Setting up Museums in India

 Setting up Museums in India 

Jawhar Sircar

Art East Vol II, no 1-2, December 2017

      Museums began in the 18th century as a very European manner of displaying the pomp and glory of kings and emperors, as an extension of the same extravagance with which they built their grand palaces and luxuriant gardens. They were meant to overawe the visitor rather than to welcome him. The sheer wealth of the great empires like the Austro Hungarian, the Ottoman, the French or even the British spurred the need to display the artefacts and antiquities that the empires had collected, acquired or simply looted from other parts of the world. One of the best such examples is the case of the Amaravati sculptures and architecture that were picked up by the British from Andhra Pradesh in the nineteenth century and simply taken way from India. They constitute the finest specimens of art work of Peninsular India and represent the earliest excellence of Indian Buddhist art. The relief carvings contain not only the story of the life of the Buddha and the Bodhisatvas from the Jataka tales that are so lifelike even after two millennia of devastation by man and nature, mainly man. It is difficult to believe how such a spectacular edifice like the stupa that was a hundred feet high was just lost sight of and left to collapse amidst ruins, with little public memory of its greatness. But what is more difficult to tolerate is the utter callousness with which local Indian contractors in the nineteenth century actually pulverised the historic architectural pieces, the carved limestone railings and priceless sculptural work to make lime mortar for use as cement.

             This explains why these irreplaceable creations of the best of artists require protection and their most appropriate storehouses are museums. In a way, therefore, the limestone carvings that were taken away by the British to their museum in London, with no consent from the conquered Indian people, actually served a better purpose than those that were left back at the site to be destroyed so mercilessly in India. After all, countless people of the western world had the facility to witness and appreciate the excellence of Indian art better in London for centuries. Incidentally, those portions of the art work of Amaravati that were taken away to the Indian Museum in Kolkata received a lot of care and safety, which simply reinforces my statement that we need museums to showcase our proud history. It is a different matter whether we do so as part of an imperial narrative or as a national emporium that instils pride and strengthens the narrative of the nation state. After all, nations also require institutions to showcase their past achievements and their progress or historical development, and every nation has therefore at least one National Museum. And, frankly speaking, the western nations that took away entire edifices of architectural masterpieces from Asia and Africa may have indulged in acts of colonial plunder, they cared better for their booty and displayed them far better and effectively that the countries that lost them.

             It would also not be fully correct to say that museums were only showcases of imperial glory and might, though the support that they received from imperial governments were mainly to reinforce this theme. They grew during the age of ‘Enlightenment’ when Europe discovered the big world that lay beyond its confines. Shipping, transport, industry and better organisation of resources meant adventure and explorations, emanating from the excitement of knowledge: the insatiable hunger to know more of exotic lands and people, far away. While there is no doubt that a large degree of racial superiority lay below this theme, the fact is that the yearning for knowledge was equally strong. In 1784, when the Asiatic Society was set up in Kolkata by concerned British citizens, it was in pursuance of their quest for knowledge. But it was specifically that knowledge that would help them understand and rule the newly acquired territories in India. The numerous coins, terracotta, tablets, textiles and pieces of architecture and sculpture that the Society collected needed to be housed properly and the British government provided a large plot on Chowringhee in the early years of the 19th century. The laborious tasks of cataloguing and exhibiting were then tasked up, not only for these historical objects but for the excellent specimens of natural history and Indian geology.

     This led to the establishment of the Indian Museum in 1814 which, incidentally, occupied the sprawling backyard of the Asiatic Society that is on Park Street. We had no Kyd Street running in between in those days and none of those later buildings that presently separate the rear compound of the Society from the Museum existed. It was the first such museum in Asia and, truly speaking, one of earliest attempts in the world to organise collections for the purpose of serious study and knowledge, rather than for dazzling visitors. The museum was guided by a Dutch botanist Nathaniel Wallich, which explains why it has as much of life science collection as it has of antiquities. It was not a public place and was open initially only to British citizens and their scholarly ‘native’ assistants and collaborators. The grand building that the museum occupies came up much later and was designed by Walter Granville in 1875. As the British spread and prospered all over Indian subcontinent and in the neighbouring countries, so did the collections of the Indian Museum. Portions of monuments were ripped apart and transported to Kolkata, which was both good and bad. The east gate, the carved railings, sculptures and priceless relief works of the Bharhut stupa of true 2nd-3rd century BC were uprooted by Cunningham and reassembled in the Indian Museum in Kolkata which served as the best art history classroom of India. Several generations of scholars have been educated in its nuances that would never have been possible if every one had to trudge to Satna in central India, from where these came. At the same time, it deprived the site of its best specimens. This is a trade off that all museums have to take to reach the best antiquities available to the visitors, many of who may not even appreciate their value.

          In the nineteenth century, other museums also came up in India. In Mumbai, the Victoria and Albert Museum was established in 1855. After Independence, it was renamed as the Bhanu Daji Lad Museum and a few years ago, it was throughly renovated. From 1905, efforts were undertaken to establish a museum in the posh Fort area of Mumbai and this ultimately led to setting up of the famous Prince of Wales Museum, that has been renamed as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghrahalay. It is certainly the most updated and modernised museum in India and is run in the best professional manner possible in India. This has been possible because its administration is truly autonomous, unlike the government run museums of India. It does not matter much whether the funder and controller of such museums are state governments or the central, because they are hardly vibrant or attractive. Since the ministries and departments are accountable to the legislature, the press and to the CAG, it is ultimately the bureaucrats who run these museums. In many cases, they understand very little of how museums are to be run but so great is their power and so deep are the rivalries among the few professionals available in the governmental museums, that everyone plays up to the bureaucratic overlords. This is further compounded by the typical unimaginative manner in which all government organisations function which results in very slow modernisation of galleries and the dullness of appearance and displays.

             The south did not lag behind and the Madras Museum came up in Egmore of Chennai (formerly known as Madras) as early as in 1851. It is, therefore, the second oldest governmental museum in India after the Indian Museum and it has a rich collection of archeological finds and coins, especially of the Roman period. Its formidable Indo-Saracenic building houses a very impressive art gallery that has rare collections of Ravi Varma paintings, among other stars artists. Among the princely states, Travancore was the first to set up a museum in Thiruvanthapuram in 1855, which was torn down in 1874 and rebuilt in 1880 as the Napier Museum, in honour of the Governor of Madras Presidency. The best collection of Raja Ravi Varma paintings are available in its Sri Chitra Art Gallery, while the main museum has a fantastic collection of artefacts and Tanjore art. The Government Museum was set up in Bengaluru in 1865 and can claim to be the oldest continuing museum of the south. Two British officers, Surgeon Balfour and Bowring, the Chief Commissioner of Mysore, played a critical role in its establishment. It has an excellent archeological collection, more so because some of the most grand architectural and sculptural works in India like those of the Vijayanagar Empire have been found in the Sate. It also houses the oldest inscription in the Kannada language which is dated to around 450 AD.

             In 1874, FS Growse, the Collector or district officer of the district of Mathura set up a museum that became very important because of its ancient sculptures that go back to the 3rd century BC from the famous Mathura school of art. It is the proud owner of antiquities from some of the most significant periods of Indian history like the Kushan and Gupta eras. The enterprising director general off archaeology, Alexander Cunninghm made significant contribution to it and this ‘state government’ museum played as critical a role in establishing the early history of India as the national museums did. Along with other state museums like Patna, Lucknow, Chandigarh and Bhopal, they have also played an important part in familiarising several generations of Indians about the rich culture and history of their country.

            The Victoria Memorial of Kolkata has an interesting history. When Queen Victoria died in 1901, Lord Curzon was the Viceroy and he was greatly interested in emphasising the glory of the British Empire that was then at its height. He proposed: “Let us have a building, stately, spacious, monumental and grand, to which every newcomer in Calcutta will turn, to which all the resident population, European and Native, will flock, where all classes will learn the lessons of history, and see revived before their eyes the marvels of the past”. The imperial purpose of setting up museums could not find better expression and in 1906 the Prince of Wales, later King George V, laid the foundation stone. It took fifteen long years to be completed even after generous donations were given by the pro-British ‘native’ rulers of India. Its Indo-Saracenic architecture borrowed heavily from European classical styles and while the parts are rather mixed up, the whole gives a rather stately appearance. The problem, however lies in the space for galleries which is rather restricted as it is more of a magnificent building than an educational museum.   

       Among the major traditional museums of India are the Baroda in present day Vadodara and the Salar Jung in Hyderabad. Maharaja Sayaji Rao of the ruling Gaekwad family founded the Vadodara museum which was completed in 1894 and opened to the public. The art gallery was completed in 1914, but did not open until 1921 because of the problems of shipping the collection from Europe during the First World War. It accommodates valuable objects of art, jewellery, sculpture and archaeology but its skeleton of a massive blue whale and its Egyptian mummy are crowd pullers. Salar Jung II, the former Prime Minister of the Nizam of Hyderabad in the third and fourth decades of the 20th century, is  reputed to have the largest one-man collection of antiques in the world. He had passionately collected artefacts of different countries and outstanding specimens of decorative arts and after his death, his fabulous collection was taken over by the central government as a large part of it was being pilfered. They were moved to a more spacious building and many additions were also made.

        After this, we come to the last but perhaps the most important museum in India, the National Museum in New Delhi. It began operating in August 1949 from the Viceroy’s palace that was renamed as Rashtrapati Bhavan after Independence. Its roots go back further as the capital of India was moved from Kolkata to Delhi in 1911 and by 1931 the new swank buildings of New Delhi that had been designed by Lutyens and Baker were full of life. But there was no grand museum in this imperial capital to celebrate the new grand The Indian Museum had stayed back in Kolkata with all the grand objects that the Empire had collected but from the second decade of the 20th century, a lot more had been collected. For instance, India received a part the famous Aurel Stein collection of Central Asian manuscripts, art objects and even frescoes that had been taken away from the walls of caves of China’s Xinjiang. Then, in 1947-48, the Royal Academy organised a magnificent exhibition of Indian art and artefacts in London that was later displayed at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi, amidst a lot of fanfare. This triggered the idea of setting a real ‘national museum’ in the national capital that had permanent galleries to showcase the new nation’s pride. In 1955, Prime Minister Nehru laid the foundation stone and the building was inaugurated in December 1960.  It has a very large collection of over 200,000 objects and though it's space is constricted because the Archeological Survey blocked its expansion for several decades, its display is the best among the Central museums. After all, the capital’s museum is always under watch and pressure.

           The Central government set up the Allahabad Museum in 1931 and its rock art gallery has India’s best collection of prehistoric paintings. It has sculptures and art, like a wonder collection of Roerich paintings. In addition, it has artefacts connected to India’s freedom movement. After Independence, every state government engaged itself in building up the story of its people who had emerged, in almost all cases, as new linguistic entities. In addition, we have the magnificent National Gallery of Modern Art, the National Railway Museum and dozens of other specialised museums on different subjects. In fact, the term museum that was once synonymous with artefacts, antiquities and archaeological finds can now signify any collection under the sun.

          Having traversed the history of museums in India, we must admit that they have been splendid platforms for instilling not only a knowledge of our past, but also inculcating a pride in the achievements of our forefathers. Neither the empires of the Mauryas, the Gupta, the Mughals and Vijayanagar nor the kingdoms of the Cholas, Cheras or Pragyotishpur could have foreseen that their conquests and culture would become the building blocks of the world’s second biggest nation.They were ruling or subjugating diverse many of who were opposed to their views, but in course of time they were actually co-opting varied cultures into a federal equilibrium. The evidence of their artistic achievements display an underlying unity not only in the numerous depictions of deities and the people, from bhikshus to yakshas and there is much more to learn than simply features, dresses or styles. It is underlying unity of world views that are as apparent in later ages as well, when we examine the profusion of miniatures, whether they be Mughal or Pahari, Rajasthani or Dekkani. Thus, as one strolls through the galleries of our museums, we may observe the innate harmony that emphasis India’s basic emotional and aesthetic unity which outshines the difference and diversity of its people and no institution brings this out better than museums.

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