International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences

Vol-6, Issue-4; Jul-Aug, 2021

Journal Home Page Available: https://ijels.com/

Journal DOI: 10.22161/ijels

Peer-Reviewed Journal

Mnemoculture and National Museum: Looking at

Salarjung National Museum, Hyderabad, India
Farddina Hussain

Associate Professor, Department of English, Gauhati University, Assam, India

Received: 11 Jul 2021; Received in revised form: 20 Aug 2021; Accepted: 25 Aug 2021; Available online: 31 Aug 2021
©2021 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Abstract— Considering museum as a public site of cultures of memory, my paper will focus on Salar Jung
National Museum situated on the banks of the Musi river, Hyderabad. The museum houses the cabinet
collections and curios of the Salar Jung family, primarily of Mir Yousuf Ali Khan also known as Salar Jung
III. He was the prime minister to the Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan of Hyderabad in 1914. It reserves its
history of inception, culture and both personal and public history. The paper treats it as a cosmopolitan
mnemocultural site that overrides the ‘national construct’ and refers to the potentiality of the its
materiality to tell tales of many cultures, trade links and most importantly of political friendships and the
culture of bestowing each other with rare works of art.
Keywords— Mnemoculture, Museum Studies, Postcolonial nation, Indian Museums, Salar Jung III.

Avoid Museum. This might seem to be absurd language narrative, image or sound/music are an act of
advice but let’s just think about a little: if you are memory conditioned by the dialectics of remembering and
in a foreign country isn’t it far more interesting to forgetting. Memory is alive, fragmentary, plural and
go in search of the present than of the past? It’s mutable by nature and is continuously evolving in time
just that people feel obliged to go to museums and space. It mediates to the present by being subjective
because they learned as children that travelling and intuitive. It incorporates traces of the past, self,
was about seeking out that kind of culture. identity in the context of the present. Modernity has
(Coelho 2015) always been engaged in a contestation of the present’s past
...journey into the past without which there can be or traditions. On the other hand, it also laments the loss of
no imagining the future. (Huyssen 2003) the old order due to capitalism or rapid urbanisation. Pierre
Nora the French historian discusses in his Realms of
Memory is always a phenomenon of the present, a
Memory how modernity in its attempt to maintain newness
bond tying us to the eternal present. (Nora 1996)
creates sites of memory, “lieu de memoire” and its loci in
museums, galleries, cemeteries, monuments, anniversaries,
When Coelho wrote famously in 2015 in Time on personal connections, sanctuaries and so on as “rituals of a
travel tips with mentions of the pastness of the museums, ritual-less society” (Nora 1996). They seem to encompass
he seems to have missed the vision of Huyssen who had a vigorous and deliberate thrust—a will to remember and
noted a new perspective to viewing museums, attempt at a coherence to history of families, communities
mnemoculture and subsequently the past. Materiality, in and nations. For him these sites are deliberately
this paper, is tied to memory and argues how it can tell constructed and fabricated. With the rise of few nation-
different stories. states in the 19th century Europe and in the postcolonial
countries such attempts were made to valorize and
Memory to be articulated or represented requires a
legitimize the nation by monumentalizing national pasts
site whether written or visual. All representations in
and give a basic form to the political, cultural and social

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Farddina Hussain Mnemoculture and National Museum

future of the state. He mentions that, in case of France “the been altered and historical memory has been re-presented
two fundamental idea upon which the nation was built are as palimpsest:
“glory” both military and civilian, and “words,” France Whatever the specific content of the many
being a country in which the relation between language contemporary debates about history and memory may
and literature on the one hand and political power, the be, underlying them is a fundamental disturbance not
state, and the national idea on the other hand has always just of the relationship between history as objective
been close (Nora xvi). Nora follows the The Art Of and scientific, and memory as subjective and
Memory by Frances Yates to establish that since “the personal, but of history itself and its
classical art of memory was based on a systematic promises…[there is] a fundamental crisis in our
inventory of loci memoriae, or “memory places.”” (Nora imagination of alternative futures (Huyssen 2003)
1996).
History no longer gives a stronger and stable relation of a
The museum is a modern project where they wanted community/nation to its past as argued by Hayden White
to project themselves by re-constructing the past. In the in his essay Historical Text as Literary Artifact. The paper
Europe and the west the museum is consciously sought to discusses how historical material memory in museums
put its knowledge and power up on display, to represent functions or informs? How do we re-present the past? How
itself in a collection of objects, images that selectively are time, memory, identity and belongingness related?
represents the past and the present. As Huyssen writes “if
Specifically, during 1980s, there has been an upsurge
the Romantics thought that memory bound us in some
in postmodernism for museum exhibitions and many
deep sense to time past, with melancholia being one of its
scholars undertook researches on museum history. By
luminal manifestations, then today we rather think of
1990s museum professionals began to publish articles and
memory as a mode of re-presentation and as belonging
books on it. One such book, “Rethinking the Museum: An
ever more to the present, while its referent is of the past
Emerging New Paradigm” by Stephen Weil traces the
and thus absent.” (Huyssen2003) The temporal status of
evolution of the museum from primary collector to
the museum is always the present. A conundrum in itself a
museum as educator in service to the public. In another
museum offers the same objects and artifacts though
1992 article Michael Ames wrote about the role of
constantly viewed/interpreted differently by the viewer
museums in the age of deconstruction. It is now a mass
consumer. So it becomes a burial ground of the past and
media. Museum theoretically represents an organizational
also its resurrection. The past is pulled to the present by
institution that collates and displays information by
the live gaze of the viewer/tourist/consumer and the past
ordering, arranging and preserving. In an age of citation
“is intensely located on [his].. side ..and the present as
museum database or archives preserve valuable
well.” (Hussyen2003)
information that are thought to be important. It affirms and
Memory is not always a matter of the individual informs of signification. Its evolution is a result of
brain but also lives in material objects. Museum, like the confluences of individual interests and ever widening
Salar Jung National Museum of Hyderabad is a realm of social demands. Historians have traced the transformation
memory that externalizes and preserves both individual of early modern private cabinet collections to the modern
and collective memories; it presents the nation and at the public state museums that had created a public sphere
same time life of Salar Jung family. Here memory is initially in Europe for information, preservation, recording
animated and a past exists dialectically between what to and control of nationalistic power. The beginning of the
remember and what to forget. But as noted by Halbwachs public museums are commonly traced back to the founding
collective memory “is not a given but rather a socially of Ashmolean Museum (1682) based on public viewing or
constructed notion” (Coser 22). Even though collective the Louvre Palace’s Garden in 1793 which symbolized
memory is created through sites, remembering is done by national patrimony and political sovereignty. The
individuals as group members: “Social classes, families, cabinets/private museums common in the 16 th& 17th
associations, corporations, armies and trade unions all centuries usually displayed the wealth, education and
have distinctive memories that their members have social status of the owner and his family. They are the
constructed, often over long periods of time” (Ibid.). predecessors of the modern public museums. The
Traditions are invented and are based on selections and catalogues are not simply a guide to items but often
exclusions to shape up military, political, cultural and suggest the selection and processes of arrangements.
social life of the past. The government buildings,
From the elitist position of high culture, the private
monuments, museums, galleries are the urban spaces of
collections/cabinets of royal families and patrons have
memory. Today the whole debate of history/memory has
moved to a spectacular mise-en-scene of collective

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Farddina Hussain Mnemoculture and National Museum

mnemocultures owned by nation-states in the postcolonial private cabinet museums of art. It was in fact a colonial
times. Most often it is the state committee that decides gift that infused a European flavor to their aristocratic
what deserves to be kept, remembered and treasured. The lifestyle. The national museums in post-independent India
past is interpreted for the present particularly for offer what colonial past has left behind. They speak of
nationalistic discourses. They are great inscribers of India’s cultural past for the present viewers. One such
history, nationalism and identity. One such museum is the museum in India that presents the political and also the
Louvre in Paris which got transformed from a fortress to a cultural past of Hyderabad is the Salarjung museum
museum and it has “witnessed numerous events in French established in 1995. It houses private artifacts of a single
history”. After being the fortress of the royals and later an person who happens to be the prime minister to the Nizam.
arsenal and a prison during the hundred years war, the Initially like the history of Louvre it was situated in the
Louvre finally at the end of the 18 th century became residential palace of Salarjung III and was later opened for
inevitably linked to the idea of museum. Throughout public viewing by the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru in 1951
Europe the idea of exhibiting the large collections through a deed. The private collection became a part of
belonging to the princes and popes to the general public national identity, history and culture. It shows artifacts that
was being increasingly envisaged. The royal palace was unveils the interests, movements, political meetings and
burnt down in 1871 but the project of making it an art activities of the minister. It consists of 40 galleries of rich
gallery survived as Francois Mitterand in1981 decided to material artifacts and documents on aristocratic life and
completely dedicate it to works of art and it was rebuilt by politics along with objects of everyday.Spread over 10
the architect Ming pie. acres of land, the museum has 9,000 manuscripts, 43,000
The museum is also an attempt to escape from art objects and 47,000 printed books. Galleries exhibit
amnesia and depends on dialectics of production and its objects that date back to the 4th century. It displays art
reception. It is an experience of memory for both the forms and sculptures of India, Far East, Europe Middle
museum maker and viewer. For instance, Julia Adeney Eastern. There is a Founders' Gallery where the
Thomas informs in her essay in “Power Made Visible: photographs and documents tell the story on the Salar
Photography and Postwar Japan’s Elusive Reality” how Jungs. It has divine figures belonging to the period of the
the images of the second world war are everywhere and Gupta Kings, Pallavas and Cholas. Salar Jung III has also
“photography in Japan sought to establish political, social, acquired old weaponry and remarkable among them are
and aesthetic norms that were taken for granted elsewhere” swords of by Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Tipu Sultan.
(Thomas 2008). On the other hand the Cambodian state Utensils and costumes of 18th and 19th centuries which
museum documents the traumatic phase of the communist adorn the walls of the museum tell tales of culture, art and
regime during Pol Pot. In both these cases sites of memory artisans. Carpets from Middle East, marble statues from
organize the past creating certain meanings of material Italy, France and England are kept in the museum which
objects. belong to the large collections of the third Salar Jung PM.
While some are original works of artists like ‘Night
In the Indian context, the museum movement started
Watchman,’ there are also replicas of famous works of
in 1814 initiating the socio cultural and scientific
painters and sculptors. The ivory gallery and the objects
achievements of the country. It is also considered as the
displayed links India to China and Japan. It also reveals
beginning of modernity in India. Sir William Jones, a
the various connections between these nations in the past.
profound scholar of the18th century devoted his life to the
Objects and jewelry made of Jade, which was initially used
service of India and founded the Asiatic society in 1784 in
by the Chinese are laid out along with a Russian coffee set,
Kolkata. However, the foundation of a museum as part of
glassware of Medieval Europe and Mughal meenakari
the activities of the society was never conceived then. In
utensils. A gold hookah talks of the culture and affluence
1796, the members of the society thought of establishing a
of India. Dutch paintings and porcelain from Europe speak
museum for the reception and preservation of objects and
of travels and vibrant political exchanges between India
finally in 1808 the society found a place at the corner of
and other countries of the world.
Park Street on a land granted by the government to set up a
museum. The early museums in India consisted of objects The nineteenth century British Musical Clock with
categorized under geology, botany, zoology, archaeology tiny mechanized figures that emerge through a door to
anthropology and art. Among others the Indian museum in strike the bell every one hour is a star attraction for all
Kolkata, the Madras museum in India and the Albert hall types of visitors. Few other prized possessions are the
in Jaipur promoted this ideology. But the ideas of a veiled marble statue of Rebecca created by an Italian
museum preserving cultural heritage were brought in by sculptor G.B. Benzoni. We can also see ivory chairs
the princely families in India and several of them instituted presented to Tipu Sultan of Mysore by Louis XVI of

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Farddina Hussain Mnemoculture and National Museum

France. As stated in an article published in Business borrow Rushdie’s expression in Step Across This Line
Standard on 20 January, 2019 the collection is safe in the transforms us. It defies our ordering of the world by going
museum: across territorial boundaries. It celebrates heterogeneity
If the collection was distributed among shareholders, and speaks for the collectors’ interests, political activities,
one day or the other it would have been sold off or mobility and personal friendships. Although a state
may have even gone out of the country. The most museum it intensely inscribes its own history and its
important thing was to see that it remained in India appeal lies in charting of a new map of cultural past
and in a museum where it could be displayed," said through the familial activities and involvements of the
Ahteram Ali Khan, whose grandfather Nawab Mir Salarjung family members, in this case as mentioned
Turab Yar Jung was the first cousin of Salar Jung III. above, it is Salar Jung III’s personal passion and love for
aesthetics that had been displayed along the nationalistic
In 1958 the Indian government took over the museum
discourse.
through a compromised deed and later by an act of
parliament. The museum along with its library was Functioning as a museum of national importance, it
declared as an institution of national importance. It holds exhibitions in schools, villages and other public
travelled further to its present building in the year 1968. It places. An attempt has been made to comingle the personal
houses the cabinet collections of Salarjung family though memory of the family with the collective shared cultural
major portion of the collections was acquired by Mir memory of the state. Cultural memory refers to the
Yousuf Ali Khan, Salarjung III, who was an art symbolic order, the institutions, media and practices of a
connoisseur and had collected rare relics, antiques, community by which the state try to display a shared past.
artifacts some of which were gifted to him during his Memory here is used metaphorically. Societies or
official visits to Europe and other parts of the world over a communities do not remember literally but it reconstructs
period of 40 years. He not only was a collector of antiques the past through some site. This construction depends on
and art but also patronized poets, writers and artists the need of the moment. As Halbwach in his book
encouraging literary and cultural activities. Collective Memory(1992) shows how memory as
constructed by institutions must be actualized by
The collections range from 2nd century B.C. to 20th
individuals, who are conceived of as the actual agents for
century A.D. and have exhibits of Indian, middle-eastern
remembering the past. These exhibits project a nation’s
and European art. Carpets, paper, glass, ceramics and
version of its past and also its version of national identity.
furniture belonging to the Middle East particularly Persia,
Memory and identity are closely linked and identities are
Syria and Egypt are displayed which were mostly
to be constructed and reconstructed by acts of memory, by
mementoes received by Salar Jung III. It also boasts of an
remembering who one was and by setting the past self with
extensive collection of far eastern art represented by
the present. This is true not only in case of national
Japanese objects of porcelain, bronze paintings and wood
identities but also in terms of individual identity
and inlayed works. The 38 galleries with collections from
formations.
various parts of India and the world produces an aesthetic,
educative and informative site upholding the cultures and The Salarjung museum with its collection of works of
histories of various locales. The portrait gallery presents art from both India and other parts world resonate the
the rows of portraits and the other personal belongings of interests, status and intentions of the family of prime
the family displaying their political life and social status. minister to the Nawab. The viewer/consumer approaching
On the other hand Indian sculptures, textiles, minor arts of the museum as a nationalistic site often will be
south India, south Indian bronzes are placed along with overwhelmed by the extensive collection of one man
various urns and statues, clocks from abroad. Among the particularly and also confront the variation as s/he looks at
collections a set of ivory chairs presented by Louis 16 of the artifacts and the various body of display in each
France to Tipu Sultan of Mysore has also been displayed. gallery. The past is interpreted and categorized for the
The arms and armour collection display the country’s present following its own requirement in time and space
Mughal regime. They reflect the lifestyles not only of but here the pasts despite being strategically constructed
India but also of various places outside the political speak of an individual’s, Salar Jung III’s massive
boundaries of the Indian nation state. Objects from collection and effort to celebrate art and culture. As a rich
different parts of the world in this museum coexist and site of mnemoculture this museum resists a state-power-
find their places side by side challenging the viewer to knowledge apparatus and compliments it with the role of
move through events and histories of a large geographic the viewer/researcher/consumer. This state apparatus
area. It is this space that goes beyond frontiers and to attempting to reconstruct official memory of the nation
creates a mobile critical space as its epistemic value and

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Farddina Hussain Mnemoculture and National Museum

purpose is charted by readings and un-readings by viewer-

consumers. It provokes a potential and polemical
engagement and is always a present’s past; in addition to a
‘national’ aspect added to its image, there remains the
references to the ‘individual’--his love of art, political
relations and friendships, aesthetics and travel of the art
connoisseur. It is a cosmopolitan site that shares histories
of many trade links, political friendships, cultures of many
nations of the world. It is indeed an inheritance of the past
for the present.

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