His home in Banaras demolished, where will Bismillah Khan’s shehnai go?

When shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan was at the peak of his career, a wealthy American admirer offered him a chance to settle in the US. Khan said, “But where will you get the Ganga from?” The matter was settled. Khan’s music could travel anywhere, but he remained anchored to his favourite city, “Banaras”, whose […]

The Indian Express

Written by: Editorial

2 min readNov 9, 2026 11:46 PM IST First published on: Nov 9, 2026 at 07:24 PM IST

When shehnai maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan was at the peak of his career, a wealthy American admirer offered him a chance to settle in the US. Khan said, “But where will you get the Ganga from?” The matter was settled. Khan’s music could travel anywhere, but he remained anchored to his favourite city, “Banaras”, whose rituals, rhythms and piping hot kachoris from Kulsum Halwai shaped him as a musician.

But the city has struggled to protect the home Khan left behind. The demolition of a portion of Khan’s 90-year-old disputed ancestral home by his grandson, Mohammad Sibtain, is a reminder of how fragile the legacy of India’s greatest musicians can be. Sibtain says the structure was dilapidated and unsafe, and that he planned to dedicate part of the ground floor of the house to a museum dedicated to the Bharat Ratna musician, in collaboration with the Varanasi Municipal Corporation (VMC). While Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has slammed the BJP, the VMC has said it had not received the family’s request yet for a museum and had no role to play in the demolition.

How does one preserve the spaces that hold memories of a nation’s cultural figures? Unlike the West, India has no system for acquiring and conserving such homes. While some, such as those of Ustad Alauddin Khan (managed by family until recently), and Girija Devi, are being restored years after their demise, many others have received little institutional attention. Most home museums remain privately owned and maintained. It makes for a stark contrast with how other countries preserve their heritage. Mozart’s birthplace in Salzburg and Beethoven House in Bonn remain two of the biggest tourist draws for Austria and Germany. The demolition of a section of Khan’s home should serve as a wake-up call for the government to move beyond commemorating cultural icons to safeguarding their legacies.