Exhibit 'A’: Shame

Blot on the card

• In the first study of its kind, UNESCO has rated eight national museums in Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta as poor in upkeep and in terms of public interaction
• Its report says the museums don’t meet international standards; maintenance is a concern
• It slams culture administrators and says public opinion surveys haven’t been conducted
• Experts say the report is damning and may cost India in international expertise, funding

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Government often has a blind spot for heritage. This time, it is national heritage that is bearing the brunt of administrative apathy. Housed in grand buildings, under government lock-and-key, Indian museums are facing their worst threat from those meant to protect them. And the charge that India treats its heritage exhibits badly has come from UNESCO itself. In a recent study, UNESCO has exposed the Indian government’s callousness in maintaining national museums. All this when the Union ministry of culture is busy tom-tomming its new 14-point agenda for museum reforms, on which it has been working since April 2009.

UNESCO, after surveying eight national museums in New Delhi, Mumbai and Calcutta, revealed that it saw no evidence of any effort to improve museums. The report says: “Public opinion survey is practised widely across the world by many museums as a means to continuously improve themselves and to develop their own marketing strategy. However, it seems such an exercise has never been undertaken by the public museum authorities in India in the recent past.”

The survey was carried out by experts and volunteers from the School of Planning & Architecture, the Department of Art & Aesthetics at JNU, the Jamia Millia Islamia University, and the Association of Delhi Tour Guides. The team surveyed the National Museum, the National Gallery of Modern Art, the Crafts Museum, the Railway Museum and the Red Fort Museum in Delhi; the Indian National Museum and the Victoria Memorial Museum in Calcutta; and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalay (formerly the Prince of Wales Museum) in Mumbai. The verdict: All of them are below international standards.

The findings are not startling. Take what the UNESCO experts had to say about the National Museum, New Delhi. “The museum building and facilities visibly lack maintenance. The lift is not operational, spotlights have no bulbs, wall paint has peeled off and the auditorium has tattered seats,” the report says. Even the basic facilities for a national-level museum are missing: “Proper signage is missing for each gallery. And despite the size of the museum, there isn’t enough space for people to sit and relax.”

Culture administrators in the government may be able to present some sort of defence, but the scathing observations ring true: “There is a scarcity of museum staff and security. Many of the rooms were left unattended with not even lights switched on. The staff were not enthusiastic or cooperative and did not give the impression of being well-trained or responsible about the upkeep of the museum.” Of the 15 galleries at the National Museum, Delhi, seven are closed. Many have been shut for years and officials are not sure if they will ever open. Many others have been kept shut for long in the name of renovation. These include the galleries for decorative arts, jewellery, Thanjavur paintings and  musical instruments. The Central Asian Gallery-II and Wood Carvings Gallery-I have also remained shut for long, while the gallery for manuscripts has been out of bounds to visitors for the last five years.

Open neglect: Outside the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalay in Mumbai
(Photograph By Apoorva Salkade)

Mumbai fares no better. The report could well have described the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalay as a mess. It says: “Artifacts that are labelled mostly bear a placard with just the title, which is seldom self-explanatory or sufficient. Labels are in Hindi, with no translation; instead the same word is written in both English and Devnagiri scripts. Some titles are not clear to even Hindi speakers.” Of the museum’s central hall, usually the area where the pieces de resistance are displayed, the report says: “...a bunch of unrelated items have been hastily put together without quite labelling them as miscellaneous. The central hall fails miserably. Lighting was short of being optimal and objects shrouded in darkness.”

The UNESCO scanner was unsparing of Calcutta too. Experts who visited the National Museum there note that “the  outsides of the museum are untidy with dumped waste piling around. Security checks are far from enough and that leaves the museum at high theft-risk. The musuem did not have maps; guards and officials were not aware of the articles displayed in the museum and could not give any information on the displayed artifacts. There were no audio guides and no guidebooks. The museum does not even have washrooms for visitors or any special facilities for the disabled. The authorities arrange for a guide only if a large group of visitors drop in.... Some objects have captions in three languages—Hindi, Bengali and English. Others have labels only in English and Bengali. Spelling mistakes seemed rampant. Objects on display have no inventory number and even showcases had cobwebs. The lights are so poor that artifacts can’t be seen well. There are no placards to give the general history or background of any room. There was nothing to check the level of humidity, extremely important for the upkeep of artifacts. Most of the staff was inadequately trained, even for proper safety.”

The report is very damaging, say independent experts. Naman Ahuja, an assistant professor at JNU and former curator at the British Museum, says, “It is damning to have a report like this from UNESCO, the watchdog of world heritage. It is very unfortunate. The upkeep of Indian museums is pretty bad because there is inadequate incentive given to those in charge to be in touch with scholarship. Heritage in India is purely under government control. And upkeep of museums across the country is beyond its capacity. Many museums in India have poor quality of digitisation, wrong information, spelling errors, poor quality pictures and even mistakes in the labelling. You can’t afford to have that kind of mistakes when you talk about national museums.”

But the rot runs deeper. Experts believe that even as thousands of crores are spent on putting the country on the world tourism map, India’s USP—culture and heritage—have been neglected. “Until the government has a strong knowledge base and looks at hiring experts, instead of only through the upsc, nothing will change,” says Ahuja.

According to him, involving the private sector is one possible solution. “Let the private sector chip in. Just as in contemporary art, where the government has managed to divest itself of 50 per cent of the responsibility and given art a boost, similar efforts need to be made to ancient heritage and culture as well.”

The findings of the UNESCO report aren’t binding on the government, but are nevertheless a rap on the knuckles. Tourists may come, but international scholars will shy away. That will deny Indian museums expertise and, in some cases, international funding may dry up. What’s worse, a UNESCO verdict of this kind will bring down India’s standing in the international museum circuit.