When You Weren’t Looking: Homi J Bhabha’s House Demolished

The money from the auction is being used by the NCPA for renovating its theatres and building new ones.

In June 2014, Smita Crishna-Godrej, sister of industrialist Jamshyd Godrej, bought ‘Mehrangir’ – home to Homi J Bhabha, father of India’s atomic energy programme – for Rs 372 crore, amidst determined protests by scientists and national figures to stop the sale and preserve the iconic house as a heritage memorial.

Once sold, these protesters who were mainly scientists and workers from Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and the Department of Atomic Energy, moved the Bombay High Court for an injunction on the transfer of property. It was during this round of litigation that Senior advocate, Aspi Chenoy, Smita’s lawyer, went on record in court and submitted that his client would not demolish the property for at least 15 years, and intended to stay in Mehrangir with his family.

And yet, last week, Homi Bhabha’s sea-facing house in the opulent Malabar Hill of South Mumbai was razed down to the ground, and it was all rather hushed.

Art Versus Science; Homi Bhabha Versus Jamshed Bhabha

Homi Bhabha lived in Mehrangir until 1966, when he passed away in a tragic plane crash on his way to Vienna. The house was then devolved in entirety to Jamshed Bhabha, his brother and founder of the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA). When he passed away in 2007, he bequeathed Mehrangir to NCPA, along with all antiques, furniture, paintings, letters and other remnants of a house that witnessed two men decidedly changing the country, in their own ways.

Both the brothers were equally paramount to India’s development in the years following Independence; Homi Bhabha is the reason we are respected as a credible nuclear power, while Jamshed Bhabha was instrumental in setting the wheels of preservation and development of arts and culture in motion.

It’s fatuous then, to pit one against the other, science against art. Those in favour of Mehrangir – no less than CNR Rao and former CM of Maharashtra, Prithviraj Chauhan – being converted into a heritage monument were opposed by cultural heavyweights such as Shyam Benegal, Shobha De, Vinod Mehta and Ramchandra Guha, who felt going against Jamshed Bhabha’s will would be a shameful disrespect to his legacy and the work he has done as a patron of the arts.

It’s not a question of who made India a greater nation, or even of which brother lived longer and more significantly in Mehrangir. The fact of the matter is unexacting: Under the Indian Succession Act, 1952, private persons have the absolute legal right to appoint a successor of their self-inherited property, and the rather brilliant-minded and able Jamshed Bhabha made his decision. He wanted Mehrangir to be auctioned in its entirety, with its proceeds to be used for expanding and developing NCPA’s activities.

Remembering Homi Bhabha...48 Years Late

Those in favour of converting Mehrangir into a heritage monument or a national heritage have been crying themselves hoarse about disrespecting the hard work and perseverance with which Homi Bhabha single-handedly set up the entire framework for India’s nuclear programme, when no one was even thinking about it. “He is God..” said Prashant Worlikar, President of the Atomic Energy Workers and Staffers Union, in an interview with Times of India. Well, between Bhabha’s demise in ‘66 and the public notice of Mehrangir’s auction in 2014, BARC, TIFR, DEA and allied groups had forty eight years to move the state, the centre and perhaps even Jamshed Bhabha to consider handing over the property for preservation as a heritage landmark.

It was only when the very legal and straightforward process of the execution of Jamshed Bhabha’s will was set in motion that these parties seemed uncontrollably aggravated by what was happening.

They filed a petition, moved the Bombay High Court who sent them to the Centre, who sent them back to the state. The auction took place as planned, only to be met with further resistance and demands for an injunction on the transfer of property. As Kushroo Sunook, Chairman, NCPA suggests:

If the scientists at BARC really did feel as strongly about Homi Bhabha’s legacy, they could have simply showed up at the auction along with the three only other bidders, and bought the property on behalf of the organisation to have it converted into a museum.

To expect Smita Crishna-Godrej to agree to tag her to-be residence as a heritage is asking for too much. Given Mumbai’s restrictive heritage laws, where owners of heritage properties are severely restricted from adding, removing or changing any components, it comes as no surprise that she was not willing to devalue her monetary interests for some vague and inchoate greater good, 50 years later.

She paid a fair and momentous Rs 115 crore over the reserved price of Mehrangir to buy that property, the proceeds from which have already been directed towards repairing and redoing its theatres and building new spaces for performance arts in India.

Is that really so grievous an injury to the solid reputation of Dr Homi Bhabha? Do you think Homi Bhabha, a supportive and loving brother with great passion for the arts himself, would be reduced in public memory in any way based on a decision Jamshed Bhabha, a man knighted by Italy, Germany and Beligium, took for their family home?

If this is really about a tribute to the founding father of India’s atomic energy programme, then surely, we can do better than an abandoned museum diminished to a mere driving-and-delivery landmark in the poshest, most removed part of Mumbai, where the bulk of the population hardly ever ventures, otherwise.

Until then, let’s respect the decision of the Bhabha family, as a whole, to have done what they thought was best with their family home, even if that means for once, the scientists have to concede to the artists.

(This article is from The Quint’s archives and was first published on 1 June 2016. It has been republished again to mark the 51st death anniversary of Homi J Bhabha.)