Review of Tranquebar―Whose History? Transnational Cultural Heritage in a Former Danish Trading Colony in South India, by Helle Jørgensen, New Delhi, Orient BlackSwan, 2014, xi + 356pp., $40/£42, Hardcover, ISBN 9788125053453
Jørgensen examines the emergence of Tranquebar as a heritage town in post-colonial India through the diverse, sometimes competing interests and claims of local residents, state-oriented institutions, scholars and policy makers, non-governmental organisations, and private entrepreneurs. Tharangambadi, Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu, colloquially known as Tranquebar, is a fishing community of about 23000 people on the Coromandel Coast of India. Tranquebar was one of two trading posts that the Danish East India Company established in the 1600s, and that were taken over by the Danish Crown in 1650. The British East India Company acquired Denmark‟s Indian territories in 1845, and they were subsequently taken over in 1857 by the British Crown when the Company was dissolved. These territories were transferred to the Indian national government in 1947, when India gained independence from the British Crown. Jørgensen investigates the use of the past, that is, the making of Tranquebar into a destination for heritage tourism based on its Danish colonial history. The study takes place in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean earthquake on December 26, 2004. This major seismic event centred in the west coast of Sumatra, resulted in a powerful tsunami that radiated from there toward each country that shares a coastline on the Indian Ocean. The tsunami inundation in turn, caused the destruction of infrastructure, towns and villages, the displacement of coastal communities and the loss of human life. Tranquebar was severely impacted and since the tsunami, initiatives to promote economic growth in the town have intensified
