Are we making museum pieces of museums?

We in India don’t have a culture of museums neither of creating them, nor of visiting them and even lesser vision of preserving objects that can be deemed museum worthy — and this is an understatement. The reason is not far to seek: We perceive everything as part of a flowing river that is created as per need and consigned to the elements when the need is over — like votive figures created during specific pujas or elaborate and beautiful shamiyanas created during weddings. 

These votive events are so many that it has become an inherent part of our psyche. These are such significant aspects of our cultural moorings that they are virtually indivisible with notions of culture. In such a state of affairs, practically everything, which is not part of here and now or damaged (khandit) in any way, must find itself at the bottom of the river or the sea. One has to just haul sea and river beds and the booty that will be found will fill up many museums. 

Given this background, it no surprise that in India, traditionally museums have been called “ajayabghars”.  The ultimate example of it is the Salar Jung Museum, which to my mind is a museum of curios and celebrates craftsmanship of high level and caliber from all across the world. It is incidentally has the highest footfall in the country as well.

Admittedly, there is no museum culture in our country. If there are not enough museums, where will the culture develop from? Sensitisation drives involving both parents and teachers should start with the future generations with school children who need to be taken to see exhibitions and museums as part of their curriculum. Where physically not possible to visit museums, it would make sense to use the virtual space to both create and visit museums on the internet. Groups like friends of museums need to be put in place as part of community initiatives.

I strongly feel we should take a cue from England, which is way ahead of any other country I can think of when it comes to museums. You think of a subject and they have museum for it. It may be a small one room place, but it is there, replete with printed history and documentation. Some of the unusual ones I can off hand recall are: Fan Museum, Maritime Museum, Theatre Museum, Museum of textiles, Museum of Footwear, Museum for Kimonos, Museum of porcelain, Museum of Sherlock Holmes, Museum of War etc. etc. Of course Japan has museums practically in every town for Kimonos. Wish we could do the same for textiles in India.

But thankfully we are poised on the brink of change. For the first time, the Ministry of Culture is waking up to the fact that we need repositories of cultural history and grants are being set aside and given for museums. In my opinion, these museums, however small, will go a long way in creating a culture of and for museums. In any case, they recover aesthetic and intellectual costs the moment they are mooted and put together. But even monetary costs can be recovered sooner than we think with good marketing strategies and of course preserving for posterity is the most important fallout. It should be mandatory to take short-duration courses in recognising cultural watermarks, their preservation and presentation design for anyone who gets a grant to set up a museum. For this, the courses too need to be put in place before they can start. 

In India, I can think of so many areas where we need to create spaces for specifics: We don’t have museums for cinema, theatre, dance, music or for that matter for textiles, sarees and headgear especially. There could be a museum for beauty, capturing traditional objects and ingredients used in beautification. 

Food is such a big deal in India and there is no museum of food, its traditional preparations, utensils, ovens, stoves, et al. Crafts museums should be the norm in regions especially in places where there are crafts pockets, like terra cotta, paper mache, (Bihar and Kashmir have two diametrically distinct styles), metal crafts, folk and regional styles of painting, carpets, paper crafts, designs across the board, traditional theatre and dance props, costumes and jewels, puppetry, paper crafts. Similarly, museums for jewellery and not merely sections should be mooted. Collections can be shared or exchange exhibitions can be organized. The list is indeed endless. 

I for one would love to moot the idea of a museum of media. Considering we have so many firsts to our credit historically speaking and such fast changing technology, the museum of media would be a splendid idea. Media houses could be roped in to donate old machines and other possible exhibits and maybe even some land and the museum can become a reality. It is still not too late, but in another half a decade it will be. Maybe some mass communication school can be roped in for taking it forward. 

Movements should be started for voluntary donations of objects and recognition of donors should be the norm.  It should become a matter of pride for people to donate to museums. Knowhow of upkeep should be exchanged. These museums should not be dead and boring repositories but instead vibrant and living interactive centres where the young and not-so-young should find something of interest. Design students should be made a part of it to come up with innovative designs to showcase stuff as part of projects. The idea is not to mummify culture but preserve it even as we celebrate it.

We in India live concurrently on so many planes and soon these things will be of times past and then we might wake up and start looking to preserve. And the time to recognise the urgency and capture them is now before it is too late. Private partners should be involved along with public enterprise and it should be mandatory for them to preserve and nurture crafts in regional centres. 

To take forward the idea of making museums self sufficient, shops attached to the museums should do replicas and create a niche for themselves. In fact, we are still in a position to offer “replicas” that are “originals” rather than “copies”. Every formal and informal museum in England has souvenir shops selling objects and information about even seemingly small museums.  And it is so well put together that you are enticed into buying something however small — lesson learnt! 

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com