Recently, a private company adopted the Red Fort. The 17th century fort was the primary residence of the Mughal emperors till the British took it over after the war of 1857. The first Tricolour was hoisted here in 1947 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
"If we do not teach new methods of preservation and technical conservation to our students - the methods of chemical preservation, digital and X-ray medium - we would lose out more such heritage buildings to private bodies and corporates," says S.A. Naqvi, former curator of the National Museum of Natural History, New Delhi.
Museology is the study of organising, arranging and managing a museum. It includes conservation and preservation; collection, documentation and exhibition; security, administration and museum architecture.
A course in Museology was offered for the first time in India by Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU) of Baroda, Gujarat, as early as 1952. This was followed by the University of Calcutta in 1959.
In 1965, Unesco sent educationist Philip Rawson to study the Museology courses in India. He observed: "India is leading the world in the university training of Museology students. The postgraduate university course... has set a notable precedent." Since then, however, it has been one downward journey.
In 2014, while addressing an audience on the bicentenary of Calcutta's Indian Museum, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said, "It is not enough in today's world to house a collection. A museum needs to document, study and analyse its own collections, make comparisons with similar collections held elsewhere and build up collaborations with other museums..."
Today, a majority of people running museums in India are not graduates of this discipline. Supreo Chanda, head of Museology in Calcutta University, feels strongly about this. In a 2014 paper titled "Human Resources for Museums: Museology in India", he observes how those who run museums are art historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, zoologists, engineers, chemists, technologists, but rarely those who have the academic training in Museology.
Museology is offered at the postgraduate or doctoral level. And depending on which institution is offering it, the awarded degree will be an MA or an MSc. Aligarh Muslim University also offers a one-year postgraduate diploma in the subject.
And who can apply? According to Naqvi, who is himself a zoologist and dean, faculty of Life Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, "Museology is an inter-disciplinary as well as a multidisciplinary subject. We need students from across disciplines."
Sunjay Jain, the head of Museology at MSU, agrees. He says, "Right from the beginning, we have believed that Museology is the core subject. But museum work requires knowledge of many other disciplines. Clubbing Museology with other disciplines will help prepare students for different types of museums - for example Natural History Museum (Aligarh Muslim University), Art Museum (Benaras Hindu University), Anthropological Museum (University of Calcutta)." This will increase job opportunities too.
The courses in India, however, need to include more hands-on training. "In Paris or in England, you would find a museologist or a trained conservator climbing up the buildings to do the conservation work. But in India that is yet to happen," says Naqvi.
Countries such as France, Netherlands, Germany and England have gone beyond the traditional definition of Museology and are making their courses more inclusive. They are trying to preserve heritage - not only the tangible but also the intangible, not only natural but also the cultural aspect. Museology is now being called Heritage Studies. As Naqvi puts it, "It is important to not only preserve a musical instrument of a particular time or tribe, but also the song of that tribe, which is an intangible heritage."
There are many institutions doing similar work in India. The Indira Gandhi Centre for Art and Culture is recording, documenting, interacting with folk artistes and craftsmen; the West Bengal State Academy of Dance, Drama, Music and Visual Arts in the Jorasanko campus of Rabindra Bharati University is preserving and conserving tribal masks and their musical instruments. This work should be happening across museums.
Naqvi tells YOU, "Students of Museology are not mere conservators or collectors of things; they are the facilitators of a dialogue between the old and the new."
On offer at
• Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, Gujarat
• Calcutta University, West Bengal
• Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh
• National Museum Institute of the History of Art, Conservation and Museology, New Delhi
• Benaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
