Visiting museums for a unique study

A YOUNG student of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Surya Sinha can be seen frequenting the museums of Allahabad almost daily in the sweltering heat-meeting officials, employees, talking to visitors, going through publications and painstakingly jotting down every detail in her notebook.

No, she is not your average visitor curious about the rich cultural and historical heritage of Prayag.

Her interest is special.

She is part of a mega project undertaken by the prestigious University Of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Jawarlal Nehru University (JNU) which are carrying out an integrated study of the vast range of museum practices in India.

Under the initiative, around 20 researchers from both the institutions are visiting museums spread across the country including Allahabad, Lucknow and Varanasi to observe and collect the data for the research under a $248,700 grant from the prestigious J Paul Getty Trust for the collaborative project-'Museology and the Colony: The Case of India.'

"Assistant Professor in Art History at UCLA Saloni Mathur along with Kavita Singh of JNU are leading the research that began in 2004 and is expected to be completed by 2009," said Surya, who has just completed her MA from the JNU.

She visited Allahabad University's Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology Department to collect information about the department's museum having a rich collection of pre-historic arts and artefacts.

"It has been recognised that museums enjoy an extraordinary place in contemporary Indian society and that it has been little understood by scholars.

There is yet to be an integrated study of the vast range of museum practices in India, their vibrancy and unconventionality, their tenacity in the face of lack of resources, their relationships of meaning to diverse constituencies, and their complex histories of participation in colonialist, nationalist and post-nationalist projects," she said. The unique trajectories of modernity in India have generated a multitude of practices of collecting, display and of museum viewing that participate and co-exist within today's public sphere.

By investigating specific museum sites within the Indian subcontinent, and the ways in which they function for their viewing audiences, we, through this project, hope to contribute a new framework for understanding the distinctiveness of museums in India, one that will challenge the stability of the prevailing western paradigm which is not sufficient, for grasping the complexities of museum culture in the Indian case," explained Surya, who will be leaving for Oxford by September for her MPhil.

She said that the wide range of museum practices existing in India today derive from a variety of historical impulses, from the national, to the sub-national, the princely collections, the village level memorials, and the so-called vernacular practices.

"My job is to note down the visitors' behaviour, their interest towards exhibits, the guidance they receive from the on-duty staff, the location and access to the museum among other things. I have visited the AU's Ancient History department museum, the Allahabad museum, the Swaraj Bhawan and Anand Bhawan for collecting information.

Finally, the findings of the complete study would be published in 2009 and will present the true state of Indian museums," Surya said.