Colonial Museums: An Inner History

Colonial Museums: An Inner History envisages the British approach, programmes and policies towards Indian museums. During the colonial era, Indian museums were provincial resource centres for procuring cultural objects. They functioned as tools for hegemonising culture and presented a distorted picture of India's past. To counter this, Indian art historians and political reformers took initiatives to bring about a desirable change in exhibitions and museum displays. Thereafter, nationalist trends in organising exhibitions began to emerge, and museums became contested terrains between Indians and the British.