The Colonial Museum as a Tool of Control
by Muhammad Nishat Hussain
Rohan Fernando’s argument that the British safeguarded Indian “cultural heritage” by establishing museums across the subcontinent in his several articles published in History Reclaimed is a deeply flawed and historically misleading assertion. While he frames these institutions as evidence of British efforts to “preserve” Indian history, a critical analysis of their purpose, structure, and function reveals a more insidious reality. These museums were not neutral spaces of cultural appreciation; rather, they were instruments of colonial control designed to reframe Indian history through an imperial lens.
Fernando’s narrative follows a well-established pattern of imperial nostalgia, where colonial endeavors, such as the creation of institutions, infrastructure, and administrative systems, are recast as benevolent contributions to the colonized world. However, his argument disregards the fundamental power dynamics at play: the British did not merely “introduce” museums to India; they imposed a system that centralized cultural artefacts in colonial administrative hubs, thereby stripping local communities of access to their own heritage. This was not preservation, it was cultural reorganization on imperial terms.
Museums as Sites of Imperial Knowledge Production
Fernando’s article fails to acknowledge the primary function of museums in colonial India: the production and control of knowledge. By centralizing artifacts in Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras – cities that were commercial and administrative centres of the British Empire – the colonial government established control over the narrative of Indian history.
The museums he praises were not built to serve the Indian public but to serve imperial interests. The Indian Museum in Calcutta (established in 1814), the Madras Museum (1851), and the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay (1922) were all strategically located in cities that facilitated colonial governance and trade. These museums functioned as spaces where Indian antiquities were categorized, exhibited, and interpreted through a Eurocentric framework that positioned British scholars as the ultimate authorities on India’s past.
By omitting this context, Fernando’s argument aligns with the broader colonial justification that British rule was necessary for the preservation of Indian culture. However, the very act of placing artefacts in these museums severed them from their original cultural and religious contexts. The display of Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic artifacts in secular institutions, governed by colonial administrators, was not an act of preservation but an assertion of control over historical narratives.
Selective “Preservation” and the Erasure of Indigenous Custodianship
Fernando conveniently overlooks the fact that Indian society had its systems of preservation long before the British arrived. Temples, stupas, and other religious institutions functioned as sites of cultural conservation where artefacts were not just stored but actively worshipped and engaged with by local communities. The British disrupted these systems, removing objects from their original environments and placing them in museums where they were transformed into passive exhibits rather than living cultural entities.
The Myth of Museums as “Gifts” to India
One of the most problematic aspects of Fernando’s argument is his implicit suggestion that these museums were a “gift” from the British to India. This assumption rests on a Eurocentric understanding of museums as the highest form of cultural conservation, ignoring the fact that their very existence was a byproduct of colonial domination.
If these museums were truly intended to benefit Indians, why were they primarily controlled by British officials for most of their existence? The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which oversaw many of these museums, was founded in 1861 and remained under British leadership until independence. Even Sir John Marshall, whom Fernando praises for his contributions to museum-building, explicitly stated that his work aimed to ensure that Indian heritage was studied and managed according to Western scholarly standards.
Furthermore, the museum-building efforts Fernando highlights were not acts of generosity but strategic investments in imperial governance. The British understood that controlling history was a powerful means of justifying colonial rule. By curating and interpreting Indian artefacts within a Western framework, they reinforced the idea that Indian civilization was something to be studied and classified by Europeans rather than something Indians themselves could claim ownership over.
The Failure to Acknowledge Colonial Violence
Perhaps the most glaring omission in his argument is his complete disregard for the violent means through which these museums acquired their collections. He presents British-established museums as benign institutions that “preserved” Indian culture, but he does not engage with the fact that many of the artefacts housed in these museums were acquired through coercion, plunder, and forced excavation.
The case of Amaravati, for instance, exemplifies the extractive nature of British museum-building. The 2nd-century Buddhist sculptures from the Amaravati Stupa were systematically removed and divided between the Madras Museum and the British Museum, depriving local communities of their cultural heritage. Similarly, the Bharhut and Sanchi sculptures, which Fernando cites as examples of British contributions to preservation, were removed from their original religious sites and placed in museums where they were stripped of their spiritual significance.
By failing to acknowledge these histories of displacement, Fernando’s argument not only distorts reality but also aligns with colonial apologetics that seek to sanitize the exploitative aspects of British rule.
A More Honest Assessment of Colonial Museums
A thoughtful analysis of British-founded museums in India cannot ignore the power dynamics that shaped their creation and function. While these institutions did contribute to the study of Indian history, they did so on terms dictated by the colonial state. They were not neutral spaces of preservation but mechanisms of imperial control that centralized artefacts in colonial capitals, rewrote historical narratives, and deprived local communities of their cultural heritage.
Moreover, Fernando’s failure to engage with the broader context of colonial cultural policies—such as the destruction of indigenous archives, the looting of royal treasuries, and the imposition of Western modes of knowledge production—renders his argument fundamentally one-sided.
If we are to have an honest conversation about the legacy of colonial museums, it must begin by acknowledging their role in the systematic reordering of history to serve imperial interests. Any claim that these institutions were simply about “preservation” must be critically examined against the reality that they were also instruments of control, exclusion, and cultural disruption.
Conclusion: The Need for a Decolonized Understanding of Museums
Fernando’s article represents a nostalgic and misleading perspective that frames British museum-building in India as a benevolent endeavor. In reality, these museums functioned as tools of colonial governance, systematically extracting artefacts from local communities and presenting them through an imperial framework that denied indigenous agency.
A decolonized understanding of this history requires us to reject the myth that British museums in India were gifts to the colonized population. Instead, we must recognize them as part of a broader colonial strategy of cultural dominance—one that not only displaced artefacts but also reshaped historical narratives to serve imperial interests. Any meaningful discussion of these museums must therefore move beyond celebratory accounts of their establishment and critically examine the power structures that sustained them.
Muhammad Nishat Hussain holds an M.Phil. in Art History from Government College, University of Lahore, Pakistan. His thesis, entitled “Politics of Displaced Artifacts: British Empire, India, and Pakistan (1849–1994)” investigates the trajectories of looted cultural heritage and the postcolonial politics of restitution. Drawing on archival sources, it examines how colonial authorities displaced artifacts through extractive policies and instrumentalized museums as mechanisms of imperial dominance.
Bibliography:
- Dan Hicks. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (London: Pluto Press, 2020).
- Bénédicte, Savoy. Africa’s Struggle for Its Art: History of a Postcolonial Defeat (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022).
- Arthur, MacGregor. The India Museum Revisited. (UCL Press, 2023).
- Lahiri, Nayanjot. 2012. “Partitioning the Past: India’s Archaeological Heritage after Independence,” in Appropriating the Past: Philosophical Perspectives on the Practice of Archaeology, edited by Geoffrey Scarre and Robin Coningham, 295–312. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
- Singh, Kavita. 2022. “Remembering and Forgetting in the National Museums of South Asia,” in Museums, Transculturality, and the Nation-State: Case Studies from a Global Context, edited by Susanne Leeb and Nina Samuel, 53–86. (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag). https://doi.org/10.1515/
9783839455142-005. - Thakurta, Guha Tapati. 2004. Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Post-Colonial India. (New York: Columbia University Press).
Reply: A Critique of ‘The Colonial Museum as a Tool of Control’
By R. P. Fernando
In his article entitled ‘The Colonial Museum as a Tool of Control’ Mr Muhammad Hussain claims that Indian museums were not neutral spaces of cultural appreciation but were instruments of colonial control designed to reframe Indian history through an imperial lens. Furthermore, he asserts that they functioned as tools of colonial governance, systematically extracting artefacts from local communities and presenting them through an imperial framework that denied indigenous agency.
If these allegations were well-founded then, after independence, one would have expected Indians to have considered these institutions of little value, possibly to be closed down, or to change their use. In reality, on the anniversaries of the founding of these museums, elaborate ceremonies have taken place and leading Indian dignitaries have acknowledged the importance of these institutions for the country and commended the British officials who were involved in their founding. The Mr Hussain mentions three museums – the Madras Museum, the Indian Museum in Kolkata and the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. Each has been lavishly commemorated on the anniversary of its founding.
The first museum of these to be commemorated was the Madras Museum on its centenary. On the 27 November 1951, the Prime Minister, Mr Nehru, addressed dignitaries, including the Governor and Chief Minister of Madras and the Education Minister and dedicated the Victoria Memorial Hall, which had been built in 1909 (with its foundation stone laid by the Prince of Wales in 1906) as the National Art Gallery. A special Centenary Exhibition was arranged and a small lecture room, the Goli Room, was renamed the Centenary Exhibition Hall and used for artistic exhibitions. The museum also published a 250-page souvenir in which the Governor of Madras, Mr K Kumarsinji, wrote:
I am happy to be associated with the Centenary Celebration of the Madras Government Museum. My thoughts naturally go back to the days of the East India Company when Sir Henry Pottinger, Governor of Fort St. George, obtained the sanction of the Court of the Directors of the Company to accept the offer made by the Madras Literary Society of its small geological collection as the nucleus of a Central Museum.
He added:
The Governors who followed Sir Henry Pottinger, Lord Harris, The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, and Lord Connemara, took a personal interest in the Museum and some of the outstanding exhibits now in the Museum, such as the Amaravati Sculptures and the sculpture of the elephant from Hampi were obtained for the museum on the initiative taken by them.
The Indian Museum in Kolkata celebrated its bicentenary in 2014. There were special exhibitions, a commemorative postage stamp was issued, and a lavishly-produced book 200 Years of the Indian Museum 1814-2014 by Soumitra Das was published. At the main commemorative event, the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, in his address said:
This Museum, founded in 1814, has survived two hundred years in the midst of historic upheavals. It was the first to be established in India and is perhaps the largest in the Asia-Pacific Region and older than the Smithsonian Institution which is the largest museum in the world. Its establishment served as a model, not only for other museums, but a number of institutions of national importance.
It is ironic that the Indian Museum was founded by Western academics and intellectuals and that, too, at a time when parts of our country had begun to fall under ‘the colonial yoke’. Nevertheless, these individuals were the products of the Age of Enlightenment. Eighteenth century India was in any case an interesting subject for contemporary Western scholars who wanted to study India’s historical past, its culture and scientific achievements. In some ways, the establishment of the Indian Museum was also a reflection of the historical necessity to showcase the heritage of the vast and diverse country that India is.
The depth, richness and the variety of India’s cultural traditions soon turned the initial wonder of these into awe and admiration. In 1814, Dr Nathaniel Wallich, a Danish botanist, realized that the Asiatic Society could also provide a basis for a fine public museum. As he stated: ‘The deplorable neglect to which the natural history of this country has been exposed to is very striking and must principally be attributed to total want in India of a public museum’. This realisation gave birth to the Indian Museum.
The building-up of the museum was part of a project devoted to what some scholars in the late 20th century called ‘colonial knowledge’. This produced, besides the Indian Museum, great institutions like the Geological Survey of India, the Survey of India, the Archaeological Survey, and even the Census of India. It thus set in motion a process that produced the institutional underpinnings for the rediscovery of India.
Though colonial in origin, the process made Indians more aware and sensitive to their histories and traditions. The Museum soon received the support of Indians, and benefactors in the early days included notables like Kali Kissen Bahadur and Begum Surnroo. Its establishment also fostered a sense of justifiable patriotism and pride among the people of our country. Rabrindranath Tagore aptly described the milieu when he said that: ‘The great seeds of renaissance in history were those when men suddenly discovered the seeds of thought in the granary of the past’.
The Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay, known now as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangralaya (CSMVS), celebrated its centenary relatively recently in January 2022. The museum’s centenary souvenir noted:
On the 10th of January, 2022, CMSVS completes 100 years of its glorious journey – a landmark, not only in the history of the Museum but also for the cultural movement of the country. The Museum was an outcome of a strong desire expressed by the public of the then Bombay at the beginning of the 20th century. Realising the cultural requirements of this moment, Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, Sir Ibrahim Rahimtulla and Sir Vithaldas Thakersay formulated and suggested the establishment of a public museum to the then British Government (Bombay Presidency). The object of the institution was to go beyond the functions of a mere show museum, working actively to educate its visitors.
The Museum building was designed and built by the Scottish architect George Wittet in the Indo-Saracenic style. With the commencement of the First World War (1914), the space was used as a war hospital, continuing to be so during the influenza pandemic in 1918-20. During this period the museum was renamed the Lady Hardinge War Hospital.
It was on the 10th January 1922 that the Museum finally opened its doors to the public with a speech by the then Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mr J T Brander, who stated the purpose of the Museum: ‘It should be largely an institution or foundation for promoting research in all branches of science and knowledge and not only a museum of curiosities for the sightseer’.
At the conclusion of the Chairman’s speech in the opening ceremony, Her Excellency the Honourable Lady Lloyd (wife of the Governor of Bombay) rose to reply:
If those functions are adequately performed by a museum, the stranger who visits it will have the history of its community unrolled before his eyes. He will be presented with a fascinating picture of the natural surroundings in which the community lives, of the varieties of its climate, and of its achievements in every sphere of art and science. Once such respect is achieved – the demand for a great museum must arise and those who did not support it are depriving the credit of the community. Fortunately, here in Bombay there have not been lacking generous supporters of this Museum.
Many things have changed since then. The city is now known as Mumbai and the Museum, which was named to commemorate the visit of the Prince of Wales (later George V) was renamed CSMVS in 2001. In these 100 years, the Museum has fulfilled its aim to create awareness and sensitivity towards our heritage through its acquisitions, collection research, and a visitor-friendly experience for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. In the last decade particularly, the Museum has been transformed into a world-class visitor space. Its centenary was also commemorated by the publication of a beautifully illustrated book, Musings in the Museum, by Harsha V Dehejia.
It is evident that these museums are greatly valued in India. They were not all founded solely at the instigation of Britons. The case for the Calcutta Museum was made by a Danish botanist and that for the Prince of Wales Museum by eminent Indians of the day. Today these museums are also important tourist attractions. Their anniversaries are lavishly commemorated and leading Indians, including their Prime Ministers, appreciate the important role they play in the cultural life of the country and highly regard the Britons who were involved in their founding. These remarks also apply to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) (1861) which has also been greatly valued in India. (R. P. Fernando, https://historyreclaimed.co.
I will now address some individual claims made by Mr Hussain. He contends that the British located these museums in cities to facilitate colonial governance and trade. He has apparently not noticed that in most countries in the world, major museums are located in cities as there are more people on the doorstep who can visit the museum and there are inevitably better transport links to the rest of the country and the world from a big city than from a small, remote town. The British did not only establish big museums in cities, however. They also established modest-size museums adjacent to archaeological sites such as at Sarnath, Sanchi and Taxila, and very small museums in, for example, medical colleges. Since independence, India has founded many fine museums and the large ones are also in cities.
The reviewer rightly says that some religious artefacts had been displayed in temples and mosques before the British came and by exhibiting them in museums they lost their religious identity. Most of the Buddhist sites had been destroyed before the arrival of the British and artefacts in these sites were generally not being worshipped before their arrival. What he says is true for Hindu and Muslim artefacts. Yet by placing them in museums it has enabled the public to see many of them in a single visit, for the items to be studied by researchers, and their historical significance to be explained to the public.
The reviewer claims that the British acquired artefacts for museums through coercion, plunder and forced excavation and gives as examples the Buddhist sites at Bharut, Sanchi and Amaravati. In reality, Buddhism had disappeared from India in the 12th century and all Buddhist sites were in a shocking state at the time of the arrival of the British. One of Britain’s greatest legacies in India was to rediscover and restore these sites. (See R. Fernando, https://historyreclaimed.co.
When the Bharut site was discovered by General Cunningham in 1873, it was engulfed by jungle and the local population had plundered the stupa (temple) for building material. All that remained were the railings. In order to protect these, and with the permission of the local Raja, General Cunningham took the railings and placed them in the Calcutta Museum.
The Sanchi site was also engulfed in jungle but was in reasonable shape when it was discovered by General Taylor in 1818. Cunningham undertook some initial excavations but the main excavations were started by Austen Mears, Superintendent of Public Works, in 1881 and completed by John Marshall between 1912–1919. Today, the site is of great importance to both Buddhist pilgrims and tourists, and very few artefacts from the site are in any museums.
The story of the Amaravati site is more complicated. The Amaravati stupa had been abandoned in the 14th century. It was discovered by a local zamindar (landowner) in the late 18th century. The locals plundered the site for many decades for building material and the Raja also decided to build a reservoir at the site. Colonel Colin Mackenzie of the Mysore Survey came to the site in 1797 and, over the next decades, some stone slabs were removed and placed in museums in India. The Elliott marbles were brought to England and are now in the British Museum. Efforts were made to guard the site with a peon but these proved unsatisfactory and the peon was bribed by the locals to look away at night.
The fate of the site was discussed at length in the late 19th century. It was agreed that it could not be restored. The archaeologist Henry Cole felt that the site could be conserved in-situ, but his superior, James Burgess, thought that as the site was so remote, it was best to dismantle it completely and place the remains mainly in the Madras Museum and in other museums. Burgess’s wishes were followed and most of the artefacts are in a stunning gallery in the Chennai Museum. The exhibition in the British Museum is more modest but still impressive.
These sites were three of the dozens of Buddhist sites in India which were in a ruined state. Their rediscovery and restoration during the colonial era enabled Buddhism to return to the land of its birth after a gap of many centuries.
The reviewer also claims that the Archaeological Survey of India was largely a British controlled organisation. He does not seen aware of the role played by Indians from the earliest times. General Cunningham liaised frequently with Indian scholars such as Rajendralala Mitra, Bhagwanlal Indraji and P C Ghosh. He sought advice from Ven. Subhuti from Sri Lanka about Buddhism. In 1868 Mitra submitted a proposal to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal for an archaeological survey of Orissa. This was sanctioned, the survey conducted, and a two volume report, The Antiquities of Orissa, published. Mitra also published the first book about the important Buddhist site of Buddhagaya in 1878.
John Marshall started training Indian archaeologists from the moment of his appointment and these individuals played important roles in the ASI both before and after independence. Two of these archaeologists, Daya Ram Sahni and B Majumdar, published the first books for the Survey about another important Buddhist site at Sarnath, in 1917 and 1937 respectively. The first book about the great Buddhist university of Nalanda was published by A C Ghosh in 1939. The reviewer is mistaken in thinking that no Indian was appointed as Director-General of the Survey before independence. Daya Ram Sahni served in this role from 1931 to 1935, and K N Dikshit similarly served from 1937 to 1941. Many of the individuals who led the Survey after independence were also Marshall’s protégés.
It is apparent from these examples that the museums the British founded, and the Archaeological Survey they established, were not primarily tools of colonial domination but were intended to rediscover and reveal India’s magnificent cultural heritage to India and the world. Indians were involved in these institutions throughout. The museums are greatly valued in India today and the anniversaries of their founding celebrated lavishly. Cunningham and Marshall are still remembered and respected. In 2014, a 3-day conference was held at Benares University to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Cunningham’s birth, and in March this year a statue of Marshall was unveiled in Chennai.
R. P. Fernando was born in Sri Lanka and is a scientist with a first degree and doctorate from Cambridge. Extensive correspondence and some articles of his have been published in the national press in the UK and in Sri Lanka. He has published Selected Writings – W A de Silva (2009) and Buddhist Heritage in India and Sri Lanka – Rediscovery and Restoration (2017).
The unveiling of the statue of Sir John Marshall, former Director of the Archaeological Survey of India, at the Chennai Museum, 19 March 2025
Statement by M. V. Stalin, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
“Exactly 100 years ago, on 20th September 1924, Sir #JohnMarshall announced the discovery of the #IndusValleyCivilisation, reshaping the history of the Indian subcontinent. I look back with gratitude and say, Thank you, John Marshall. By taking the right cognizance of the material culture of the #IVC, he linked it to the #DravidianStock. My government has already announced that the centenary of this historic discovery will be marked by an international conference and the installation of a life-size statue of Sir John Marshall in Tamil Nadu.”
(Hindustan Times, 21 Sept. 2024)
