The museum is capable of creating a new future image for communities - Prof. Kishor K. Basa

Under the Annual Lecture series of Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS), Bhopal Prof. Kishor K. Basa, Tagore National Fellow and Ex-Director of IGRMS Bhopal delivered a lecture on Anthropology and Museums in India: Trends and Trajectories (in the form of a webinar) via facebook. At the beginning of the program, Shri Dilip Singh, Joint Director, IGRMS Introduced the Prof.Basa.
Professor Basa's told that his lecture comprised three sections. In the first section he discussed anthropology and museums during the colonial period from 1784 to 1947, the period which witnessed the emergence of anthropology and museums in India as distinct disciplines. While anthropology (it was also known as ethnology) was initiated to understand the 'native' cultures in order to enable the British for an effective administration, museums developed to act as a repository of the material cultures collected from various 'native' communities. The establishment of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Kolkata in 1784 laid the foundation for such studies in India. Basa gave examples of two leading colonial museums. While Indian Museum, set up in 1814 was one of the oldest museums in the world, Madras Museum was set up in 1851. By demonstrating the native communities and their material culture as culturally inferior to the 'civilised' Europeans, both anthropology and museum during the colonial period provided legitimacy to the British rule in India. Basa argued that museum visit as a part of pilgrimage to Kolkata by rural folks of India during colonial period is a typical Indian response to a concept (i. e. Museum) brought from the West. He also showed how Viceroy Lord Curzon (1899-1905) also added to the collection in Indian Museum.