Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The culture ministry is set to begin a massive exercise to re-imagine its museums including the facilities under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and prepare a blueprint for new experiential museums equipped with state-of-the-art technology. The ministry will be holding events and organising activities to brainstorm with experts to check best practices across the globe which may be introduced in India to bring more people to museums and offer authentic cultural experiences.
The two-day global summit on ‘Reimagining Museums in India’ scheduled from February 15 to 16 is the first step towards achieving the goal.
The senior officials of the ministry said the event would help to understand the requirement of existing museums and envisage new facilities proposed.
“Through the summit, we wanted to get the best minds in India and abroad together. Learning from the event will help us to understand the current requirements of museums; re-imagine the ways existing museums should be in India and also new depositories of cultural heritage, we are planning to develop. People want to associate with us. These (events) will become regular activities. There are schemes for the development of museums but the ministry wants to go beyond the administrative theories,” said an official.
There are seven museums National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi), Salar Jung Museum (Hyderabad), Victoria Memorial Hall (Kolkata), National Council of Science Museums (Kolkata), Allahabad Museum (Allahabad), National Museum Institute of History of Art (New Delhi) and Indian Museum (Kolkata) under the direct control of the ministry. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which functions under the ministry, runs 52 museums.
“We are trying to understand and reimagine how the museums in India should be. Museums are repositories of cultural heritage. They are also reflectors of our civilization. The museums are a means of intergenerational transfer of knowledge. This is how the people are educated about the culture and heritage. All over the world museums are the most important place to visit if you want to understand the land and its people. India is a continuous civilisation of thousands of years hence has much more,” added the official.
The ministry has also developed seven museums including 1857- India’s First War of Independence, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and INA, Azadi-ke-Diwane, Yaad-e-Jallian (all are in Red Fort, Delhi), Virtual Experiential Museum (Man Mahal), Varanasi, Mahatma Gandhi Museum (Aga Khan Palace) Pune, Gallery of Confiscated and Retrieved Antiquities (Purana Qila) Delhi. A grand Pradhan Mantri Sangrahalaya in Teen Murti Bhavan is to be inaugurated soon. In addition to these, the Government has also proposed to build 100 experiential museums including one at the Vadnagar Buddhist site in Gujarat.
