Building a nation involves improving the museum industry. As it connects the past and future, it ideally serves as the foundation from which one begins. It might also develop into a lucrative industry for the ministry of tourism. Although museums are popular destinations for cultural tourism, we rarely select Indian museums as the mark or emblem of an inspirational visit in India.
“They need to work out what would make museums more enticing for the audience to come and feel engaged,” says the author. Regrettably, even museums with many walk-in visitors fail to acknowledge or understand the fine line between outreach and engagement. These are two very different things, and museums need to know how to involve visitors (not just kids), possibly by creating a committee or club run entirely by visitors and giving them the reins! Trust and a sense of connection with the exhibit are crucial for audiences to picture the connections to their own personal history.
“In terms of collections, people will eventually need to prioritise the items they are gathering. Museums need to reconsider how they handle this entire issue. Several museums in the West would have a plan for collection development. They limit the collections housed in a given museum; if not, they can go elsewhere.
State or city museums are likely to have a documented mandate for acquisitions or loan terms, except institutions like the KNMA or Bhau Daji Lad. Museums must prioritise conservation, digitisation, and collections maintenance, and funds must be made aside for these tasks.
Most museums around the nation need a director. Because it takes time to turn a vision into reality, most western museums have directors for four to five years. In India, IAS officers are occasionally given “Punishment Postings” in museums. Also, it is a frequent practice to name officers as museum directors despite their ignorance of curatorial or arts administration procedures. Moreover, no training is provided for such Directors to give them the necessary abilities to run local or state museums! Hence, that almost defeats the purpose of creating a vision for the museum!
The Union Cultural Ministry received a letter from the Archaeological Survey of India last month regarding two priceless artefacts at Kolkata‘s Indian Museum that had been irreparably damaged: a 2 BC Yakshi figure and a 3 BC Mauryan lion. The ASI claimed that irresponsible handling was to blame for the damage and warned that the museum would perish if the attitude persisted.
This occurred at the 200th anniversary of the oldest museum in India. Yet it’s no secret that museums, especially public ones, are in a terrible situation. In 2011, UNESCO released a damning report on the terrible conditions at India’s top eight museums, citing, among other things, poor maintenance, lighting, and signage. Yet, the main problems are a need for more autonomy, outdated policies, and a skilled workforce. Our outstanding collections are evidence of a vibrant sociocultural past. Still, museums lose their meaning when they only operate as closed-door keepers of priceless artefacts rather than beautifully and intellectually presenting them to a broad audience.
For cultural practitioners, a “real lack of interest in museums” is the only factor that can be changed. How can we influence people’s perceptions of a location and environment full of exploration opportunities, education, and recreation? According to the authors of the book The Museum Experience Revisited, “…questions of leisure values and personal history” serve as the greatest foundation for understanding why people attend or avoid museums. Many aspects contribute to someone being sociable and culturally aware, but they may not be sufficient to explain why people visit museums fully.
“Most museum employees in our country lack the skills to work for a museum. The system itself is a component of the issue. As having the appropriate skill set is not one of the selection criteria, many of them enter through UPSC. There should be a thorough selecting procedure in place.
Although India has over 1500 museums, fewer university programs are available to train the next generation of museum directors in arts management, collections management, curatorial practices, design, or communication technologies. The course material is not specifically designed to meet the needs of museums. Conversely, only some museums welcome visitors from other academic fields. This prevents museums from interacting with other industries and creates an elitist culture that can occasionally be difficult for new museum personnel to approach.
Over time, attitudes and beliefs develop. Even more so for the local population, our museums may serve as weekend getaways. But first, we must understand that museums are more than just places for the intellectually astute and culturally informed or for students and researchers interested in the topic. Most importantly, museums may be dynamic spaces for exploration, engagement, play, and leisure. They are not just places to learn or acquire knowledge.
