Ganga Devi’s Left The Building

Destruction of her murals shows the rot in the museum. The mindless destruction of Ganga Devi’s extraordinary last works at the Crafts Museum is terribly sad. It highlights the caste system between art and craft, the indifference to the creative integrity of a craftsperson’s vision. The quoted reaction of a Crafts Museum official, “Don’t worry, I’ll get another kohbar ghar painted” shows that, even for someone who claims to have worked there for 30 years, one piece of craft is much like another. So Ganga Devi is no more, let’s get Sita Devi or Champa Devi or Ambika Devi. It’s all Madhubani after all, so what’s the difference? There was an eerily similar response when rumours of the transformation of the Crafts Museum into a Hastkala Academy evoked a public outcry. “Why the fuss? Nothing much happens in the Craft Museum,” was one bureaucrat’s reaction.   Typical is the lack of communication and consultation. Bureaucrats naturally cannot be experts in everything. They need inputs from specialists. Earlier, there was always a process of consultation. When new schemes were being planned, when changes in an established institution or practice were contemplated, when programmes needed evaluation, a committee or working group would be set up, consisting of a cross-section of experts — representative, knowledgeable, and hopefully objective. If there was occasionally too much talk and not enough action, there was at least ...