Of India's museums, billionaires and the death of philanthropy

The Indian Museum in Kolkata is a magnificent building. It is a stunning piece of architecture, but more like a mausoleum of dead treasures. The interiors are falling apart and the displays are dusty and crumbling. The exteriors have been painted recently but the renovation is superficial.

I visited the museum last year during my annual winter trip to Kolkata. I was saddened by the state of affairs but assumed that the moody chief minister of the state is currently too busy painting the city blue and white to raise a hue and cry about it. I tried to determine why she had chosen blue and white and the only explanation I could find was that she likes to wear saris in the two colours! More power to her.

The Indian Museum deserves a decent renovation job. It is the largest and the oldest museum not only in India, but also the world. It has a rare collection of antiques, armour and ornaments, fossils, skeletons, mummies, and Mughal paintings that was put together by the British. But the atmosphere is so gloomy that one struggles to go through the exhibits.

The museum was a gift to us by the British - one that we have not been able to value. This was part of the British legacy that unfortunately Indians have not been able to inherit - an appreciation, dedication and preservation of art and culture. Designed by Englishman Thomas Preston and French architect, Jean Jacques Pichon, ready in 1878, this majestic museum remains one of the most impressive buildings in Kolkata along with the Victoria Memorial also built by the British.

My visit to the Indian Museum was short but not so sweet. I left the building in less than half-an-hour. The place was so dingy and dark that I just wanted to leave. I compared my visit to the museums in Europe where I had to force myself to exit because my feet hurt from having explored them the whole day. I concluded Indians don't know how to curate or maintain museums.

But this week I was proved wrong. I visited the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai and was blown away. It is an absolute delight and the restoration of the original structure is breathtaking. I have not been so excited by any space in India in a long time. I had to get to the bottom of how this museum was so well preserved.

The Bhau Daji Lad Museum, built way back in 1855, too, was in a deplorable condition less than a decade ago. It was in worse condition than the Indian Museum. But what happened is that a private trust took over and the result has to be seen. The museum, today, is managed by a public-private partnership involving the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, the Jamanlal Bajaj Foundation and INTACH. The museum, though still owned by the BMC, was transformed by the private alliance and is today a jewel in the Mumbai landscape.

One man, Jamnalal Bajaj, an industrialist and philanthropist, had set up a trust fund that has benefitted the museum and society at large. He was the founder of the Bajaj Group of Industries.While we blame the government for every failing in every aspect of our lives, where we have failed as a society is that we don't have enough of a culture of philanthropy. Philanthropists can build a nation and the evidence of this can be seen clearly in the United States of America.

Unfortunately, today, India's wealthy have no time for such pursuits. They don't care about schools, museums, libraries and music halls. What good would these do to them in terms of furthering their wealth? They are too busy constructing hideous multi-storied buildings and malls, and figuring out how to make their next billion.

I would suggest that Mukesh Ambani and other billionaire Indians read the "The Gospel of Wealth", an article written by Andrew Carnegie in 1889. It talks about the need for philanthropy by the new upper class of the rich and that the best way to deal with inequality is the thoughtful redistribution of the surplus. It is an essay that should be made compulsory reading. Another example of a billionaire philanthropist is John D Rockefeller, who was once the world's richest man.

Interestingly, Rockefeller's philanthropy had a strong connection with India. He reportedly made his first large donation for public welfare after a meeting with Swami Vivekananda.

Arts, culture, science and medicine have always been supported by the wealthy. But today, India's wealth is in the hands of a few people who build schools and hospitals for the rich and not for the community. As the rich get richer, the nation gets shabbier.

There is only so much a government can do when most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of people who have buried philanthropy deep under the floors of their extravagant homes.