SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY - NDA's 'modernisation' at work in Crafts Museum. Artist’s Lifework destroyed by bureaucratic vandalism
In an act of bureaucratic vandalism that is being
condemned by art lovers in the Capital, the Crafts Museum has destroyed an
iconic representation of a bridal nuptial chamber from Mithila known as a kohbar
ghar that was specially painted for it by an acclaimed artist from
Bihar, Ganga Devi (1928-1991). Breaking the news of the chamber’s demolition, Jyotindra
Jain, a former director of the museum, said the walls of the room had
been “painted from top to bottom by Ganga Devi over a period of 3 to 4
months” despite suffering from cancer.
“It was in late 1980s. She was detected with cancer and the
doctors suggested that she should not be allowed to go back to Mithila as she
needed regular chemotherapy. So we gave her some space at the Crafts Museum to
stay and get herself treated. Since she was in acute pain those days, she
wanted to keep herself busy, wanted to draw. We gave her a room to paint.
Almost all the four walls of that room were painted by her from the floor
to the ceiling. The date of completion of the work as signed by her on it was
1.1. 1990.”
The work was considered so remarkable that it has been well
documented in major art books, said Jain. “I did it too in my book on
Ganga Devi. How can an important work of art just be allowed to vanish like
that, that too in a museum?”
Ganga Devi (1928-1991), one of the most acclaimed Mithila artists of
the 20th century, seen here painting a kohbar ghar in a room of the
Crafts Museum in New Delhi in the 1980s. Her work has now been painted over.
Credit: Jyotindra Jain
Even as Jain and others mourned the loss of the work, museum
officials justified their action. The Crafts Museum has been headless
since April, when its last director, Ruchira Ghose retired, but
the government is pushing the staff to implement a modernisation plan in
time for the India-Africa summit this October. “We removed [Ganga Devi’s
work] as part of the renovation”, a museum official told The
Wire. “It couldn’t be saved, the mud was peeling off, the paint was fading,
everything was coming off. I have been associated with the museum for the last
30 years, don’t worry, we will get another made.” He acknowledged that it would
be very difficult to get people to do a kohbar ghar. “So
we will ask Shanti Devi, who is from Ganga Devi’s family, to make one in the
renovated hall.”
Jain, however, contests this claim. “When I saw the kohbar
ghar 4-5 months ago, it was in good shape,” he told The
Wire. “There was just a bit of chipping here and there which shouldn’t be a
reason in today’s times to discard an important art work. My question is, did
they take the report of any art conservator before demolishing the walls?
Should it not have been the right way to go about it?”
As for the idea that the museum can simple “get another
made”, Jain says the work is irreplaceable. Ganga Devi was a true legend as an
artist and was nationally recognised with a President’s Award, a Padma Shree.
Ganga Devi’s was the “only example of a complete iconographic rendering of
Mithila’s kohbar ghar and that too, painted in
her extraordinary personal idiom.” The painted chamber was “an
extraordinary and unique monument in the history of contemporary folk and
tribal arts of India.”
Poonam Devi, whose husband was one of the two nephews of
Ganga Devi who stayed at the Crafts Museum to make thekohbar ghar in
the 1980s, also spoke with reverence of Ganga Devi’s work. After her
husband passed away last year due to lung cancer, Poonam, a resident of Ashok
Nagar in Delhi, was given employment at the Crafts Museum as a daily wage
earner. She too does Madhubani painting. “Ganga Devi was my husband’s
aunt. She taught all of us the art, including the daughter-in-laws. That is how
I and my sister in law, Shanti Devi learnt the art of making a kohbar but
not as skilfully as she used to do.”
Poonam remembers the effort Ganga Devi put in to her
painting at the museum. “She was in utter pain those days … I saw it being
done bit by bit and I saw it being demolished too. It was sad to see it go. The
museum could have saved that wall. For a long time, it just didn’t take care of
it and one day they just razed it all.” Jain, too, is inconsolable. “I feel so numbed and
devastated, to say the least.”
The room which once hosted Ganga Devi’s famous work now
has whitewashed walls. In the middle of the hall, workers can be seen trying to
fix another beautiful piece of folk art. “That work is also by a
President’s awardee who is no more. It is a grain storage jar. How can the
museum allow it to be mishandled like this?”, asks Jain.
