- Bageshwar Jha
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The three-day (Jan.29 – 31, 2015) annual conference of
the Museum’s Association of India was organized in collaboration with the Assam
State Museum, Guwahati in its auditorium with Mrs. Bismita Gogoi, MOS, Ministry
of Culture and Youth Affairs, Govt of Assam as the Chief Guest.The occasion was
also important as the year happens to be the Platinum Jubilee of the host
museum The
conference
was attended by 72 delegates of different museums of the country. After
lighting the inaugural lamp by the dignitaries on the dias, Shri Y.S. Winglengton,
Director of the host museum welcomed the delegates and hoped that their stay in
Guwahati would be comfortable. Since the region was rich in artefacts, he said
that the State Museum needed to go tech. He hoped that the Rs three crore
donated by the Centre would be properly used to modernize the museum. After
that Dr P.K. Sharma, President/MAI gave a brief account of the association in
last one year. He said that the Life Time Award to eminent Museologist was
started in 2010 which now stood widened to include even museology savants who
are no more. Accordingly, it was decided to give this posthumous award to Late
Dr G.N. Pant, former Director of the National Museum this year. Since Mrs. Pant
was not feeling well, she could not come to receive the award. It would now be
given to her in a function in Delhi shortly.
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On this occasion, the Chief
Guest released the 68th edition of the Mai Brochure as well as a
similar publication of the host museum. Sh. Shantanu Thakur, IAS regretted that
the Hindu and Muslim kings of the region documented only their own achievements
including their victories, but did not do anything substantial to preserve the
heritages and ancient artefacts so that the history of the area could
be
constructed. The Chief Guest, going in the history of undivided Assam traced
how it figured prominently even during the Mahabharata period. She assured the
museum fraternity to extend all possible help from the State Govt. so that the
museum movement could not suffer. She also inaugurated the Textile Section of
NE Gallery and Exhibition on Gond Ramayana Paintings in the Annexe Building. At
the end of the inaugural function, Dr Anand Burdhan, Secretary/MAI proposed the
vote of thanks.
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In the afternoon session of the first day, the keynote
address was delivered by Dr A.K. Das, Former Director National Museum
Institute. On this occasion Dr R.D. Choudhary, ex-Director General, National
Museum was also present. Dr Das, while speaking on regional museums, talked in
detail calling for community involvement and establishing of more and more
regional museums. He referred to half a dozen of museums, started by non-museum
persons and doing yeoman’s service in the field. While giving this list, he
referred to the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets, founded by Dr
Bindeshwar Pathak in 1992. He added that the Prime Minister is talking about
‘Clean
India’ now which Dr Pathak has been doing since 1970 through Sulabh Toilets and
the said museum. This experiment has come out as an eye opener to the museum
world showing how a museum could be instrumental in causes of sanitation and social
reforms. In course of his presentation, Dr Das talked to me several times while
setting the facts right.
Dr
Das added that at present there are some 30,000 museums in the world including
15,000 in Europe alone. He said that India having around 700 museums should
give necessary tilts to their performance so that the society at large could be
benefited. At theend, the lecture was followed by a lively question-answer
session.
In
the post-lunch time, the first academic session was held which was presided
over by Dr R.D. Choudhary. As many as seven papers were read by scholars
including Bageshwar Jha, Curator, Sulabh International Museum of Toilets. His
topic, “Next Door Museums" emphasized the need of expanding the outreach
of museums not only by diversifying their activities but also by founding
regional museums in all distant geographical regions of the country. In this
connection he referred to such museums of Singapore, USA, Canada, Trinidad and
Tobago and India which were creating the desired appeal in the forgotten
communities of those regions. Other speakers in this session were Dr Supreo
Chanda of Calcutta, Dr Paras Mani Datta of Calcutta, Shri Prateek Ghosh of
Gandhi Memorial Museum, Barrackpore and Ishani Chatterjee from North-East.
On
the second day (Jan 30) the pre-lunch academic session was held with Bageshwar
Jha in the chair. This marathon session had 13 scholars to give their
presentations. These papers were so variegated that hardly any topic on the
subject was left untouched. The main presenters were S/Sh Anindita Kundu Saha
(West Bengal), Yogendra BS (Mysore), Ramesh Lal (Delhi), Sudesna Das (Natural
History Museum), Sayani Ghosh, Falguni Pal, Puspa Das, Mausumi Purkait, Juthika
Biswas all from West Bengal, Shruti Das of Chhota Udaipur and Apurva Singh of
Baroda.
The
afternoon academic session was chaired by Dr A.K. Das. In it seven paper were
to be presented. The speakers included S/Sh Dhruv Prasad Soni(Delhi), Mrs.
Indrani Bhattacharya(Cal. Varsity), G.N. Indresha (Bhubneswar), Mrs. Enakshi
Chattopadhyay (WB), Mrs Amrita Dey Saha, Gaurav/Ashish Singh and Dr Anand
Burdhan. Dr Burdhan’s scholarly presentation
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was
well appreciated by the participants.
The
concluding partthereafter was the business session. It was the general body
meeting of the association with Dr Sharma in Chair. The meeting had no proposal
from hosting the next conference. So it was decided to wait and watch. There
was a propoisal to revive the old system of associate member so that the
students, not monetarily strong, could take part in this prestigious function
of the museum world. There was a consensus in favour of this suggestion. The
idea of enhancing the Life Membership fee was alsowithdrawn. Sh. Rajasundaram,
presenting account urged upon the participants to deposit their institutional
membership fees.
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On the last day (Jan 31), the morning session was
reserved for the annual Motichand Memorial Lecture, which this time was
delivered by Sh Kusum Kumar Mahanta, Prachar Sachiv, Axom Satra Mahasabha. He
spoke on Mahapurush Srimant Sankardev (1449-1568). The speaker talked in detail
about the multi-faceted personality of Sankardev and recalled his contributions
in
the
field of sainthood, poetry, playwright,socio-religious reforms and a figure of
eminence in the cultural field of Assam.
The
delegates, thereafter were taken by bus to Alipukuri village in Naugaon
district which is the birthplace of Sankardev. The villagers gave a ceremonial
reception to the party by presenting a cultural programme, felicitating the
senior museologists with Assamese embroidered traditional scarfs and lunch. On
theirwayback to Guwahati, the delegates were taken to see the Bardowa site
museum. The place is also hallowed as the occasional
resting place of Sankardev.
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