Show and tell

The National Museum is home to over 2,00,000 works of art and archaeological booty spanning 5,000 years. Created with hope and pride in the afterglow of Independence,it is the flagship museum of this country. For three years,it has been missing a director-general and about 140-150 out of a total 207 posts lie empty,waiting for the right person to come along.  The culture ministry and the HRD ministry have tried and failed to fill these jobs,despite relaxing their demands considerably. Its not just the fact that there arent any promising contenders it is also the absurdity of the way they are recruited and the constraints imposed by the Union Public Service Commission. The unwillingness to experiment with new forms of cultural governance and staff structure means that India falls far behind the rest of the world,which is radically reconceptualising the museum.

From being musty mausoleums mainly responsible for their collections,museums are increasingly seen as public-spirited institutions that owe something vital to their visitors and an educational function for their communities.  They are outgrowing their traditional ambit of collection,conservation,exhibition and research. Now the nature of museum employment has to accommodate the increasingly complex,differentiated demands placed on the institution. Many governments have divested themselves of the actual running of them. France went through rigorous museum reform in the 90s,lifting restrictions on the number of professional staff.  Even the UK,heavily conscious of the museums public mandate,has been contracting out many services in museums,and finding creative new ways to mesh their mission with the market. In the more entrepreneurial US model,those who head museums typically pour their energies into fundraising and outreach.

Meanwhile,in India,we struggle even with fulfilling the primary dharma of a museum. It is a terrible pity that a country that rarely passes up an opportunity to talk up its many-splendoured culture and heritage can fail so miserably at engaging with it,or persuading its people to care enough about it.