Indian historian to deliver Dr Roland Silva Memorial Lecture

The National Trust’s monthly lecture, the Dr Roland Silva Memorial Lecture will be delivered online on Thursday, January 27, at 6 p.m. by eminent Indian historian Prof. Romila Thapar who will talk on ‘The History of the Museum in India’.

Link to lecture: https://us02web.zoom. us/j/85174934993

Prof. Thapar who is Professor of Ancient History, Emerita, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi says:”The first half of the lecture summarizes the concept of the museum and discusses how the institution was introduced to India and its gradual evolution from private collections to public displays of artifacts owned by the state in specially constructed places. My example will be the history of the museum in India, but my assumption is that this history, as can be observed in India, would probably apply to most countries that were once colonies.

“The second half of the lecture presents views about the functions and purposes of the public museums in the last decades. Has the museum, now that it is located in an independent state, taken a different form? How can the museum be made into a crucial institution in both defining heritage and in exploring knowledge? This is one institution in which the historian and the art-historian have to work closely together, or for that matter even the historian and the professional specialist in whatever discipline the museum is connected to.”

Her books include ‘From Lineage to State’, ‘Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas’, ‘Early India: From Origins to AD 1300’, and the popular ‘History of India, Part I’. Prof. Thapar has received honorary doctorates from the University of Chicago, the University of Oxford, Institute National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Calcutta, the University of Hyderabad, Brown University, and the University of Pretoria.