Who does a monument belong to? The neighbourhood on which it stands, the community that holds it closest, the city, the nation, or the thousands of tourists who stream through it every day? Monuments are, by their very nature, contested sites of ownership .

A few years ago, while reporting on the Qutub Minar, residents of the surrounding neighbourhood told me that before it became a ticketed monument, they enjoyed a far more intimate relationship with the 12th-century complex. Their memories brimmed with images of children racing around the soaring minaret, and of balmy winter afternoons spent among the ruins. Today, the victory tower commissioned by the Turkic general Qutbuddin Aibak draws one of the highest tourist footfalls of any monument in India. And yet, paradoxically, it has gro

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