kolkata tucked away in one corner of hooghlys 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 renaissancesince 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 premisesthe 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 immediatelyin 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 restoredspeaking 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 trios graves be restoredkmc 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