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Subject: Conservation of Indian Art & Heritage

  • A library without a home speaks of a larger absence

    Why in the News

    The Central Secretariat Library (CSL) is yet to find a new home as Shastri Bhawan, its base since 1969, makes way for the Central Vista redevelopment. The delay raises the question of whether a project rebuilding the seat of government has planned for the institutions that hold its memory.

    What is the Central Secretariat Library, and why does it matter?

    1. Colonial origin: The CSL was established in 1891 as the Imperial Secretariat Library in Calcutta. It moved with the capital to Delhi and was renamed after Independence.
    2. Collection: It holds over 8.5 lakh books and documents, including material dating back to 1702.
    3. Institutional memory: The CSL serves as a working archive of the Indian state, keeping its institutional memory, the record of past government work and decisions. It is like the government’s own record room.
    4. The takeaway: Leaving an institution of archival importance without a secure home is a troubling statement of priorities for a project of such scale and ambition.

    Why was the displacement foreseeable?

    1. Known relocation: Central Vista is a long-term project involving some of the country’s most storied buildings, so relocation was not an unforeseen complication.
    2. Early request: As early as 2023, the Ministry of Culture sought matching space in the new Common Central Secretariat, the heart of the redevelopment.
    3. Statement of priorities: By deciding which institutions get space in a new administrative centre, the government signals what belongs at the centre of public life.

    What do other heritage relocations in the project show?

    1. Earlier controversies: The demolition of the National Archives Annexe and the relocation of the National Museum‘s collections drew public debate and expert opinion.
    2. New museum: The National Museum’s collections are moving to the Yuge Yugeen Bharat Museum, coming up in the North and South Block buildings.
    3. Preservation needs: Those debates showed the need for proper inventories and cataloguing, conservation facilities, climate-controlled storage for fragile and rare material, digitisation, trained staff and public access.
    4. Planning lapse: Such provisions should have been integral to the project from the outset.

    Why can a temporary move become permanent?

    1. Tulsi Sadan precedent: The CSL’s regional languages section, the Tulsi Sadan Library, was temporarily shut in 2011 for construction of the Mandi House Metro station.
    2. Stored, not served: Its contents were housed in the National School of Drama premises, and the library remains shut to this day.
    3. Displacement lesson: When institutions are displaced without a durable plan, temporary arrangements can become permanent absences.

    Challenges

    1. No fixed destination: Moving lakhs of rare documents into interim storage without a final site raises the risk of damage and loss.
    2. Interrupted access: Officials and researchers lose access to records while a collection sits in storage.
    3. Split responsibility: The library’s ministry seeks the space, but another ministry redevelops the buildings, so no single agency owns the relocation.
    4. Irreversible damage: Without digitised copies, any harm to fragile originals during a move cannot be undone.

    Way Forward

    1. Permanent allotment: The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs should allot the CSL space before Shastri Bhawan is vacated.
    2. Collections protocol: Make cataloguing and climate-controlled storage a precondition for vacating any building that houses archives.
    3. Digitise first: Digitise rare and fragile material before any move.
    4. Reopen Tulsi Sadan: Set a dated plan to reopen the Tulsi Sadan Library.

    Conclusion

    The CSL’s displacement shows a redevelopment that planned new buildings ahead of the institutions meant to fill them. Whether the library gets a permanent address before Shastri Bhawan is vacated will show if Central Vista avoids repeating its own past mistakes.

    Back2Basics: Central Vista Redevelopment Project

    1. What it is: A project to rebuild India’s central administrative area in New Delhi, along the stretch between Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate.
    2. Nodal ministry: It is executed under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
    3. Key components: They include a new Parliament building, inaugurated in 2023, and the redeveloped Kartavya Path, formerly Rajpath.
    4. Launch: The project was announced in 2019.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2018, GS1, 10 marks] Safeguarding the Indian art heritage is the need of the moment. Discuss.”

  • From Venice with love: India at the Venice Biennale

    Why in the News

    India has returned to the Venice Biennale with a national pavilion after seven years, presenting ‘Geographies of Distance: Returning Home’ under the curator Amin Jaffer. The pavilion carries five artworks, all rooted in Indian craft traditions and all built around the idea of home. Critics, patrons and the global media have called it dazzling and spectacular. The contested point is that India has mounted a national pavilion only three times in the event’s history, so the question raised by the praise is whether a strong showing becomes a standing presence or remains an occasional one.

    What is a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale?

    1. The Venice Biennale: Begun in 1895, it is among the oldest, largest and most prestigious contemporary art events, and is called the Olympics of the art world. In its current format it hosts the International Art Biennale, the International Architecture Biennale, national pavilions and collateral events.
    2. A national pavilion: This is a presentation organised and funded by a government to showcase its own artists, which makes it an exercise in soft power and cultural diplomacy rather than a private exhibition.
    3. Giardini and Arsenale: Thirty countries own permanent buildings at the historic Giardini park. The Arsenale rents space for the six-month-long biennale, and India’s pavilion sits there in a brick-walled former maritime warehouse, a five-minute walk from China’s pavilion.

    What does the India pavilion put on display?

    1. Permanent Address, by Sumakshi Singh: White threads hold up fragments of a broken home, an embroidered recreation of 33 Link Road in Delhi, the artist’s now-demolished house that her grandparents, Partition refugees from Pakistan, built in 1951. The house was embroidered on water-soluble fabric down to its gates, stairs, walls, doors, windows and door bolts.
    2. Chaal, by Asim Waqif: A bamboo scaffolding 30 feet high, using 12 tonnes of bamboo sourced largely from Assam and West Bengal, stands as a commentary on the erosion of rural architecture under construction rules that favour steel and aluminium. It uses a single lashing technique, two lengths of bamboo tied with a composite nylon shipping strap, with no holes, joinery, nuts or bolts.
    3. Echoes of Home, by Skarma Sonam Tashi: A prototype of a Ladakhi settlement recalls homes traditionally built from earth, stone, timber and collective knowledge passed down generations. It was made from recycled material, including papier-mache, egg trays, cardboard and old paper.
    4. Under the Same Sky, by Ranjani Shettar: A monumental floral vine is suspended from the ceiling as a floating garden.
    5. Cracked soil, by Alwar Balasubramaniam: A two-panelled installation of cracked soil sourced from rural Tamil Nadu, one panel covering an entire wall of the pavilion.

    How was the 2026 pavilion put together?

    1. Selection process: The Culture Ministry received multiple expressions of interest and assessed proposals against the vision it sought to present at Venice, over months of discussion and evaluation.
    2. Curatorial brief widened: The selected proposal was initially for a single artist. The ministry held that India’s diversity called for a multi-artist presentation, and the curator expanded the narrative to five.
    3. The question the theme asks: The curation treats Indians as migrants and asks whether belonging is determined solely by geography, or can be sustained through memory, practice and emotional attachment.
    4. Institutional partners: The government delivered the pavilion with two institutional partners, the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) and Serendipity Arts.
    5. What a Venice presence demands: Beyond selecting artists, a pavilion requires curatorial expertise, production capability, international partnerships, sustained funding and the ability to build audiences and relationships around the work.
    6. Official reception: The biennale’s President described India’s presentation as grounded in its ancient heritage while looking to the future.

    Why has India’s presence at Venice been episodic rather than sustained?

    1. Three pavilions in 131 years: India has participated with a national pavilion only in 2011, 2019 and 2026, even as Indian artists have regularly shown in their individual capacities at the biennale’s central exhibitions.
    2. The gaps between them: India reportedly failed to accept the biennale’s invitation in 2007, and returned only after eight years following its 2011 debut.
    3. Absence as a signal: In 2015 an Indian artist said she felt ashamed at the absence of a national pavilion, because the absence showed where India placed its contemporary art.
    4. How others do it: China has showcased its pavilion since 2005 from a permanent home at the Arsenale, and smaller countries such as Uruguay and Angola either hold permanent pavilions or participate consistently.

    What did the 2011 and 2019 pavilions do differently?

    1. 2011, a free curatorial hand: The Culture Ministry chose the historian and art critic Ranjit Hoskote, who was left free to set the concept and pick the artists. He asked who had the right to call themselves Indian and left out some of the biggest names.
    2. 2011, a critical work: The debut showed Desire Machine Collective’s Residue, a short film shot in a defunct thermal power plant outside Guwahati, which took a dig at the Indian State’s thoughtless industrialisation.
    3. 2019, a commemoration as the brief: The pavilion was mounted around the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and explored his continued relevance in a world navigating conflict, with works by Jitish Kallat, Atul Dodiya, MF Husain and Shakuntala Kulkarni.
    4. 2019, the curatorial constraint: The curator was told the funds came from the Gandhi 150 commemoration, and secured agreement that the curation would carry a critical lens. Critics still dismissed the pavilion as government-mandated, unoriginal and bureaucratic.
    5. 2019, the delivery model: The Ministry of Culture worked with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) as principal partner and financial backer, and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on co-organisation, corporate advocacy and execution.
    6. The platform’s own tradition: The biennale has a rich record of artists using a State-funded platform to challenge governments. Eg. Hans Haacke’s Germania in 1993 was an indictment of the German government’s inaction over racial violence against immigrants.

    Challenges to a sustained Indian presence at the Venice Biennale

    1. Renting rather than owning a space: Participation has to be renegotiated each edition because India holds no permanent building at the biennale. Eg. Entering the Giardini park requires navigating a labyrinth of diplomatic, legal and administrative clearances, which Qatar completed in 2025 and South Korea last did in 1995.
      The Fix: Pursue a permanent space, which is cheaper over time and compels a return at every edition.
    2. Occasion-driven funding: A pavilion financed out of a commemoration ties its theme to the reason the money was released. Eg. The 2019 curation was fixed to an anniversary rather than chosen curatorially.
      The Fix: Fund the pavilion as a standing budget line, so the theme is set by the curator and not by the source of the grant.
    3. Capability that does not accumulate: Each pavilion is delivered by a fresh set of partners, so production and curatorial knowledge does not carry across editions. Eg. The 2019 and 2026 pavilions were built by entirely different institutional partners.
      The Fix: Retain a standing organising body across editions, so what one pavilion learns is available to the next.
    4. Freight exposure on craft-based work: Large installations in natural material need long lead times that a sudden conflict can destroy. Eg. Several species of bamboo had to reach Venice on fixed timelines, and the outbreak of the US-Iran war in February forced the artworks to be flown in instead of shipped.
      The Fix: Budget an air freight contingency into the production plan from the outset for bulky and perishable material.

    Conclusion

    The pavilion has been received as a success, and the success is being read as evidence of a change in how India treats contemporary art abroad. The record does not yet support that reading, because every Indian pavilion so far has followed a specific occasion rather than a standing commitment. India has confirmed a return at the next edition and is preparing to host a biennale of its own in Delhi, which gives the current momentum somewhere to go. What to watch is whether India moves from renting space each time to holding one, since renting keeps participation a decision that has to be taken again and owning makes it an obligation.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2018, GS1, 10 marks] Safeguarding the Indian art heritage is the need of the moment. Discuss.”

  • Fading alphabet to fresh paint: Dogri scripts a comeback on Jammu signboards

    Why in the News

    New public signboards in Jammu carry area names in Namey Dogra Akhar, the script of the Dogri language, alongside the usual Devanagari for Hindi and Roman for English. Dogri has long been written in Devanagari, with its own script falling into disuse. Civic authorities are putting the boards up at prominent locations and institutions as an attempt to revive that script. Dogri itself carries the full set of formal protections available to an Indian language, at the Union level and in the Union Territory. The tension is that the decision that secured the language, adopting Devanagari to popularise its literature, is the same decision that displaced its script.

    What is Namey Dogra Akhar?

    1. A modified Takri: Namey Dogra Akhar is a modified version of Takri, the original script in which Dogri was written. The name translates as new Dogri script.
    2. It was created to solve a transcription problem: Takri had no vowel signs, so official orders and documents could not be reliably transcribed in it.
    3. The vowels were borrowed from Devanagari: Writers were directed to take vowel signs from Devanagari, which produced the new script. It then entered administrative work alongside Persian, which was already in use.

    Where does Dogri stand as a language?

    1. Family and group: Dogri is an Indo-Aryan language, part of the Indo-European family that also includes Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi. It belongs to the Western Pahari group, a cluster of related languages found mainly in the western Himalayas.
    2. Speakers and spread: It was the primary language of nearly 2.6 million people at the 2011 Census. It is spoken mainly by the Dogras of Jammu and Kashmir’s Jammu division, with smaller groups in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
    3. Formal recognition: Dogri was recognised as one of the 22 scheduled languages under the Eighth Schedule in 2003. It was declared one of the official languages of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in 2020.

    How did the script lose its place in administration?

    1. The first Dogra ruler left it undeveloped: Maharaja Gulab Singh, the first Dogra ruler of Jammu and Kashmir, directed his energies at expanding the empire up to Tibet. He found little time to promote or develop Takri.
    2. His successor built the new script into government: Maharaja Ranbir Singh, who ascended the throne in 1856, was a scholar of Sanskrit and Persian and a reformer who had the civil and criminal laws compiled into the Ranbir Penal Code. The modified script emerged in administrative work during his rule.
    3. Urdu replaced Persian and squeezed the script out: Maharaja Pratap Singh, who succeeded in 1885, replaced Persian with Urdu as the official language to simplify administrative work, since Urdu was already widely used among the local population.
    4. Local use outlasted official use: The Dogri script continued to be used by many local people for several years after it lost its administrative standing.
    5. Three script demands were balanced against each other: Maharaja Hari Singh, who became ruler in 1926, faced British pressure for English in official work and a demand for Hindi in the Dogra heartland. He promoted Devanagari and Roman alongside the Perso-Arabic script used for Urdu.

    Why did reviving the language not revive the script?

    1. A literary body switched scripts to widen readership: The Dogri Sanstha, a literary organisation, adopted the Devanagari script in 1944 to popularise Dogri literature.
    2. The switch bought recognition at the script’s expense: It helped Dogri gain Sahitya Akademi recognition in 1969. It also contributed to the eventual decline of Namey Dogra Akhar.
    3. Academic institutionalisation ran entirely in Devanagari: The University of Jammu set up a Dogri Research Cell in 1971, later upgraded into a full department. The language became a formal subject in affiliated degree colleges in 1987, taught in Devanagari.
    4. The agitations were about the language, not the script: A Dogri Action Committee led by a Dogri poet held demonstrations in 1990 to get the language introduced in schools. An umbrella group, the Dogri Sangharsh Morcha, launched an agitation two years later for inclusion among the scheduled languages, and Dogri entered primary schooling as a third language in 2002.

    What is the current revival attempt?

    1. It began outside government: Civil society members started displaying boards written in Namey Dogra Akhar at religious places and cremation grounds a few years ago. A former principal of the Government Medical College, Jammu led that effort.
    2. It then moved to the municipal body: The same effort approached the Jammu Municipal Corporation to install public signboards, which is how the boards reached prominent locations and institutions.
    3. Teaching is the announced next step: Classes in the Dogri script are to be started, on the stated position that a language cannot survive without its own script.

    Challenges to reviving the Dogri script

    1. Signage does not by itself create readers: A script on a board stays decorative until a population can decode it, and Dogri continues to be taught in Devanagari. Eg. Manipur returned Meitei Mayek to everyday use only after making the script compulsory in schools from 2006.
      The Fix: Introduce the script as a taught component of the existing Dogri syllabus in schools and colleges rather than as an optional cultural add on.
    2. Digital support is thin: A script without fonts, keyboard layouts and rendering support cannot be used in the places where writing now happens. Eg. The Dogra script received its own Unicode block in 2018, and usable fonts and input methods remain scarce.
      The Fix: Commission open licensed fonts and an input method, and require them in Union Territory government publishing so the script has a working digital base.
    3. The written corpus is not accessible: Older material in Takri and its modified successor survives largely in temple and private collections rather than in catalogued, digitised archives. Eg. The National Mission for Manuscripts, set up in 2003, catalogues such holdings, and regional collections in scripts with few readers move slowest through it.
      The Fix: Fund a script specific digitisation and transliteration project, so learners have material to read once they can read it.
    4. Official status has not required the script: Recognition for the language and official language status in the Union Territory brought protection to Dogri without obliging anything to be written in its own script. Eg. Government business in the Union Territory runs in Devanagari, Roman and Perso-Arabic.
      The Fix: Mandate the script on official signage, letterheads and certificates, so demand for literacy follows an actual use.

    Conclusion

    The boards make the script visible before they make it legible, and that gap is where comparable revivals have stalled. Recognition for Dogri arrived through a script that was not its own, which is why formal status has never carried the script along with the language. The marker to watch is whether the promised classes and a place in the school syllabus follow the signboards, since a script survives by being written rather than by being displayed.

    Back2Basics: Eighth Schedule of the Constitution

    1. What it lists: The Eighth Schedule names the languages the Union is obliged to develop and enrich. It currently carries 22 languages, against 14 at the Constitution’s commencement.
    2. Where it is used in the Constitution: Article 344(1) provides for an Official Language Commission whose members are drawn from these languages. Article 351 directs the Union to draw on them in developing Hindi.
    3. How a language is added: Inclusion requires a constitutional amendment. Dogri, Bodo, Maithili and Santhali were the most recent additions, made by the 92nd Constitutional Amendment Act.

    [2018, GS1, 10 marks] Safeguarding the Indian art heritage is the need of the moment. Discuss.

  • Restoration work on temple in Goa island unearths relics from 14th to 16th century

    Restoration work on temple in Goa island unearths relics from 14th to 16th century

    Why in the News

    Restoration work at the old site of the Saptakoteshwar temple on Divar island in Goa has uncovered relics dated between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries.

    What was recovered, and where?

    1. A guardian motif: A Kirtimukh motif is among the finds, and its presence marks a formal temple entrance rather than an open air shrine.
    2. A structural element: A carved capital of a temple pillar was also recovered, which is the load bearing head of a column and part of a built temple rather than a portable object.
    3. The find spot: Both were recovered along the old pathway running between Koti Tirth and Madhavachi Talli.
    4. The dating: The relics and remains have been dated to between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries.

    Why do the finds change the reading of the site?

    1. Distribution carries the argument: The elements sit along a pathway, so it is their placement rather than the value of any single object that supports the inference.
    2. A complex rather than a shrine: Architectural members of this kind, found together, indicate a temple complex rather than one isolated structure.
    3. A sacred corridor: The alignment links the site’s water body with its associated structures into a processional route.
    4. The extent is revised: The understood extent of the island’s pre Portuguese temple landscape is now larger than the surviving remains indicated.

    Why does Saptakoteshwar matter in Goa’s religious history?

    1. A principal Shaiva site: Saptakoteshwar is counted among Goa’s principal Shaiva sites and its deity is a form of Shiva.
    2. Kadamba patronage: The Kadamba rulers of Goa held Saptakoteshwar as their tutelary deity, and the name appears on their coinage.
    3. Displacement in the Portuguese period: The Divar temple was destroyed in the sixteenth century, and the deity was moved off the island to Narve in Bicholim, which lay outside Portuguese control at the time.
    4. A later rebuilding: The temple at Narve was rebuilt in 1668 by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, and worship has continued at that site since.

    Challenges to protecting incidental archaeological finds

    1. Restoration is not excavation: Material surfacing during repair work is lifted without the layer by layer record that dates it and relates it to what lies around it. Eg. The Divar elements were recovered along a pathway during restoration rather than from a documented trench.
      The Fix: Require a licensed archaeologist to supervise any ground disturbance at a historic temple site, with layer wise recording completed before material is moved.
    2. Most sites carry no legal protection: Statutory protection attaches only to monuments notified under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 or a State equivalent, and everything else depends on local custody. Eg. The Archaeological Survey of India protects roughly 3,700 monuments, a small fraction of the country’s stock of historic sites.
      The Fix: Notify a newly evidenced site under the State protection list as soon as dated material is recovered, rather than waiting for an excavation to conclude.
    3. A living temple changes faster than it is recorded: A site in continuous worship is repaired and rebuilt by its own community, which removes earlier fabric in the process. Eg. Cement plaster and modern tiling at working shrines routinely cover older stone members.
      The Fix: Complete measured drawings and photographic documentation of a living temple before any restoration grant is released.
    4. Conservation capacity is thin: Trained conservators, epigraphists and conservation architects are few relative to the number of sites needing attention. Eg. State archaeology departments in the smaller States operate with a handful of technical posts.
      The Fix: Fund State conservation units jointly with university archaeology departments so field documentation has standing capacity behind it.

    Conclusion

    The value of these finds lies less in the objects than in the boundary they redraw around a site long assumed to end at its surviving shrine. Whether that reading holds depends on a systematic survey along the corridor rather than on further chance recovery during repair work. The step to watch is whether the pathway and its surroundings are brought under a protected category before restoration continues over them.

    Back2Basics: Kirtimukh

    1. What it is: Kirtimukh is a fierce swallowing face carved as an architectural motif, the name meaning face of glory.
    2. Where it is placed: It is set above temple doorways, over deity niches and at the apex of arches, as a guardian of the threshold.
    3. Its origin story: Puranic accounts describe a devouring being created by Shiva that consumes its own body at his command and is then placed at the entrance to be honoured first.
    4. Its reach: The motif runs across Hindu and Buddhist architecture in India and into Southeast Asia, so its presence signals a formal temple structure.

    [2018, GS1, 10 marks] Safeguarding the Indian art heritage is the need of the moment. Discuss.”

  • Safeguarding the Indian art heritage is the need of the moment. Discuss.

    Mark Twain famously described India as “the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great-grandmother of tradition”

    India’s art heritage represents an irreplaceable civilisational legacy. Safeguarding it is an urgent national priority.

    Need for safeguarding indian art heritage

    Destruction of heritage can erode Cultural Identity. Eg- Damage to murals and sculptures at Hampi and Ajanta due to vandalism and weathering.

    Need to conserve ancient wisdom and India’s diversity. Eg- India has lost over 220 languages in the last 50 years

    Rising Illicit Trafficking of Artifacts – Eg- Theft of Chola bronzes from Tamil Nadu temples.

    Environmental Threats – Pollution, humidity, and climate change accelerate decay. Eg- Impact of pollution on Taj Trapezium Zone monuments.

    Urbanisation and Infrastructure Projects ignore heritage concerns. Eg- developmental works in Varanasi demolishing ancient buildings and ghats

    Poor Documentation – Eg- Inadequate digital records of folk and tribal art traditions.

    Decline of Traditional Art Forms and Artisans – Eg- Decline of Pattachitra and Dhokra crafts.

    Unsustainable tourism damages fragile sites. Eg- Excess footfall at Ajanta and Ellora caves.

    Inadequate Legal Enforcement – Eg- Limited enforcement of Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972.

    Way Forward

    Moving from “state-led” to “community-led” conservation.

    Creating a National Digital Repository of all artifacts, including high-resolution 3D scanning.

    Expanding the “Adopt a Heritage” scheme to allow private entities to contribute to protection of heritage sites.

    Strengthening ties with UNESCO and the INTERPOL “Stolen Works of Art” database to facilitate the repatriation of artifacts smuggled abroad.

    Museum Modernization using Virtual Reality (VR) to make history relatable to the digital-native generation.

    Expanding the PM Vishwakarma Scheme

    Article 51A(f) mandates us to preserve this heritage. Moving forward, promoting cultural education and protecting cultural sites are essential.