Treasure troves of history

As International Museums Day passed by uncelebrated last week in Hyderabad, there is a need to introspect why we fail to make our museums attractive and vibrant

It’s Manifest Destiny! This is the rather dramatic exclamation of a character in the movie, ‘Night in a Museum’, about the Museum, where the inmates come to life at night and play out a trans-era saga.

Museums are indeed manifestations of history and of times gone by. They are treasure houses, where tales of many eras are told. They build bridges across eons and across lands; across cultures and civilisations. By the way, when was the last time you were in a museum?

A few people are aware that we celebrated International Museum Day three days ago. May 18 is International Museum Day across the world, a day that is meant to spread awareness on how important museums are in a society; how preserving the past is such an important lesson for future life.

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) established this Day in 1977 and in 2016; this Day got a record-breaking participation with more than 35,000 museums hosting events in some 145 countries. This year the theme is Museums and Contested Histories: Saying the unspeakable in the museum which quite addresses the signs of times.

The ICOM says that “By choosing to say the unspeakable in museums, we look at how to understand the incomprehensible aspects of the contested histories inherent to the human race. It also encourages museums to play an active role in peacefully addressing traumatic histories through mediation and multiple points of view.”

While museums are institutions that conserve collections of artefacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance, digitisation of information is helping the traditional model of museums across the world to expand to include virtual exhibits and high-resolution images of their collections that patrons can study virtually too.

There are more than 55,000 museums in 202 countries, according to the World Museum Community and some of the most prominent and well-consolidated museums - art museums, natural history, science, war, children's museums and those of specific themes - are the Louvre in Paris; the National Museum of China in Beijing; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; the British Museum in London; the National Gallery in London; and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

So museums are dry, boring places where outdated; crumbling things are stored and would only interest the random, dull student who is interested in history? Is that really the case? That may have been true of old museums, where only the elite or the tediously academic-oriented people spent time.

But the recorded fact that the first-ever museum was opened in the 3rd century BC, at the University of Alexandria in Egypt and that the concept of storing, preserving and displaying artefacts survived till now and has become an important part of every civilised society, goes to say something vital about the importance of museums.

Hyderabad has its own cluster of museums; including the world-famous Salarjung Museum, which has an impressive collection from across the world. It is said that the museum houses about 43,000 artefacts, about 47,000 printed books and some 10,000 manuscripts.

Among the Archaeology and Heritage museums are the Qutb Shahi Tombs Site Museum which exhibits weapons, armour, utensils and other important materials and artefacts of the Qutb Shahi period. The State Museum at Public Gardens; the Centenary Heritage Museum at Gunfoundry; the Khajana Building Museum, Golconda, etc are also present in Hyderabad.

The City Museum of Hyderabad is located inside the Purani Haveli and was the official residence of the Nizam. The museum was built commemorating the last Nizam and has terracotta figurines of Europe, Neolithic pots, megalithic sites and coins of the Satavahana period, etc.

The Chowmahalla Palace was the seat of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, where the Nizams entertained their official guests and royal visitors. Built over 200 years ago, the Palace has various galleries, each with a display of crockery, clothes, furniture, coins and currency notes, pictures from the Nizam era, etc. There are also a whole array of weapons and Qurans of various kinds, vintage cars, etc on display.

The Birla Science Museum is one of the modern museums with interactive science wing, an Archaeology and Dolls Museum, a Nobel Gallery, an Antarctica Diorama, a Dinosaurium, etc. The Natural History Museum on the premises of the Nehru Zoological Park also draws a lot of visitors. There are also a few private museums such as the quirky Sudha Cars Museum.

Museums are invaluable places. They should be inseparable parts of a civilisation which have continuity at its core. They tell the stories of men and their survival, the existence of societies and their evolution. It is the material remnant of glorious times that have gone by and give us insights into the way our world progressed. They hold lessons for posterity.

So what ails our museums that the International Museum Day has hardly seen any celebration? In spite of a dedicated department and funding, however, it is lamentable that the museums in our State fail to draw visitors the way well-maintained museums across the world do.

Lack of upgradation to new technologies, lack of sufficient staff, a road map, expert guidance, lack of sufficient funding and other such issues hit the museums, rendering the treasures we already have into dusty, lackluster dumps that people will only visit as a matter of routine rather than as a matter of keen interest. The Health Museum, inside the Public Gardens, is a case in point though schools still tend to have a museum visit as an itinerary point for their students.

As ‘development’ becomes a much more rapid process with multiple dimensions, museums have come to be seen as unnecessary places. Ill-maintenance of artefacts and collections comes from the lack of conviction in our history and its significance. In fact, often, there is a subjective interpretation of what is our history and the museums are designated to be symbols of a past that we do not want to acknowledge.

This calls for a transformation in our policy and programming related to museums. There is a need to make them vibrant places with abundant resources for study and exploration. As a priority, museums should rely on modern resources, especially digital technology to strengthen its display. The era is of interactive preservation and across the world; museums are working to turn a visit by a person to a museum into a journey into the past.

Walk-throughs, modern techniques of preservation, infrastructure that safeguards fragile objects, proper display and design, outreach programmes such as the Telangana Archaeology Department is attempting these days, should be taken up. Museums of the relevant kind should be made a part of a school education process. Trained guides, expert speakers for special sessions, more material about museums should be promoted. And merchandise related to the museums and the treasures it holds will go a long way in promoting the museum.

Every place should document, consolidate, preserve and display its local works of art and artisan production, of literature and sculpture, of objects related to their local lifestyle and culture. They should be learning centres for children, especially the tech-savvy new generation that is hungry for information of all kinds. Museums should be allowed to become institutions that augment learning process.

By: Usha Turaga-Revelli