Tapati Guha-Thakurta is one of the eminent art historians in the country. Her work includes the fields of cultural history, history of art and visual studies. She has written widely on the themes of art, nationalism and modernity, monuments and museum practices.

In this podcast, Tapati takes the case of two embattled sites of contemporary India - Ayodhya and Bodh Gaya and brings to light how historical and archaeological monuments are radically recast through a series of institutional interventions and mediations. In the first part, she takes us on a journey describing how Ayodhya underwent a change from a mosque to a demolished site to a site of contestation. In the second part, she talks up Bodh Gaya, a ruin that was remade into an archaeological monument, which too becomes a site of dispute.