KOLKATA: Tucked away in one corner of Hooghly's Serampore, graves (read mausoleums) of three Baptist missionaries were lying in complete neglect for over 150 years. These three men William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward were the architects of what became known in history as the Serampore renaissance, which is considered to be the precursor of the Bengal Renaissance.

Since the East India Company was averse to missionary activities, the trio had to settle in the Danish colony of Serampore. For years, no one remembered about the mausoleums till the West Bengal Heritage Commission (WBHC) took notice. By then, the graves were almost falling apart. Poor drainage had caused permanent waterlogging inside the premises.

The WBHC, while preparing a catalogue of heritage sites, had categorised these graves as Category A heritage structures, meaning that they are among the most important ones. It had requested the Heritage Committee of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to help restore these graves immediately.

In 2007, KMC decided that though the cemetery is located outside its jurisdiction, it would still fund the restoration, owing to the importance of these missionaries in the history of the state. KMC appointed the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) for the restoration. It took two years for Intach to complete the job not only because the structures were severely damaged, but also because an initial amount of excavation at the site uncovered 17 other graves, all of missionaries who worked with Carey, Marshman and Ward. These, too, are just as old and had to be restored.

Speaking on the importance of the three missionaries, historian Amalendu De said: "Though they came primarily to preach Christianity, they finally dedicated themselves to the service of the ailing and the poor. Soon, they started spreading education and instituted social reforms related to sati, widow remarriage and casteism."

Carey founded the Serampore Mission Press in 1800 where wooden Bangla letters made by Panchanan Karmakar were installed. He came to be known as the father of Bangla prose. "Perhaps the crowning work of Carey and his two associates was the establishment of the Serampore College in 1818. It was the first college in Asia to award a degree," De added.

The Mission Press published three books the Bengali translation of the Bible, Hitopadesh and Kathopokathan. The press also brought out the first English daily of the country A Friend of India and the second Bengali daily, Samachar Darpan. When De was the secretary of the Asiatic Society, he first raised the demand that the Serampore trio's graves be restored.

KMC spent Rs 20 lakh to restore the graves and it was learnt that it has kept aside about Rs 25 crore to be spent on restoration of heritage buildings in and around the city. "Usually we do not venture outside the city. However, we decided to take up restoration of the cemetery because of the crucial role these missionaries played in the history of Bengali language and social reforms. The cemetery belongs to the Serampore College, but they didn't have funds and it would have been sacrilege to leave them in the sorry state they were in," said Anindya Karforma, director general of KMC's Project Management Unit that looks after heritage issues.

"We roped in conservation architect Anjan Mitra for the job. It took a lot of time to first construct a drainage system and then start the clean up jobs of the 20 tombs. The restoration was done using chun-surki' mortar materials used originally," explained GM Kapur, state convener of Intach.