The exhibition, India and the World – A History in Nine Stories,
comes at an opportune moment in time. The show, a collaboration between the
British Museum, London; Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS),
Mumbai and the National Museum, New Delhi will exhibit 200 rare and exquisite
objects to inform its viewers how India has always engaged with people from
across the world. While India has preserved its culture, it has also adopted
from other cultures, states co-curator Naman Ahuja.
Textile stories
For
instance, a roughly 500-year-old Golconda textile from the Deccan, that’s part
of the show, and sourced from the National Museum shows a yogi staring at a
pineapple. “He has never seen the fruit as it comes from South America and the
Portugese got them here for us,” explains Ahuja. In the same work, a Persian
king is offered a glass of wine, a trader is depicted with Chinese ceramics and
another character with pomegranates, which came to Hyderabad via Central Asia.
“This piece tells us the story about the things that came to India,” shares
Ahuja. Other art objects in the show depict objects that travelled from India
only to become a part of another country’s culture. “When we look at this cloth
we know that as we have hung on to new traditions, we have also been
assimilating new things, which have become our traditions in time,” says Ahuja.
All of which makes India and the World – A History in Nine Stories a
celebration of how India has absorbed from the rest of the world as much as it
has disseminated its culture.
Change is constant
Drawing
parallels with another contemporary incident of braid chopping instances across
India, Ahuja reflects on how some village girls want short hair. “We know that
India is really changing and there’s a lot of anxiety about it. I want this
exhibition to be an opportunity for people to see that we have always been
changing,” he states. It’s these ideas that together make for the crux of the
curatorial approach of the exhibition, which Ahuja admits is selective and
subjective. Primarily, because it’s impossible to narrate India and the world’s
entire history with a limited number of objects that are parts of the show.
Most importantly, India remains pivotal to each and every story that’s part of
the show.
The
curators decided to choose significant moments of India’s history and tell us a
gripping tale in nine different parts. It starts with ‘Shared Beginnings’, the
first section of the exhibition that talks of early man and his cultural
evolution. A stone tool from Attirampakkam, Tamil Nadu, dating back to 1.7 –
1.07 million years ago is one of the highlights of the section. It marks the
end of a wandering way of life and the beginning of settled agriculture.
The
story dubbed, ‘First Cities’ travels back to 2,500 BCE when man settled down in
urban dwellings. What does it take to make these cities? You need government
and somebody to run the city, an administration. An agate bull with real gold
horns dating back to 1800 BC, from the Harappan civilisation, is in this
section’s spotlight. Efficient governance systems now become extremely crucial,
which gives rise to different empires like the Roman, Egyptians and the Ashokan
and Mauryan empires.
Other
sections focus on the great ‘Empires of the world’ (500 to 2000 BCE), State and
Faith (400 to 709 CE), talking about how rulers used religion to endorse
kingship and strengthen their grip over land and subject. “The great empires of
the world need a model basis to run them and the means for the public to
legitimise and believe in their king,” says Ahuja.
Bartering ideas
The
most significant part of the exhibition – ‘Indian Ocean Traders’ (200 to 1500
CE) showcases the period when the exchange of goods, ideas and cultures began.
That’s when different societies and world cultures interact with each other,
exchanging ideas, philosophies, arts and customs. “We initially thought of
focussing on the Silk Road, but zeroed down on the Indian Ocean trade as Mumbai
(the host of the exhibition) is a port city,” shares Ahuja. This segment looks
at the lives and stories of the Indian Ocean traders. It looks at individual
objects and how it transformed people’s lives and person-to-person contact.
Crucial
to this story is that cross-border trade and commerce is prospering as are the
kingdoms. It’s all about different methods of control, which ultimately leads to
the 19th and 20th centuries’ struggle for freedom.
What is history?
‘The
Quest for Freedom’ draws the exhibition into a more contemporary time frame
focusing on the struggles that different countries waged again conquest and
colonial oppression. The ninth story, ‘Time Unbound’ questions the notion of
history and the premise of the show. “We have to remember that not everyone can
be painted by the brush of how we are defining what was the main moment in
those eight stories,” says Ahuja. “For instance, while there were several great
cities in the world, there were also those who chose not to live in cities.
It’s their choice. So, are they or not part of that time?” The works of this
last, intriguing section discuss the concept of time, its validity and what is
or not is part of that time. Ahuja says it was necessary to add the last
gallery, “History is stories through time. It’s about chronology.” says Ahuja.
The
section exhibits a huge aboriginal, Australian work from the British Museum
called ‘Bush Potato Dreaming’. Ahuja explains, “[The aborigines] believe that
there is something called as dream time and the painting deals with that. They
believe that you communicate with land and its spirit through dreams.”
India
and the World: A History in Nine Stories will open at the
CSMVS, Fort on November 11 and will show until February 18, 2018.
Souce:THE HINDU-10th November,2017
