While Narendra Modi talks a lot about good governance, his record shows that he, like all who foster personality cults, values complete compliance above everything else. The removal of Venu Vasudevan, the National Museum’s dynamic director general, halfway through his tenure, is a good example of what I mean.
I first interacted with Vasudevan in December 2012, while he oversaw a number of museums as joint secretary in the ministry of culture. My colleagues and I were keen to mount an exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi and a window had opened up on the dates we desired. Unfortunately, the show that had previously been allotted the slot was cancelled very late, leaving us little time to get our act together. The culture ministry had to give its assent before we could proceed, and I expected a long wait before that came through. The NGMA director, Rajeev Lochan, who spoke highly of Venu Vasudevan, suggested that I write directly to him, but despite Lochan’s praise and that of others who had worked with Vasudevan, I was sceptical of getting permission in time.
As it turned out, he replied to my email the same day I wrote it. He said my proposal looked interesting and he’d forwarded it to Lochan, authorising him to decide. Our show opened in late January 2013, and was very well received. In a land where administrators appear to measure their self-worth by the amount of time they can keep people waiting, it was unthinkable for a senior bureaucrat to respond promptly to a letter like the one I’d sent, and to do so personally rather than through an assistant.
Offering a new vision
I was elated when Vasudevan took over as director general of the National Museum, an institution that had been stuck in the doldrums for decades, and desperately needed a visionary at its helm. He began to turn the museum around soon after he joined, sprucing up galleries, reopening some that had been shut for years, and inviting experts from outside the museum to conceive special exhibitions. Some of these shows, such as Nauras, curated by Preeti Bahadur and Kavita Singh, drew primarily on the museum’s own collection, while others like The Body in Indian Art, curated by Naman Ahuja, which had first been shown in Brussels in 2013 as part of the Europalia India festival, were composed mainly of borrowed artefacts.
Vasudevan initiated programmes to digitise the collection and upgrade the museum website. He converted the circular central courtyard into an atmospheric café. One of his most successful initiatives was building a team of volunteer guides. Under his watch, visitor numbers soared, providing public endorsement to complement the unanimous approval of experts.
His transfer seems to have been triggered by his refusal to part with relics of the Buddha for a Buddha Purnima function attended by Narendra Modi. No museum director worth his salt would permit the shifting of a precious and delicate artefact without weeks of planning and the assurance of a secure, climate-controlled environment at its destination. It may be that the National Museum is not the best place to house the Kapilavastu relics. On each visit to the museum, I have found Buddhists from different lands worshipping them, and there’s an argument to be made that they’d be best kept in a sacred rather than secular space. As long as they remain in the museum’s possession, however, all protocols must be followed to ensure their upkeep. For doing his job, and denying Modi a photo op in the process, Vasudevan’s been shown the door.
It gets worse. The government last month took over the Lalit Kala Akademi, just when it showed signs of emerging from years of turmoil, using that turmoil as pretext. Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty, who had been appointed Chairman of LKA in 2012 for a five-year term, was peremptorily removed. While I felt Chakravarty focussed too much on folk and tribal art at the expense of contemporary forms, there was no denying his sincerity, scholarship, and determination to purge LKA of corruption. He was spearheading plans for the 2016 Triennale India, a major exhibition of international art first organised by Mulk Raj Anand in 1968, and held every three years for over 30 years before falling victim to apathy and infighting. It is unclear how committed the new administration is to the event, and how much freedom the curators will be given.
A Pragati Maidan landmark
The last three heads of the Lalit Kala, Ashok Vajpeyi, Balan Nambiar, and Chakravarty, all agreed that the main challenge in the organisation was its secretary, Sudhakar Sharma. Each of them attempted to remove him for good. Sharma has been reinstated by the current administration, despite serious charges of fraud and negligence hanging over him.
Another major museum in Delhi, the Crafts Museum, is currently headless, after Ruchira Ghose’s term ended a couple of weeks ago. She raised the museum’s profile considerably, not least thanks to Café Lota, which opened within the Crafts Museum complex in 2013 and quickly became a landmark drawing its own clientele to Pragati Maidan. Visitor numbers as well as revenues increased more than tenfold in the course of her five-year term. Nevertheless, it’s understandable that she wasn’t given an extension because, unlike KK Chakravarty and Venu Vasudevan, she was a political appointee, a friend of Sonia Gandhi.
It would have been perfectly acceptable if she’d been shifted to make way for an equally competent person, but that’s not what has happened. A ridiculous plan is being hatched to create a "Hastakala Academy" within the Crafts Museum complex, “for the preservation, revival and documentation of the handloom/handicraft sector”. The Crafts Museum, which doesn’t have enough space to showcase its own collection adequately, is expected to scrunch up to allow space for a whole new institution.
Rajeev Lochan at the National Gallery of Modern Art is due to retire next year. His departure will be like the last light going off in museums dedicated to visual art in India’s capital.
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I first interacted with Vasudevan in December 2012, while he oversaw a number of museums as joint secretary in the ministry of culture. My colleagues and I were keen to mount an exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi and a window had opened up on the dates we desired. Unfortunately, the show that had previously been allotted the slot was cancelled very late, leaving us little time to get our act together. The culture ministry had to give its assent before we could proceed, and I expected a long wait before that came through. The NGMA director, Rajeev Lochan, who spoke highly of Venu Vasudevan, suggested that I write directly to him, but despite Lochan’s praise and that of others who had worked with Vasudevan, I was sceptical of getting permission in time.
As it turned out, he replied to my email the same day I wrote it. He said my proposal looked interesting and he’d forwarded it to Lochan, authorising him to decide. Our show opened in late January 2013, and was very well received. In a land where administrators appear to measure their self-worth by the amount of time they can keep people waiting, it was unthinkable for a senior bureaucrat to respond promptly to a letter like the one I’d sent, and to do so personally rather than through an assistant.
Offering a new vision
I was elated when Vasudevan took over as director general of the National Museum, an institution that had been stuck in the doldrums for decades, and desperately needed a visionary at its helm. He began to turn the museum around soon after he joined, sprucing up galleries, reopening some that had been shut for years, and inviting experts from outside the museum to conceive special exhibitions. Some of these shows, such as Nauras, curated by Preeti Bahadur and Kavita Singh, drew primarily on the museum’s own collection, while others like The Body in Indian Art, curated by Naman Ahuja, which had first been shown in Brussels in 2013 as part of the Europalia India festival, were composed mainly of borrowed artefacts.
Vasudevan initiated programmes to digitise the collection and upgrade the museum website. He converted the circular central courtyard into an atmospheric café. One of his most successful initiatives was building a team of volunteer guides. Under his watch, visitor numbers soared, providing public endorsement to complement the unanimous approval of experts.
His transfer seems to have been triggered by his refusal to part with relics of the Buddha for a Buddha Purnima function attended by Narendra Modi. No museum director worth his salt would permit the shifting of a precious and delicate artefact without weeks of planning and the assurance of a secure, climate-controlled environment at its destination. It may be that the National Museum is not the best place to house the Kapilavastu relics. On each visit to the museum, I have found Buddhists from different lands worshipping them, and there’s an argument to be made that they’d be best kept in a sacred rather than secular space. As long as they remain in the museum’s possession, however, all protocols must be followed to ensure their upkeep. For doing his job, and denying Modi a photo op in the process, Vasudevan’s been shown the door.
It gets worse. The government last month took over the Lalit Kala Akademi, just when it showed signs of emerging from years of turmoil, using that turmoil as pretext. Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty, who had been appointed Chairman of LKA in 2012 for a five-year term, was peremptorily removed. While I felt Chakravarty focussed too much on folk and tribal art at the expense of contemporary forms, there was no denying his sincerity, scholarship, and determination to purge LKA of corruption. He was spearheading plans for the 2016 Triennale India, a major exhibition of international art first organised by Mulk Raj Anand in 1968, and held every three years for over 30 years before falling victim to apathy and infighting. It is unclear how committed the new administration is to the event, and how much freedom the curators will be given.
A Pragati Maidan landmark
The last three heads of the Lalit Kala, Ashok Vajpeyi, Balan Nambiar, and Chakravarty, all agreed that the main challenge in the organisation was its secretary, Sudhakar Sharma. Each of them attempted to remove him for good. Sharma has been reinstated by the current administration, despite serious charges of fraud and negligence hanging over him.
Another major museum in Delhi, the Crafts Museum, is currently headless, after Ruchira Ghose’s term ended a couple of weeks ago. She raised the museum’s profile considerably, not least thanks to Café Lota, which opened within the Crafts Museum complex in 2013 and quickly became a landmark drawing its own clientele to Pragati Maidan. Visitor numbers as well as revenues increased more than tenfold in the course of her five-year term. Nevertheless, it’s understandable that she wasn’t given an extension because, unlike KK Chakravarty and Venu Vasudevan, she was a political appointee, a friend of Sonia Gandhi.
It would have been perfectly acceptable if she’d been shifted to make way for an equally competent person, but that’s not what has happened. A ridiculous plan is being hatched to create a "Hastakala Academy" within the Crafts Museum complex, “for the preservation, revival and documentation of the handloom/handicraft sector”. The Crafts Museum, which doesn’t have enough space to showcase its own collection adequately, is expected to scrunch up to allow space for a whole new institution.
Rajeev Lochan at the National Gallery of Modern Art is due to retire next year. His departure will be like the last light going off in museums dedicated to visual art in India’s capital.