Govt’s heritage walk festival to begin today

The Delhi tourism department is set to launch a festival of heritage walks across the Capital, with the aim of bringing participants closer to the city’s heritage, art, culture, and cuisine. The festival will entail 100 heritage walks that will explore the city’s historical landscape, tourism officials said.
The festival will start on Thursday with a walk titled “Fight for Indian Freedom (Ajitgarh)”, and will continue till December 31. A tourism official said that the department has roped in many prominent historians and storytellers to conduct these walks, adding that each event will have 25 seats.
An Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) functionary said Delhi tourism minister Saurabh Bharadwaj will inaugurate Thursday’s heritage walk, scheduled for 8am.
Bharadwaj posted on X, “Under the able guidance of @ArvindKejriwal ji, Delhi Tourism dept is launching Heritage Walk Festival. We will take you to 100 locations in Delhi, several unexplored treasures of Delhi’s rich history & culture.”
The department plans to host 23 heritage walks in October, 40 in November, and 37 in December, a second official said. He said visitors can access information about upcoming walks on the Delhi Tourism website delhitourism.gov.in/ebooking.
“Delhi has a lot to offer. We want to give the visitors a full experience, packed with food, music and immersive storytelling, all while they soak in the city’s history and heritage,” the official added.
Historian Vikramjit Singh Rooprai said he will conduct the inaugural walk on Thursday, which will begin at the Mutiny Memorial at the Kamla Nehru Ridge near the Bara Hindu Rao hospital.
“The British built this memorial to honour their fallen soldiers, but for us, it symbolises the Sepoy Mutiny and the Revolt of 1857… This memorial represents the starting point of our fight for independence,” Rooprai said.
He said the Ashoka Pillar at the Ridge, which will also feature in the inaugural walk, is an interesting piece of heritage since it doesn’t belong to Delhi — according to the historian the pillar belonged to king Ashoka and has a Buddhist message inscribed on it, and was brought to Delhi from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh by Feroz Shah Tughlaq in the 14th century to promote communal harmony.