Table Of ContentTRANSLATING MUSEUMS
Critical Cultural Heritage Series
Series Editor: Beverley Butler
Part of the University College London Institute of Archaeology Publications
Series, published for the Institute by Left Coast Press, Inc.
General Series Editor: Ruth Whitehouse
Founding Series Editor: Peter Ucko
The aim of this Critical Cultural Heritage series is to define a new area of research
and to produce a set of volumes that make a radical break with the existing canon
of cultural heritage texts. In a fundamental shift of perspective, Jacques Derrida’s
rallying call to ‘restore heritage to dignity’ inspires both a re-examination of the
core question of what constitutes cultural heritage and an engagement with the
ethical issues that shape the possible futures of this research area.
The series is intended to be of transformative value in creating new agen-
das within cultural heritage discourse, using individual texts as building blocks.
Central to the project is a realignment of cultural heritage studies through a wider
scholarship committed to disrupting the Eurocentrism that underpins current the-
ory and practice and through a contemporary ‘politics of recognition’ that is con-
cerned with articulating new, alternative, or parallel characterisations of heritage
value. The aim is to centre cultural heritage studies within a wider concern for the
preservation of human dignity and justice and to use these alternative discourses
as a resource for future action, thereby creating a proactive, responsive, and just
future for both cultural heritage studies and heritage practice.
Volume 9: Shaila Bhatti, Translating Museums: A Counterhistory of South Asian
Museology
Volume 8: Marilena Alivizatou, Intangible Heritage and the Museum: New
Perspectives on Cultural Preservation
Volume 7: Charlotte L. Joy, The Politics of Heritage Management in Mali: From
UNESCO to Djenné
Volume 6: Layla Renshaw, Exhuming Loss: Memory, Materiality and Mass
Graves of the Spanish Civil War
Volume 5: Katharina Schramm, African Homecoming: Pan-African Ideology
and Contested Heritage
Volume 4: Mingming Wang, Empire and Local Worlds: A Chinese Model of
Long-Term Historical Anthropology
Volume 3: Dean Sully, Ed., Decolonizing Conservation: Caring for Maori
Meeting Houses outside New Zealand
Volume 2: Ferdinand de Jong and Michael Rowlands, Eds., Reclaiming Heritage:
Alternative Imaginaries of Memory in West Africa
Volume 1: Beverley Butler, Return to Alexandria: An Ethnography of Cultural
Heritage Revivalism and Museum Memory
TRANSLATING MUSEUMS
A Counterhistory of
South Asian Museology
Shaila Bhatti
First published 2012 by Left Coast Press, Inc.
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 2012 Taylor & Francis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
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storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and
are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Bhatti, Shaila, 1975-
Translating museums : a counterhistory of South Asian museology/
Shaila Bhatti.
p.cm. — (Critical cultural heritage series / UCL Institute of Archaeology
Publications ; v. 9)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-61132-144-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61132-
145-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61132-146-3 (institutional eBook) —
ISBN 978-1-61132-633-8 (consumer eBook)
1. Lahore Museum (Pakistan). 2. Museum techniques—Pakistan.
3. Museums—Pakistan—Philosophy. I. Title.
AM101.L196B53 2012
069.095491'43—dc23
2011051065
ISBN 978-1-61132-144-9 hardcover
ISBN 978-1-61132-145-6 paperback
C
ontents
List of Illustrations 11
Note on Translation and Transliteration 13
Abbreviations 15
Acknowledgments 17
Prologue 19
Lahore 19
The Lahore Museum: Ajaib Ghar 22
Comparative Museologies 26
Museological Narrative 28
1. Museums in Translation: The Birth of the Museum in
Colonial India 33
The Ajaib Ghar 33
Museumisation of Colonial India: Making India Visible 51
A Central Museum for Punjab—A Baradari,
an Exhibition, and a Jubilee 53
Baradari 54
An Exhibition 56
The Jubilee Institute 68
The Lahore Museum in Indian Hands 74
Imperial Museum Spirit and the Trinity of the Lahore Museum 77
2. Colonial Mementos to Postcolonial Imaginings:
The Transformation of the Lahore Museum 83
A National Narrative for the Ajaib Ghar 83
Partition and Pakistan 86
Splitting Mementos 92
Curators/Caretakers 92
Ejaz Ali 94
Collections/Objects 97
The Chandigarh Connection 99
Trapped by the Colonial Shadow: Decolonising the
Lahore Museum 101
The Islamic Gallery 104
The Independence Movement Gallery 106
The Postcolonial Prescriptive: Personalities and Ideologies 112
3. Museum Archons: The Habitual Discourse of the
Lahore Museum 117
The Material Archive 117
The Lahore Museum’s Museology 119
The (Un)Socialised Museum: Habitual Discourse and
Museopolitik 125
Global Consciousness 125
Pakistani Museums/Museology 127
Habitual Praxis and Discourse 131
Educating Heritage 135
Tours, Texts, Lectures, and Quizzes 138
Guided Tours 138
Texts 140
Lectures 140
Museum Quiz 141
Archival Allure 142
4. Visiting the Museum: Curiosity about the Ajaib Ghar 145
Wandering Visitors 146
Refusal of the Colonial Gaze 152
The Zoo of Objects 157
The Subjective Museum 160
Vernacularising the Lahore Museum 162
What Class of Visitors? 163
Pseudocurators 167
Familiar, Attractive, and Wondrous 168
History and Cultural Heritage, but Not My Identity 182
5. Nokta Nazar of the Lahore Museum’s ‘Audience’ 189
Attractions and the Museum Spirit 190
The Museum ‘Eye’ 194
South Asian Scopophilia 198
Darshan/Dekhna 198
Nazar 200
Corpothetics 203
Interocular 205
‘Museums of Everyday Life’ 207
The Everyday: Television 208
The Imaginary: Cinema 211
The Novel: Bazaars 214
The Enduring: Saints’ Shrines 218
Have Museums Ever Been Modern? 224
Epilogue 227
Glossary 233
Notes 239
References 279
Index 291
About the Author 301
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For my abu—Mushtaq Ali Bhatti (1942–2005)—you left me too soon,
but your memories will always remain with me. And with love to
ammi—Nasim Akhtar Bhatti, and brother Tariq
