Welcome back to this lecture on the traditional arts in Contemporary India. And we've just taken a look at two types of essentialism that are characteristic of a modern worldview. One type of essentialism is museumization, and another type is or another expression of essentialism is fetishization. And now we're going to look at two more trends that are also associated with this essentialist mindset or essentialist worldview. Conservation practices and Heritage-ization practices or heritage, a transformation of Indian art into heritage is something that is relatively, recent. Primarily in the last decade and a half or so. So conservation functions to materially, and mythologically suspend the forces of time, abstracting the work of art from its concrete relation to shifting historical contexts, as if it's independent of context. As if it is not something that exists within its own compartment, but is inherently free. Independent, just like a modern economic person. The object is valued in and of itself as a kind of aesthetic fetish, and it exists independent of time, independent of history, independent of context. Just as I am not defined by the circumstances I'm in or by relationships but by some sort of, inherent property that I have within myself that makes me a distinct, and unique individual. And the work of art is imagined in the same terms, or a temple is imagined in the same way. Specifically, the purpose of conservation is to make these objects seem to be something that exist mythically, in mythological time and space of their existence, is really the time and place of their origin. They're supposed to be conserved as monuments to some ancient moment when they were produced and when they were originally used. So the idea of conservation is to try to make this object seem like it has always existed outside of time. And to give us some connection, some sort of, imaginary connection to the past. Both the practices of conservation, and those of modernist individualism express an of idea that each person, or each thing has some sort of inherent and independent essence. Something like art or Universal Rights or, or our Human Nature, self-interested, essentially economic beings who are rational calculators of cost and benefits that sort of, thing and to universalise this notion of Human Nature as this is the way that human beings are by nature, and this is how this object is a work of art. And it is a work of art by nature. And it doesn't depend on any circumstance, it's doesn't depend on history, it doesn't depend on any time and place. History is all about one context after another, and conservation removes the object at least mythically from context. As if it's something that exists in a timeless realm. And this timeless realm is associated with the sort of, pseudo sacred attitude that we take toward works for art. As if the adorno nicely compares the word museum to the word mausoleum. That museum, and the museumization, and the conservation of objects is something like the embalming of an object or embalming of a person at one time had a social life. And these sacred works of art at one time had a social life. And after that social life is over they are embalmed, or they preserved for all time. They exist in some sort of, a space, sacred space that is beyond the plucks, and change of history. That it enters into some sort of, timeless realm. And this mausoleum like atmosphere is characteristic of the museum as well. And associated with this conservation of ancient art as there is you're basically you're conserving the shell of the object, its outer appearance. It's social life is over. It's no longer actively in worship the temple that that is in the background of this photograph has been entirely museumized. It's an ancient monument that dates it was originally produced in the eighth century. And it was in worship for maybe about 1,000 years, or so, but it fell into disrepair. And then the British archeological survey. Began to restore it, and now it’s a major tourist destination. And in this photograph what we are seeing is this conserved temple, museumized temple, being visited by Indian schoolchildren, and this is a sight that you see everywhere in India, where schoolchildren are taken to these. Sights in order to in order to expose them to their heritage. These monuments are defined, or reclassified as heritage. And then as heritage, they become symbols, or representations of a kind of national identity, or a national essence. These children are learning to be Indians, they're learning to imagine themselves to be part of this specific community of people that has endured for a long time in across this large span of time, and these monuments are part of their heritage that link them to their ancestors. These are museumized signs, representations of the past that exist supposedly outside of the sphere of traditional pilgrimage. At the same time that children are being taken to these monuments to expose them to their heritage. What is going on is a subtext, tacitly, implicitly, without anybody's conscious explicit admission, is that they are learning the neo-liberal economic lessons of sight seeing, of cultural tourism, of treating these objects as tourist destinations. Domestic tourism is something that's a relatively new thing in India. Indians travel a lot. They travel for social reasons. They travel for weddings. They travel for for religious pilgrimage, and this is an ancient practice. This has been going on for a long time. But going on vacation, going someplace just for you know, recreation. Just for the heck of it, just you know, as a kind of consumer activity that's relatively new. And you need to socialise people from the relatively, young age. Now, you have have people in their 30s, and 40s who were raised with the being taken in school being exposed to their national heritage, and being taken to monuments, and now they're beginning to take their own children. And so there's the beginning of a kind of market for domestic cultural tourism. But cultural tourism, up until relatively recently, there was something that foreigners did. Foreigners came to India, and traveled around to these monuments, and went to the museums, and treated them, as works of art. And certain middle class, and upper class Indian's, who were comfortable with these modern foreign institutions, and also economic ways of looking at the world, also engaged in these practices. But with the heritage-ization of movement where, children are learning their heritage, they are also learning to treat this sector of the economy in the proper way. You know, they're learning to be tourists. They're learning how to consume leisure activities, and especially vacations. So they're not just traveling for traditional reasons, for weddings, or traditional pilgrimage. But they're also traveling for for recreation for tourism. And they're learning about their own national identity. They're learning that these these ancient monuments symbolise their Indianness. Even though India is a rather, is a new nation state, and it's only existed since 1947, and the idea of India is a relatively new idea. India used to be composed of many, many different kingdoms throughout its history. In the third century BC there was a kingdom that did encompass much of south Asia, but for the rest of the, of the history of India, history of the south Asian subcontinent it's been divided into many, many kingdoms. And it's only recently, that this idea of India, as some sort of a coherent nation state has arisen. And here the challenge is how do get people to imagine themselves to belong to this imagined community of people that has existed since time immemorial for 5,000 years, or 2,000 years. This is where art comes in so art is being used in service of this idea of an Indian nation. And an Indian national identity, some sort of an essential identity. So when re-framed as heritage. Then the preservation, and the appreciation of ancient art helps to serve a political aim. Forging this idea of a coherent contemporary national identify. And imagined as a sort of, independent national essence. The rub here is that this is a bit of a tricky thing to do because, these ancient monuments have sectarian, and regional significance. And Sectarian divisions, and Regional divisions, Linguistic divisions are a threat, often through the coherence and the unity of the nation state. And so using ancient art in this way can make this is a risky strategy. Students may go to the Madurai Meenakshi Temple for the example, and learn that this is their heritage, but some of them are going to be seen as this is out Tamil heritage, not necessarily our heritage as Indians. It has to do with, or this is a specific Shiba form of Hindu heritage, rather than something that's broader and more inclusive that includes people of a lot of different religious orientations. So this can be a bit of a risky strategy to treat these things as national heritage. But, it's become Conventional now. It's become a standard mode of practice in Indian contexts. So we've just looked at two aspects of a kind of essentialist worldview, modernist essentialist worldview projected onto the ancient arts of India connected to conservation practices, the conservation of ancient monuments and ancient art. And their deployment as symbols of a national identity, or national coherent Indianness. That can be summarised by the term, Heritage-ization. In the next section we'll go on to wrap this up, and to ask a couple of concluding questions.
