GOING by the existing facts, the incident had all the makings of a storm in a teacup. Some time ago, a religious group protested about the serving of non-vegetarian food in the National Museum restaurant in Delhi. They were not advocating the positive benefits of vegetarianism but were stating that food other than vegetarian hurt their religious sentiments since there were sacred statues in the museum.I wish someone would spare a thought to what all the gods and goddesses in the many Indian museums undergo while they patiently wait for better times. They are often pushed into damp and smelly rooms not conducive to the health of the material they are made of. At times, the light is not sufficient to distinguish one god from another and hence the richness of their iconography. Or they are exhibited covered with dust; only the gods know how long they have not been cleaned.They are also crudely blocked in with cement while they pile up high one above the other in a display of sorts or are raised on a pedestal while being stuck into it. Periodically, statues in protected sites and erstwhile active temples get decapitated and the heads go missing or sculptures disappear, to the advantage of some organised gang or the other. But I don’t hear protests when any of the above occurs. Perhaps what the gods undergo is not as important as the religious sentiments that they engender.If representations of gods in museums can inspire such religious sentiments then I marvel at the effect of innumerable temples all around the country and the many worshiped statues that they contain. The effect should be so profound that we would all be imbued with love, compassion and humanity with feelings of togetherness for one another.All the many statues that are in museums are the result of the museum movement started by the British around 1860 and which continues till today. The many collections are derived from archaeological exploration of sites as well as from ruined monuments, transported and carried with what kind of reverence, only the gods know. The purpose of museum and the exhibits therein was — and is — to focus on their importance as evidence of ancients cultures, their history and their art for the greater purpose of education, aestheticism and instruction of the public. Such being the case, every exhibit, whether secular or religious, that enters a museum has to undergo set procedures involving cataloguing, documentation, security and display, rules and norms that belong to a museum and not to a temple. It is therefore justified that a sculpture of a god gets an accession number on its reverse side, which establishes its new role as an art object. While still representing a god it is no longer sacred, having made the journey from temple to museum. The priests and devotees that worshipped it with all the accompanying rituals are also gone. It is we who imbue a piece of carved stone with its deep religious significance; time and circumstance wipe it away. The author can be contacted rupikachawla@expressindia.com
