A devastating cultural loss has unfolded in the heart of Mymensingh, Bangladesh, where the ancestral home of legendary filmmaker, writer, and illustrator Satyajit Ray has been demolished—despite appeals by local historians, cultural workers, and even the Government of India, which offered to support its restoration as a museum of shared Bangla heritage.
The structure, over a century old, was not just a family home—it was a living monument to the Ray dynasty, whose contributions shaped the intellectual, literary, and cinematic spirit of Bengal and modern India. The demolition has sent shockwaves through the cultural communities of both nations, symbolising a larger crisis, the systematic neglect and active destruction of civilisational memory, both across the border in Bangladesh.
A tragic loss for Bengali heritage; Satyajit Ray’s ancestral home in Bangladesh has been demolished, wiping out a priceless piece of history.
This site wasn’t just a building; it was a beacon of cultural pride for Bengal and the world.
While India offers help to restore it,… pic.twitter.com/gmtkArYlFC
— Vishnu Vardhan Reddy (@SVishnuReddy) July 16, 2025
The house, located on Harikishore Ray Chowdhury Road in Mymensingh, was built by Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, a zamindar, technologist, children’s author, and publisher, whose progressive literary output helped define the Bengali cultural renaissance. His son Sukumar Ray, author of the surrealist Bengali classic Abol Tabol, lived here as a child. And it was here that the legacy of literary and artistic brilliance began, eventually culminating in the genius of Satyajit Ray, India’s first internationally celebrated filmmaker.
The property was under the custody of the Bangladesh government since the Partition of 1947, and was used as the Mymensingh Shishu Academy since 1989. It had remained in a state of official neglect for over a decade, abandoned and crumbling. Instead of restoring or preserving the structure, authorities opted for demolition—justifying the move on grounds of safety hazards.
“The house had been abandoned for 10 years. We’re building a new semi-concrete facility for the academy,” said Md Mehedi Zaman, district children’s affairs officer, brushing aside concerns about heritage preservation.
What he did not acknowledge was that no serious attempt was ever made to restore the building, nor to engage India’s offer of assistance to convert the site into a joint Indo-Bangladeshi heritage centre or museum.
Reacting to the reports, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) of India issued a strongly worded statement expressing “profound regret” over the demolition. The MEA confirmed that the Indian government had offered to work with Bangladesh to repair and reconstruct the site, noting that the house was of landmark importance not just for Bengal, but for India-Bangladesh cultural ties.
“Given the building’s landmark status, symbolising the Bangla cultural renaissance, it would be preferable to reconsider the demolition and examine options for its repair and reconstruction as a museum of literature,” the MEA said in its statement.
What makes this tragedy more grotesque is that Bangladesh’s own Department of Archaeology had internally recognised the structure as an archaeological heritage site. According to Sabina Yeasmin, the department’s field officer for Dhaka and Mymensingh, the house had immense heritage value, even though it wasn’t officially listed.
“I requested the local administration and Shishu Academy to protect the house. I also informed our regional director,” said Yeasmin. “But all of it was ignored.”
The destruction was not merely bureaucratic negligence it reflected a broader pattern of cultural erasure, where sites associated with non-Islamic or pre-partition Hindu legacies are allowed to decay or are repurposed without accountability. The Ray family were upper-caste Bengali Hindus something that carries little cultural or political currency in contemporary Bangladesh, where Islamist forces and state-driven nationalism increasingly dominate public narratives.
Locals, too, expressed anguish at the loss. “This is not just a building. This is where history lived. It is unforgivable,” said poet Shamim Ashraf. “The government didn’t even try to preserve it.”
