[MSN] India. Rs 40 crore for the maintenance and upgrading of small museums and collections

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

VALUING SKILLS  

Heritage, like culture, is a tricky thing for governments to deal with.
Preserving and conserving it must be founded on notions of intangible value,
which are difficult to monitor or legislate, and depend on the proper use of
special skills, resources and infrastructure. This is an expensive affair,
yet must also be made part of the everyday lives of communities. Notionally,
the Centre's decision to allocate Rs 40 crore for the maintenance and
upgrading of small museums and collections, especially the ones languishing
in the mofussil areas, is laudable. West Bengal will directly benefit from
this allocation. The state's archaeological department has already
identified around 27 monuments and eight museums or collections that would
be given money to upgrade their resources and infrastructure. This would
include renovation and repairs, curating and digital cataloguing, research,
documentation and publication, conservation projects, building libraries and
security. The special focus on provincial and rural collections is also
significant.

The sudden attention being paid to museums and "special protection of
historical assets" has a rather ignominious immediate context - the theft of
Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel medal from Santiniketan, and similar
disappearances at the Calcutta Museum. These were the result of pervasive
callousness and systemic failures. It is doubtful whether a sudden influx of
funds will make any fundamental difference to how these things are dealt
with in West Bengal, or elsewhere in India. Reforming the situation is
surely a matter of highly specialized education, the introduction of
specific technology, the maintenance and development of infrastructure, and
a change of attitude in ministers, bureaucrats, academics and ordinary
people. Besides, those who plan and implement must also be taught how to
deal with sudden influxes of funding. This is especially true of people
looking after small collections in obscure towns, since they are likely to
be interested amateurs without state-of-the-art professional training.
Conservation and museology are still difficult to learn in India, and those
who make important decisions regarding these matters - mostly bureaucrats -
are often clueless about such things. The government must ensure that the
use of this money is planned and monitored by people who know, or are
trained in, the special skills required to value and preserve heritage.
 
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