In global relation and social accountability , these became more extensive, intensive, facilitating new forms of identity, community and action. Tremendous cultural changes claims to institutional ownership of heritage resources are being challenged.

Now museum is centre for sustainable development, promotion of environment, piece, social, economic, cultural diversity and empowerment individually the components of society, disseminating scientific information of our cultural and natural heritage. The museum must attract the young and the old, educated and the uneducated, the rich and the poor.

We must realise that the museum can communicate as effectively or even more effectively that electronic media, for museums can show the original objects and not mere pictures of them and talk individually on the visitors, more to the students, the peoples of tomorrow, whose job is to shape the density of the country. Museum has certainly a role to play in our nation building.

Museums have become innovative playing grounds. Where adopt new technologies and tools can be developed and applied to everyday life. Digital innovation can make museums more accessible and engaging, helping audiences understand complex and nuanced concepts.Digital applications in museums have been to keep up with the times and launch new solutions for their objects and services. These applications include online exhibitions new research processes, online museum visit and advanced collections displays. By using and promoting digitized products, heritage will be transported to communicates, researchers and visitors more easily, thereby creating value – added services and incredible memories. Digital media can support learning processes in exhibitions in many ways, interactions between visitors and museum. Emailing functions or personalised web links provide possibilities to extend the museum visit and engagement with the contents provided, to times and places beyond the specific on site museum visit. It can connect with the audience through time and space and interaction with their audiences from one  – way to two – way.

A virtual museum is also known as an online museum, digital museum, web museum. Interaction  between  museum and world become possible through this type of  museums.

 Modern technology have an impact with the museums too close engagement with the public. Audio – visual technique and lighting integration in museums for the following reasons – 

Sound and light show can create a mixed atmosphere that attracts an audience to certain piece. Museum can generate many optical and sensory illusions. This gives us  a chance for ancient objects to come back  to life , tell their stories and be a part of life. To play visuals that back up a speaker’s text, speakers, screens and lighting need to be installed.

Museums are organised different programmes for security. Some important museums and their main social activities are as follows – 

Gandhi memorial museum, Madurai – organised Gandhi memorial lecture series, inter religious prayer on 2nd October every year, summer course on histrionic talents ,to develop the histrionic talents embedded in children, self supportive programmes, inter faith prayer,  seminar focusing on women ‘s development, short term courses on household materials preparation , food preservation etc., in which participates sarvodaya workers, educationists , women, children and persons from different sections of the society .

Vivekananda house, Chennai  – Computer training  is given free of charges to the poor children ,coaching to the poor school children, Yoga classes are held for men and women etc.

Dr. Ambedkar Museum and Memorial, Pune – The larger goal is to inspire people to uphold the principles of social justice and equality, peace and humanitarianism. Marathi medium school has been stared  to educate children’s from below poverty line. Museum provide training in computers, mobile phone applications to elders who want to keep up contact with young generation. 

Nehru Memorial Museum and library, Delhi – offers fellowships to scholars. Museum monitors  the research projects and publication , seminars and lectures.

Parliament museum, New Delhi – This is a story telling museum on democratic heritage in India. Museum  with light and sound ,video animation, computer multimedia, immersive visualization with multi screen panoramic projection, virtual reality and animatronics.

Sri Krishna museum at Kurukshetra – Technological advancement attracts the visitors to visit this museum.

Kolkata Panorama – This is a hi –tech story telling museum with panoramic projection, animatronics, light and sound, virtual reality etc.

Goa –  Chitra  Museum, Goa – Along with traditional concept museum emphasised on social inclusion. Museum used space for contemporary art and artist’s residency for organizing local cultural performance. They also engaged local farmers for organic farm, vegetable garden for their open arable land and artisans for craft work shop.

Dakhina Chitra Museum – “a picture of the South”, preserve, promote and present the rich cultural heritage of South India. Promote crafts through hands on activities and workshops for their visitors, learning based special activities for students  and children are organised regularly. Museum contact with craftsmen, artists, artisans, NGOs and Self Help Groups for their products a wider platform. They also offer design advice and marketing advice to interested groups for their product development.

The Crafts Museum – New Delhi, Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahashala – Mumbai, Bagnan Ananda Niketan Kirtishala-Howrah, Santal Museum – Birbhum, west Bengal, Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manab Sangrahalaya,Bhopal are some of the other museums who have changes their traditional museum function, with contemporary change they have successfully integrated the communities .

State education policy would expose of students from the secondary level on different museum activities, visit to different types museums, as in integral part of the museums. The ministry of Culture  and Human Resource Development Centre and other related Government departments must provide the necessary approval, funds and facilities for the purpose. At present ‘Museum and Heritage study’ included in the degree course level also Master degree syllabus. Every college  and university must have on its teacher a Museologist so that each college and university can develop, with active assistance of parents and students, a mini museum of  replica, originals and illustrations. They should also organised  outreach  programmes of visiting museums and studying relevant collections and specimens. The power of community building through education. The collection of objects of the museum and academic programmes, museums achieve and establish if self as a community building.

 The role of museums and museum personnel have a responsibility to carry on perform properly to shoulder for better. Museums have to connect the past to the present and develop a link to the future.

About Author:

 Dr. Sanjit Jotder 

Assistant Professor, Department of Museology

Calcutta University

Even though I have grown up merely six kilometers away from Tagore’s university, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, and having studied there for twelve years, I could not to relate Tagore for a long time with our idea of Adivasi development initiated more than three decades ago in two Santal villages of Ghosaldanga and Bishnubati. 

I grew up with the sense that Rabindranath Tagore is an emotional solace reserved for  the Bengali cultural elite and that he has nothing much to do with us, the Santals. There are six Santal villages situated in the campus of the university and dozens are at its periphery. These villages have since generations witnessed the transformation of Santiniketan from Tagore’s Ashram to an internationally acclaimed University as mere neighbours. They themselves have not participated in this transformation. The Santal villagers look at the Santiniketan campus as a land of wonders. People of multiple languages and colours have arrived from different parts of the world, but the Santals have remained mere spectators even today.

The stable connection that exists with Santiniketan since Tagore’s days is not with the people but with the birds, rats, mice, snakes, rabbits, foxes, because the green, bushy and sometimes jungle campus of the university remains an ideal hunting ground for the common Santals. The job opportunities have been created for them by the Santiniketan community, but that is merely for working as house maids, night guards of the empty bungalows and occasionally for dance programmes of Santal men and women for the enjoyment of the educated middle-class.  Recently the adjacent Santal villages have been included in the official tour plan of the tourists who arrive from outside to visit sites like the Tagore museum, the Kanch mandir, Khoyai and Bauls. The Government also supports this initiative and popularizes it through hoardings that advertise the visits to Santal villages. The legacy which projects Santals as objects for fulfilling the emotional gratification of the so-called mainstream society is still alive. This legacy was created by many classic Bengali writings and by movies of Bengali literary and artistic stalwarts.  

My interest on Tagore’s idea on Rural Reconstruction and education grew much later when I tried to understand him beyond the way he is being practiced in Santiniketan. Since then Rabindranath Tagore has influenced me and our ideas of work for Santals in various ways.  But this influence occurred more on an unconscious level than in an organized way. Our village work did not follow any pre-conceived method or any established theory of development. The work preceded according to the need and aspiration of the village people and the strategy was based on the rhythm of the Santals’ way of life and considering their cultural strengths and wisdom. 

Now, when I read more about Tagore’s idea of development, I find we have some similarities with his approach to rural development. For example, our idea of a non-formal Santal school: We believe that Santal tribal children should learn through their mother tongue and gradually switch over to other languages and cultures of the country. This reflects Tagore’s broader idea of education that you first know yourself and then only move beyond. I also find several human values and practices that Tagore tried to inculcate among the Ashramites are already inherited by Santals traditionally through their way of life. For example, he talked about the need of Ananda, the joy of life. We Santals call it Raska. Santals try to find joy in every work they do, and without raska they find it difficult to accomplish it. He also talked about Mukti, the sense of freedom from worldly means. Santals by nature are indifferent towards the material progress in life. Hence, we do not find any successful businessmen among Santals. Tagore also talked about education in nature. He was in love with nature. Similarly, Santals are nature worshipers. He also introduced community life among the students and teachers in Santiniketan, Santals traditionally lead a community life. Tagore introduced festivals in Santiniketan like Poush utsav (in harvest season), Basanta utsav (spring festival), Magh utsav (festival in the month of magh), Hala  karshan (tilling of land), Briksha ropan (tree plantation) and created several occasions where the students, teachers and people from the villages can interact with each other, to enjoy the essence of togetherness with the cycle of the seasons. Santals traditionally have several festivals related to different seasons of the year such as Eroh parab (sowing of seeds); Magh parab (thanks giving ceremony at the end of Santali calendar), Janthar (ritual to get better crops); Dasae (celebrating the relationship between Guru and chela/shisya), Sorhae (the harvest festival), Baha (flower festival to celebrate the spring). 

The basic difference with Tagore’s approach is that it is based on a conscious effort and keeping a broader human perspective in mind.  The Santals’ way of life is based on their inherited knowledge and wisdom; even today when Santals celebrate such festivals and perform rituals, they do it as a tradition to be followed and hardly reflect upon them consciously. Otherwise how is it possible that a Santal man enjoy drinking and dancing for several days at the same time ignoring the sick in his own family and his wife and children at home go hungry? 

Rabindranath did not reflect any particular approach on Santal development in his writings, had been so the legacy of coexistence between Tagore and Santals would have been different. However, his holistic approach of human development has revitalized and strengthened our belief that the positive cultural values of Santal life can play an important role in sustainable development of our society even in the modern world. 

About the author:Boro Baski, Ph.D, is a trustee of Ghosaldanga Bishnubati Adibsi Trust and the co-founder of a Non-formal Santal school, Rolf Schoembs Vidyashram, near Santiniketan, West Bengal. The school has an innovative approach to Santal education with Tagore’s emphasis on learning through play, music, arts and mother tongue.  He has translated three books and written several articles in national and international journals and edited volumes.

The word “Ethnography” denotes the idea of learning and writing about the community. The ethnography practice derived in the colonial period largely from the urge of knowing about the lesser- known communities and has been criticised for it’s colonial biases. The process of writing about the community also tends to get influenced by the pre-conceived knowledge and notions of the researcher. Ethnography as a process depends knowledge gathered from the observations by living in/ with the community. But, can anyone live somebody else’s life? Or, is the researcher only pretending to become a part of the community? The process requires an understanding of the limitations that come with the different spaces the researchers and the communities they work with inhabit. The researchers need to be conscious about their subjectivity and become a ‘vulnerable observer’ to begin a journey of co-learning and co-experiencing in the community space.

As there is often a pre-set hierarchy assumed by the researcher in such programs, Dr. Sarkar Munsi’s discussion centred around the idea of “learning to unlearn” as a basic tool of such community-based work. In the talk, Dr. Sarkar Munsi asked, what is the way to be ethical in the process of knowing? How do we place ourselves? She suggested that the process has to generate a form of co-creation and sharing of knowledge generated from discussions with the community – by bringing together skills and building on the need of the community. The generated knowledge belongs to both the community and researcher and the consent of making and sharing the knowledge has to come from both. She again questions, how does consent work in a position of power? The researcher, who has the ability to write, appears with a camera and a microphone – automatically sets forth a hierarchy in the space. That also tends to create a hierarchy of knowledge. As a result, one has to constantly create spaces for dialogue and sharing while planning any program or activity with the community.

As the community consistently adjusts to its embodied and experiential lived realities, it is necessary to revisit the space over and over again to understand the changes and nuances. Dr. Sarkar Munsi mentions how repeated exposure to the everyday life/space of the community is necessary to understand the needs and views of any human group. Imposition of pre-planned ideas is often the norm that one needs to consciously avoid. Hence, it is necessary to create a clear boundary of ethics through a self-reflexive process in the ethnographic work, while working for/with, writing and learning about people.