Last month, the Archaeological Survey of India wrote to the Union Culture Ministry about two invaluable pieces, a 2 BC Yakshi statue and a 3 BC Mauryan lion, at Kolkata’s Indian Museum that had been irreversibly damaged. The ASI said the damage was caused by careless handling and warned that the museum would die if the callous attitude continued.

This was at India’s oldest museum, which turned 200 last year. But the dismal state of museums, especially government ones, is no secret. In 2011, UNESCO published a scathing report on the appalling conditions at India’s top eight museums, citing sub-standard maintenance, lighting and signage, among other issues. But at the core are deep-rooted issues of archaic policies, lack of autonomy, and no skilled manpower. Our excellent collections are proof of a rich socio-cultural history, but when museums act as mere closed-door guardians of treasures instead of disseminating them, attractively and intelligently, to a wide audience, they lose their purpose.

Thankfully, a quiet revival finally seems underway. The UNESCO report and a 14-point museum reforms agenda put together by the Ministry of Culture in 2010-11 served as a wake-up call. But it was left to the museums to implement reforms, which meant that only a handful got their act together to start brushing off years of political and ideological neglect.