Back‘Civil society, private sector can help protect monuments’
Jawhar Sircar, chairman, board of governors, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, and former secretary, ministry of culture talks about the challenges in India’s art and culture sector, protection of national monuments, and the need to amend the Antiquities Act
PremiumDespite the subject of Jawhar Sircar’s lecture, ‘What Ails the Arts in India?’, there was enough laughter in the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre in Mumbai. It’s a technique that Sircar seems to have artfully mastered—delivering scathing criticisms with generous doses of humour and irony. It’s necessary even, in order to grasp the ways in which India’s art and culture sector needs infrastructure and financial support. In the course of his lecture, which marked the beginning of the annual Dr. Jamshed Bhabha Memorial Lecture instituted by the National Centre for the Performing Arts on 21 August, Sircar provided the audience with a historical view of various cultural forms, as well as an analysis of challenges and potential remedies.
Sircar, 67, will say that he has a “helicopter view" of the arts in India having dabbled, but never succeeded, in painting or music. He may not know how to paint or how to sing, he says, but he does know who’s good at it in India. Sircar, who is based in Kolkata, served as the secretary, ministry of culture, during 2008-12, after which he helmed Prasar Bharti. He currently serves as chairman, board of governors, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata. When Mint met him on the sidelines of the event, Sircar spoke passionately about India’s cultural infrastructure and the challenges within. Edited excerpts of an interview:
What are the main problems facing the arts sector in India?
The chief problem is an unhistorical or ahistorical attitude—the absence of a scientific temper—in India. I have nothing against myth as such, but in a country where myth is preferred over history, we are in for bad times.
New discoveries helped us to reconstruct a linear history, which we retrofitted and made good use of. Fair enough. A national narrative was required for a national movement. While these are tolerable things, there are those who are taking it to illogical levels, such as some muni (saint) having discovered the atom. As a student of history and anthropology, I have got to draw the line here.
We needed a national history to instil a sense of national pride. We needed it so that every time a British archaeologist came up with something new, we used his own spade to hit him with it. We could say: “You guys were moving around in bearskins, living in mud hovels, but see what we had—Ajanta and Ellora." But we must remember that if it wasn’t for the British, we wouldn’t have discovered Ajanta and Ellora. Take the instance of emperor Ashoka. Ashoka was completely forgotten, wiped out of our memory. It was only in the second decade of the 19th century, exactly 200 years ago, that (British engineer) Alexander Cunningham restored the stupas at Sanchi, Sarnath and Bodh Gaya. Ashoka brought not only the first, longest-lasting soft power of India, Buddhism, but he had another skill. He filled up India with his sayings, his mann ki baat made it on rock inscriptions.
We forgot Ashoka because we forgot the Brahmi script. A young man of 37, James Prinsep stumbled upon it in the 19th century, and he proved it with all his grit that Ashoka is a reality, not myth like Vikram aur Betaal. He tallied with Sinhalese records because records weren’t available in India. The collective amnesia was cured.
The budgetary allocation for the ministry of culture has increased from ₹2,738.47 crore in 2017-18 to ₹2,843.32 crore in 2018-19 to ₹3,042.35 crore in 2019-20. Do you think this is adequate?
The budget I had, which is the highest budget we could get, was 0.11% of the central budget. Today, it’s even lower. And you expect all the monuments to be taken care of!
I am offering a solution. You have seen these kos minars, across (north) India, which are milestones left by the Mughals. We say they are nationally protected, but there isn’t even a guard there. Why can’t you hand it over to the community? The community can fence around, put benches and lights and safeguard it. Why not face reality and involve civil society? Let’s not get proprietary about things; let’s seek out the help of the community and the private sector. In Delhi, for instance, many of these monuments are right in the middle of shopping localities.
Delisting, however, is an explosive subject. You know, Curzon put up several sites as nationally protected monuments, which are a shame. There is (British commander John) Nicholson’s grave. This is the man who slaughtered several Indians during the capture of Delhi in 1857. He had a favourite tactic of tying Indians on canons and blasting their bodies. And, Nicholson’s grave is a nationally protected monument!
Recently, the National Museum eliminated nearly 100 posts. There is a public perception that many such public institutions are often run by people who have no experience in curatorial or museum studies or art history. What are your thoughts on this?
In India, 50% of the posts in all public museums are vacant. Curatorial posts have been abolished. There were quite a few vacancies even when I was in the ministry. That was because of an orthodox decision of the government to take in people only from the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). I often saw that in the National Museum, for instance, was led by bureaucrats acting as director generals —who never actually went to the museum. I was dead against this practice.
I admit that I got a special permission of the government to get director generals from the open market after conducting interviews, rather than from the UPSC.
Subsequently, the UPSC passed a resolution against me that I was violating the law of the land. But, I wanted to do something transparent. However, it succeeded only partly because the best brains in the private sector do not want to come to the public side, because they know they will be hamstrung by rules and regulations.
Given India’s rich legacy of the performing arts, what do you think are the biggest challenges today?
Let me give you an example. The national capital doesn’t have a multiplex culture. Mumbai has one and Kolkata has one that came up without integration, chaotically. But Delhi doesn’t have a proper multiplex of the depth, size and acoustics required. One of the most important problems I faced as a culture secretary was that I had to make cultural agreements. So, while I am exporting Bharatnatyam, the Russians and Austrians are okay with it. But, when they want to send their choir or symphony or opera or ballet here—where do I show them? They may have an option at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, but they also want to perform in the national capital.
In 1961, when the Republic was 11 years old, it was Rabindranath Tagore’s 100th birth anniversary. A (nationwide) scheme was announced on his birth centenary, which allowed the government to set up a number of theatres named after Tagore.
These were the spaces where people like Naseeruddin Shah and Girish Karnad practised. To have them in spaces like these meant that these were spaces which people can use at a low cost. By the time I joined the ministry, the scheme had stopped, but Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary was coming up. So, we started a second round. These are the places where investment has to go in.
You have often spoken about the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act of 1972. Do you think it needs amendments?
While coming across the problem of museums and antiquities, the government has reached its limit. Just like the private sector retrieved the economy after 1991, we have to ask the civil society to say that the second round of theatres and museums will have to be made by them. What do they want in turn—an incentive, a tax break.
However, the most annoying factor is that any collector of antiquities in India is considered to be an offender. The Antiquities Act is a highly retrograde act. Collecting is a junoon (obsession), but collectors are scared about what they are buying. So, within India if you allow free movement, there will be a huge boost to the economy and more private museums will come up. India has collections enough to create another 100 museums, but that will happen only if you subsidize and encourage people.
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