Sunday Reading

New Delhi, 30 November 2009

Museum Consciousness

ENGAGE WITH  MOHALLAS

By Suraj Saraf

For long there has been a clamour that museums in India have been just inert entities -- lifeless repositories, not managed in a proper manner, of the dead past. Thus, concerned circles have been pressing that these institutions be made “live and active” to serve their purpose of edutainment (education and entertainment) of the community around.

Thankfully a note was made by those responsible. Three years ago things were set moving to streamline the museums’ set-up to make them serve the purpose they were meant for.  As remarked by the then Union Tourism and Cultural Minister Ambika Soni, “our museums need massive face-lift to meet the needs of the changing times. So we have finalised an action plan to upgrade them”.

Elaborating, she had said, “Though we have a rich collection of artifacts, their display is not up to the mark. There is need for better presentation of these art objects. Some of our museums do not have enough space to keep these. There is need for expansion.”  Obviously, all this is aimed at ensuring that the numbers of visitors increase. For example, the National Museum has a large collection of artifacts, but how many see these? There is need to create a better ambience and proper display with better lighting and colour schemes.

Pertinently, its Director General Dr. K.K. Chakravorty had then said, “The whole country is a museum. Museums are only extensions of the living museums and must not stop at displaying objects. They have to connect with the hinterlands. The National Museums needs to give direction to other museums and act as catalysts.”

Indeed, some museums have great objects and are capable of becoming very good museums, but don’t know how to spend the funds. They think that improvement means building new structures. Some others don’t even know how to lobby for funds. The aim should clearly be to help them -- to make museums relevant to the community. Additionally, there is need to step up the community’s involvement in the museums and vice versa. If the museum is not interested in the ‘mohalla’, why will the latter be interested in it?

However, experts feel this involvement of the mohalla is not easy. And forcing children into the dusty corridors of museums is definitely not the answer. With the number of people visiting the museums, and most clearly competing with various kinds of entertainment, the future lies in not only keeping alive the world of the past but also interacting with the world of today.

Given this background, it was considered appropriate to consult the museums across the country and come up with concrete solutions for the Government. The National Museum thus started holding workshops with small museums to start a dialogue. And for a change, it also involved the outside experts to bid for the modernisation process to make the repositories of heritage more pertinent to the people they belong to.

The ambitious project was said to aim at bringing all museums up to international standards. It envisaged a holistic upgradation from architectural renovations, display systems to contextual visitor interpretation and storage. With many museums just adding mere buildings in the name of modernisation, instead of improving basic facilities like signage, display or even lighting, the National Museums sought to bring about a change that is not superficial. The idea was to build capacity of these museums “within their existing resources”.

In order to achieve its goal, the Centre for the first time recently announced that voluntary organizations, trusts etc which were registered under the Registration of Societies Act could seek financial assistance up to Rs.3 crore or 80 per cent of the total project expenditure for setting up, promotion and modernisation of regional and local museums. The remaining 20 per cent along with the land for setting up the museum would be the onus of the State governments. Besides, allocation for existing museums has been increased four-fold from Rs 60 lakhs to Rs.2.5 crore.

The significance of this scheme became apparent when the Chairman of Australia’s Network for Cultural Heritage Services, V Daniel brought home the point: “Throughout the world museum structures and buildings are expanding their space which has meant a huge increase in their maintenance and running cost, but the Government spending on art and heritage has remained static… We need to think of some way to make museums economically viable.”

Delivering a lecture at the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), he provided a snapshot of emerging trends, of how museums are changing in the international context and the accompanying challenges facing them all over the world. Accordingly, he suggested that providing virtual access to museums through website holds tremendous promise for sustaining them in future. An example is that of the Australian Museum. It gets about 55,000 to 40,000 visitors every year. However, there are about 20 million visitors through the website which is a huge change as the figure is doubling every six months. 

INTACH Chief S.K. Misra regretted that “in India museum consciousness has not developed at par with other countries. Here there is tendency among people to visit museums more as a social event than due to a genuine interest. This is why it is difficult to generate much income from museums. The concept of having exclusive museum shops storing gift items needs to be developed here too. ”

Thus, the first challenge before the museums is to make conservation and preservation relevant to today’s society. Heritage preservation needs to move internationally from an elitist role to something everyone can understand and benefit from.

The next challenge is to preserver both tangible and intangible heritage. Still another challenge is to realise that cultural conservation is as much about people as it is about monuments and artifacts. Moreover, something needs to be done to make youngsters connect with museums. Internationally, museum administrators are reinventing them to reconnect with communities. Imagine the excitement if a museum in India were to showcase Sachin Tendulkar’s bat.   

It would be pertinent to recall here what Pt. Nehru had underscored about the role of museums, while inaugurating the National Museum way back in 1955. Declaring that museums were not meant as “houses of curios” but places of education, he said these were meant to inform the people on the progress of humanity through centuries. He emphasised that special facilities be provided at the museums to the youth and children for learning about human history through proper use of films, drawings etc. In fact, visits to museums should form an important part of the curriculum of studies. “The extent to which the museums had attracted people, not for entertainment but for education should be one of the tests of the success of the museum officials,” was his advice.  

At the same function, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, the then Education Minister, had hoped that the National Museum would be “a faithful guardian of our past and a guarantor of our future.” It was his hope that the National Museum would represent every aspect of Indian history and culture and became truly national.  –INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)