A concerted effort to re-imagine museums

The Ministry of Culture has made free admission to all museums under its purview for a week on the occasion of International Museum Day on 18 May. It not only makes our art and culture accessible to all, but also gives us an opportunity to propagate our civilizational heritage.

This opportunity also gives us an opportunity to see the progress we have made in re-imagining our museums and cultural sites. There has been a transformative change in our approach towards our heritage and this can be seen in our approach to preserve and promote it. First, there has been a shift from a museum-centric approach to a cultural space approach. Second, we are able to build museums for specific purposes instead of relying on general purpose museums. And lastly, we have looked at museums with a holistic government approach to ensure that museums provide a great experience.

cultural location approach

India is one of the few continuously inhabited civilizational states that continues to flourish. Therefore, our art, culture and heritage are not only available for viewing in museums but can also be seen in our day to day activities. The festivals we celebrate, the gods we worship, the food we eat, and the dance and music we appreciate are all testimony to our civilizational ethos. Keeping this in mind, our approach has been to continuously integrate our culture into our lives rather than place them in museums. Therefore, when the Prime Minister brings back the stolen heritage from other countries, instead of keeping it in the museum warehouse, efforts are made to restore it in the same place from which it was taken. With this underlying philosophy, the recently retrieved idol of Goddess Annapurna was returned to its rightful place at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi. It is now planned to continue to repatriate heritage items to their original places wherever possible. Similarly, the effort to embed art and our civilizational heritage in spaces such as the new Central Vista project is also based on this approach to having cultural spaces that transcend standalone buildings.

special purpose museum

In August 2013, in response to a question in Parliament on the government’s plan to set up a National Tribal Museum in the country, the government at the time replied that there was no such plan. Today, 10 tribal freedom fighter museums are being set up across the country to recognize the role of over 200 tribal freedom fighters across India who took part in about 85 rebellions and rebellions against colonial rule. On the occasion of the first Tribal Pride Day on November 15 last year, the Prime Minister inaugurated the Birsa Munda Museum in Ranchi.

Similarly, on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti on April 14 last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Prime Minister’s Museum. The museum is a tribute to every Prime Minister of India since independence and showcases the contributions made by them and the challenges they faced during their tenure.

In tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Prime Minister inaugurated the Statue of Unity in October 2018, which also houses a museum that explains various aspects of Patel in detail.

These examples illustrate the transformational journey we have taken over the past eight years. The strategic shift towards specific theme-based museums, which have unique content and a definite purpose, also ensures that rich content is on display and the overall experience is complete. Several other efforts have been made along these lines which are notable, such as the Biplobi Bharat Museum in Kolkata, the Arms and Armor Museum at the Red Fort, a gallery on Gautam Buddha in Delhi and the Museum on Jammu and Kashmir.

whole government approach

India is home to over 1,000 museums, which represent the rich and diverse mix of cultural, religious and scientific achievements that our civilization has witnessed over the years. These museums are not only under the control of the Ministry of Culture. Other ministries manage railway museums, craft and textile museums, and food museums, to name a few. Therefore, the government is adopting a full-fledged government approach to provide a complete experience to all the stakeholders. To achieve this, as an example, 25 science cities, centers and museums under the National Council of Science Museums, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture, have the support of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). . ) ensures that the spaces are developed with expertise, new ideas and fresh ideas. The use of digital technology to enhance user experience is not limited to the use of artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality, but to broaden public access through the modernization and digitization of collections and exhibitions. It is now a work in progress and is visible in museums that have been inaugurated recently such as the Prime Minister’s Museum.

There are challenges in all of these endeavors, but none of them are insurmountable. Creating a holistic government approach in such a specialized domain requires new skills and approaches to break down silos and these are being developed. Human capabilities and domain knowledge need continuous up-gradation, and the new Indian Heritage Institute being established as a world class university aims to address these challenges. There are also challenges in modernizing our traditional museums from performance spaces of past glory, to making them more interactive, immersive experiences through technology interfaces, innovative curatorial skills and imaginative storytelling. Compared to new museums, successfully rearranging existing museum spaces requires more imaginative thinking and poses a different set of challenges. Digitization and reprography efforts are laborious processes that can take many years to complete.

With this renewed mandate to modernize, upgrade and establish new museums, we are bringing our institutions closer to the international standards of museology in the 21st century. As a firm step in this direction, the Ministry of Culture organized a first of its kind Global Summit on ‘Restructuring Museums in India’ in February this year. Learnings from the summit are being incorporated to create a blueprint for the development of new museums, nurture a renewal framework, and rejuvenate existing museums. It is said that nothing is more important than an idea whose time has come. One such idea is to re-imagine museums in India.

Yes. Kishan Reddy is the Minister of Culture, Tourism and Development of the North Eastern Region of the Government of India.