The English "museum" comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as "museums" (or rarely,

"musea"). It is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development,
open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the
tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of
education, study and enjoyment. 
There are many types of museums, including art museums, natural history museums, science
museums, war museums, and children's museums. Amongst the world's largest and most visited
museums are the Louvre in Paris, the National Museum of China in Beijing, the British
Museum in London, and the National Gallery in London.
People with leisure and sensitivity to artistic objects have been known to collect them for many
centuries. However, placing collections in a museum for public display has a more recent
ancestry. In Europe it was nurtured as part of a search for a European identity that surfaced in
the Renaissance and later the Enlightenment period. What were collected in museums from
private collections and some purchase, were objects that came to be defined as ‘antiquities’,
from earlier times. These provided a picture of the past.
The intention of the museum was to display objects in a classified manner. The general
classification was fairly simplistic. It began with separating natural objects from those that
were made by human effort.
The intention of the museum was also to educate the public. The museum was in sense the
companion institution to the university.
The first British Museum was established in 1753, which was followed by the Museum
National in France in 1792. Both these museums were concerned with History and had
antiquities from around the world.
But what about the idea of development of a museum in the Indian context?
The institution of a museum in India was initially a colonial imposition. The first museums
were founded in context of colonization by Europeans and the need to understand their
subjects.
The British founded the Asiatic Society in 1784 of which mostly the Orientalists were a part. It
was by the initiation of this society that India got its first museum in Calcutta in 1814, about a
half century after the British Museum was founded. The proposal to build this museum came
forward in 1796 in a meeting presided by John Shore, where it was decided, ‘we need to adopt
active museums, collecting from the abundant matters which India offers a museum
serviceable to History and Science’.
A Dutch Naturalist, Dr. Nathaniel Wallich was taken as a prisoner of war during the battle of
Serampore. He was a celebrated figure. He decided to bargain with British. He said that he will
give all his ‘plants collection’ and even become honorary secretary to the British. The Asiatic
Society accepted this proposal and Dr. Nathaniel became Superintendent of the Geology and
Zoology section.
So, basically the museum in Calcutta began with 5 major sections of different areas of study in
History and Science which includes: Geology, Zoology, Archaeology, Ethnology and
Technology. The inclusion of all these aspects of human existence, seen as interrelated, was
essentially in conformity with 19th century philosophy relating to the evolution and interface
of life and cultures.
We observe that ‘Science’ dominated the museum. According to Tapti Guha, this was because
“Ancient India was still mysterious and was yet to be discovered.” The collection to be kept in
the museum mostly came from the private collection of different officials and other Europeans
in the country. In 1866, the museum built by the Asiatic Society in Bengal was taken over by
the Government of India and renamed as Indian Museum. In 1875, it shifted to its present-day
building.
In 1851, ‘Government Museum’ was founded in Madras by the Madras Literary Society and
this too had a Geology and Natural History section rather than Archaeology and History. It was
the only museum in India that the Company supported during its rule.
In 1855, ‘Bombay Museum’ opened up in Bombay. Apart from its section on Natural history
and Archaeology, there was a separate section for ‘Industrial or Decorative Arts’. This is a part
of larger historical trend. It is well known that in ‘The Great Exhibition of the Industry of all
Nations’ held in London in 1851at Crystal Palace, British products were reviewed unfavorably
for their poor design; by contrast, Indian craft products were hailed as models of good design
and taste. The appreciation of Indian crafts at the Exhibition suggested immediate economic
possibilities.
A lot of things of these exhibitions found place in the ‘Bombay Museum’ to preserve them. The
British government hoped that by studying Indian objects in museums, British manufacturers
would improve their design; the Indian government hoped that huge orders for Indian goods
would soon be rolling in for Indian craftsmen to fulfill. Both governments were thus engaged
in similar actions at the same time, but with opposed and competitive intentions, for the benefit
of different circuits of the economy. Each government saw its own domain as the producer and
the other as the market for its produce. In the end, as we all know, British industry – with its
mechanized production and biased tax regime – won over the only advantage that was left to
India, the advantage of cheap labour.
There were also various Arts schools in India:
1. Government College of Arts, Chennai (1850)
 2. Government College of Arts, Kolkata (1854)
E.R. Havell inspired his students to find Indian traditional handicrafts. This school had its own
museum. In 1880, an exhibition was organized in Kolkata. Since the Arts College of Calcutta
did not have the required space, the exhibition was held at a new building in 1875. This entire
collection was transferred to Indian Museum in Calcutta in 1882 and the in-charge of this
museum was T.N. Mukherjee.
When one visits the British-era museums in India today, one sees scant traces of the ‘Science
institutions’ like Geology or Zoology. Instead one sees hall after hall filled with imposing,
intricate, ancient sculpture. How did Archaeological section gained importance in the Indian
Museums?
The early years of ancient India’s research were dominated by analysis of textual and literary
sources. The Early Archaeologists include Alexander Davidson who had discovered Roman
coins at Nellore, Jonathan Duncan who worked on Sarnath Stupa, J. Babington who discovered
megaliths at Malabar, Robert Young who discovered megaliths near Hyderabad and Colonel
Colin Mackenzie who discovered temples such as the one in Vijayanagara. The latter also gave
his personal collection of inscriptions, artefacts and antiquities to Asiatic Museum in 1840.
In the beginning we saw that the Archaeology as a section in the museum remained
marginalised. It is true that even while administrators were collecting crafts and expecting
museums to serve the economy, they did acquire the great collections of antiquities that we
value today. But these were not the prime focus of the museums or the reason for their
establishment. They held no promise for the rejuvenation of the Indian economy.
That the Government of India had a duty to the monuments within it, that the government
should establish a permanent institution and invest in their care, was a battle bitterly fought
and perpetually lost by the passionate amateurs who were the early archaeologists of India.
There were several cases of careless documentation that led to major errors.
For ex: Both British officers and the native people destroyed the Amravati Stupa. H.H.Cole
argued for its in-situ preservation that was then opposed by D.G. Jame Burgess. The latter was
of the view to transfer the Stupa to Madras museum which lacked proper archaeology section.
Naturalist ‘Birdie’ was assigned to reassemble the Amravati Stupa.
The prospects of archaeology in India began to change from 1830s because of 2 individuals,
James Princep who deciphered Brahmi in 1834 and Alexander Cunningham who entered
archaeological research in 1840s.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was established in 1861 and was joined by Alexander
Cunningham. He became the Director General of ASI in 1870 and remained at the post till
1885. It was in these years that he followed the footsteps of Xuan Zang.
The Bharhut Stupa located in Madhya Pradesh was discovered by Cunningham in 1873. In
1874, J.D. Beglar, his assistant, excavated the stupa. He discovered that the locals were using
the stones of stupa for home construction. It was thus decided to shift the entire stupa to
Kolkata Museum. The entire successful operation of transfer of stupa under the supervision of
J.D.Beglar to the Kolkata museum led to the establishment of a separate gallery for archaeology
in the museum in 1878.
In 1878, certain stone panels were added to this gallery and it had sculptures from Bodhgaya.
Also, it wasn’t just stupas that were acquired by the museums. The project of conserving
paintings was taken up by H.H.Cole in 1880-84. He belonged to the curatorship of Ancient
Monuments and took the exercise of photographing the monuments. Later on this project, they
were joined by several art schools like J.J. School of Art undertook the project to copy the
paintings of Ajanta, Calcutta school of Art undertook a project to document the temples located
at Orissa.
After the paintings, the third most important advancement in museum was the addition of
movable antiquities like sculptures, inscriptions etc. In 1885, Treasure Trove Act was passed
which said that the 1st right over antiquities is of the museum. Before this a lot of smuggling
happened in the European markets.
In the Imperial Museum, antiquities were organized in 4 galleries, all chronologically named
after different dynasties.
1st Gallery: Ashokan Gallery where there were lots of antiquities from Sanchi, Bodhgaya,
Bharhut, Amravati and sculptures of Yakshas and Yakshis.
2nd Gallery: Indo-Scythian Gallery where there were sculptures from Gandhar and Mathura.
3rd Gallery: Gupta Gallery where there were sculptures of both Brahmanism and Buddhism.
4th Gallery: Mahomedan and Inscription Gallery.
Also, all religious sculptures were put together and no regional or religious differences were
appreciated.
In the beginning of the 20th century, there is an increasing involvement of Indian
archaeologists into the workings of the museum. For e.g., RD Bannerjee, who was involved in
cataloguing of archaeological antiquities kept in the Municipal museum in Delhi which was
later shifted to Lucknow Provincial Museum.
In 1907, museum decided to update the catalogue and the archaeologist assigned for this job
was Theodore Bloch who died early, so the responsibility shifted to John Marshall. John
Marshall was also instructed by Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India in the early 20th century, to
work for the conservation of sites and that is how several site museums came up. E.g., Sarnath
Museum.
Since the 20th century, we see an increasing involvement of Indians into the museum project,
yet the museum remained a site of paradox. On one hand, it was a place of knowledge and
research but at the same time, for common people it was an ajoobaghar/jaadughar. This means
that the museum project failed in its aim to educate the public.
The idea of National Museum was floated in 1946 by Maurice Gwyer Committee. The idea was
that this museum will hold antiquities from across the subcontinent but it never materialized,
because of logistic problems of assembling such large number of antiquities. Earlier some
attempt was made by Imperial Museum in Calcutta to acquire antiquities across the region but
it failed in its objective. The founding of museum was facilitated by holding of 2 exhibitions.
One is the London Exhibition between 29th Nov, 1947 and 29th Feb, 1948. Inspired by this
Exhibition, we had another exhibition held in New Delhi in November 1949 – February 1949.
C. Rajagopalchari was the 1st Governor General (1948), and he gave permission to use domes
of Rashtrapati Bhawan for exhibition. In order to manage the Delhi Exhibition, an exhibition
committee was founded and it was presided over by the then education minister, Maulana
Azad. It was such a success that it was decided that it could be converted into a National
Museum.
But the problem was the objects were derived from different museums like museums of native
states (Princely States), University Museums, Provincial Museums, Archaeological Museums
and Private Collection.
On August 15th, 1959, Maulana Azad, appealed to all the museums to forgo the exhibits for
Delhi Museum. Rampurva Bull capital (Bihar); standing Buddha (Mathura); Hoysala
(Karnataka) were retained.
However, some of the antiquities were returned mainly to the Imperial Museum e.g.,
Bhutesvara Takshis, Female Trio from Khajuraho.
The museum was initially housed at Rashtrapati Bhawan. Then in 1955, Nehru laid foundation
stone of the present building and several new sections were added in this building: Medieval
scultpture; manuscript section; coins pre-historic paleoliths; mughal jades.
Till 1957, the museum was under the control of Director General of Archaeological Survey of
India. Then, it was transferred to Cultural Ministry which also supervises ASI.
A museum carries a message. In colonial days it was the message of presenting a past and
incidentally in doing so also glorifying what colonial scholarship had done for the colony. This
effort deserves appreciation, although not by ignoring its motivation. But two centuries later
the contours have changed – both in terms of what the museum stands for and what are its
functions. The appeal is no longer to colonial authority but to a public being made aware of
and seeking to articulate its identity. This it seems to me is a major change in the concept of the
museum since the last two hundred years. The ingredients of this identity are complex since
they are no longer just the narrow definitions of 19th century scholarship. The identity has to
reflect a society constituted of many cultures each seeking visibility. It is not only a recognition
of our culture but also of the many other cultures of which we are increasingly becoming a
part and to which we are contributing. Such a reflection is not an impossible task. But it needs
both sensitivity and an understanding of the interface between cultures.

 museumplanner.org
 Material Fantasy: The Museum in Colonial India – Kavita Singh
 Museums in India: Past and Future – Romila Thapar
 The Museumised relic: Archaeology and the first museum of colonial India – Tapti
Guha-Thakurta