THE Museum Part 1: The Colonial Jigsaw Puzzle

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastusangrahalaya (Formerly Prince of Wales Museum)
By Bernard Gagnon (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I love history and as a consequence have been crazy about museums. As a kid, I have dragged my bored and tired parents through many of them. It's something I never grew out of and I'm really thankful for that, because this intoxicating cocktail of history and mystery is my poison-of-choice. So it's natural that my first museum walk with a certified pro was an altogether new high!

In the times of British colonialism, India's three Presidency cities - Calcutta, Madras and Bombay became vehicles for the English to showcase their might in the subcontinent. Monumental projects were commissioned, and Gothic-Revival came to symbolise a means for the country's colonial overlords to exert their perceived superiority in all matters - material to ethereal. Of these cities, Bombay was the late bloomer. What was until the mid 19th century a small walled city, 'Bombay Castle' became in a matter of decades -  Urbs Primus in Indus: The Primary City of India. The University Building, Municipal Building, Victoria Terminus, the overall own centre, reshaped its image.

Then, in the late 19th and 20th centuries, a multi-volume research work was put together - elaborating in detail, the 'native' architectural styles. But call it ignorance or wilful disdain brought on by imperialism, the volumes bunched together extremely diverse Indian architectural styles into one. The volumes were instead classified into generic categories like doors, windows, gardens, pillars and the likes. Fortunately or unfortunately, this compendium ( the name eludes me) became a mix-and-match reference guide, from where British architects picked up hitherto unconnected elements and collated them like a jigsaw puzzle into a new generation of monuments - a motley blend of Hindu, Islamic and European styles that came to be called Indo-Saracenic. 

It was this style that our guide Alisha, from the 'In Heritage Project' introduced us to when we started on a delightful walking tour of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastusangrahalaya (CSMVS, formerly Prince of Wales Museum) in Mumbai on a sunny November morning. Alisha threw it open to us to contemplate why this syncretic architecture emerged. There were a variety of opinions - from the optimistic end of the spectrum (promoting inter-religious harmony), to the more disturbing view that as colonial rulers, the English felt that they could condescendingly contort local elements to their pleasure as long as it sated appetites for oriental exoticism. 

With Alisha's visual aids, we could identify different elements of the museum's Indo-Saracenic layout. Rajput Jharokhas and Hindu temple brackets are interwoven with a white dome inspired by the Gol Gumbaz in Karnataka and topped by the mausoleum spire of the Taj Mahal. In the imposing central atrium inside, grey pillars from Jain temples support intricately carved dark wood panels, transplanted from the balconies of an old Maratha household. The garden emulates a gold-standard in Mughal and Persian themes - the paradise garden or Char Bagh. The four-part garden's quadrants represent  wine, milk, honey and water. Here, these four symbolic elements converge upon a statue of the then Prince George V, the Prince of Wales, in whose honour the building was erected.

Alisha dusted off the pages of history and took us through the museum's journey. Back when Bombay was a walled city, the fortress' moats ran directly through where the museum stands. When the opportunity arose to build the finest museum in Western India to honour the Prince of Wales, the job went to George Wittet, a Scottish architect with a decidedly anti-native bias. While he and his supervisor, John Begg, the Consulting Architect to Bombay, are credited for rise of the Indo-Saracenic style, Wittet was convinced of the superiority of Gothic Revival. While he is responsible for the city's three Indo-Saracenic monuments- the Museum, the GPO and most importantly, the Gateway of India; he expressed his feelings by sticking to his European roots in the buildings devoted to science  - The Institute of Science right across the museum and the KEM Hospital in Parel (the undercurrent was that advanced sciences were a purely Western pursuit and should not have an Indian connect). The building's construction took more than a decade, but the First World War broke out soon after and it served the war years as a hospital before finally fulfilling its original destiny.

Interestingly another reluctant British architect - Edwin Lutyens took Indo-Saracenic to its last hurrah in his execution of New Delhi - the newly contructed capital of British India in the 20s and 30s. But this was a distinct blend - while in Mumbai and Chennai the Indo-Saracenic style is rich in its detailing, New Delhi blends Indian architecture with the clean lines that defined post World War I trends. After this, the style declined throughout the country.

Facade of Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi
By KuwarOnline (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

In  Mumbai itself, the Marine Drive project injected Art Deco into the cityscape and in post independence years, Brutalism and Socialist Realism made Nariman Point its canvas.

A rough demarcation of the architectural styles visible if you stand at Oval Maidan (identifiable by its shape.) Also interesting is that a style change also denotes a reclamation project. So this indicates the shifting coastline of Mumbai too.
Note: This map is a screenshot from Google Maps and has been edited

All through these years, CSMVS maintained its stature as a stellar institution. Off late, the layout has been updated and modern wings have been added. More cultural events and exchange projects than ever before have enriched its heritage. 

But the crux of a museum is also what it holds within its walls. Now that our context had been set, Alisha opened our eyes to the treasures inside... and it was truly a revelation!

Further Reading:

• THE Museum Part 2: Intrigues in Stone and Canvas