Bihar is left with.” (PTI)
