Museums Safety

Museums are repositories of diverse heritage, both natural as as cultural.

As institutions they contribute towards socio-cultural development of a community and help in building regional and national identity. As per Global Climate Risk Index 2018, India is the 6th most vulnerable country in the world. Around 57% of our landmass is prone to earthquakes. This poses a grave threat to our museums and heritage buildings.

The collections of Sri Pratap Singh Museum, Srinagar were extensively damaged in 2014 floods. In 2016, the National Museum of Natural History, New Delhi was gutted in a massive fire that destroyed many rare artefacts. Similarly fire engulfed National Museum of Brazil and world famous Cathedral Notre Dame at Paris.

Such a loss is not exclusive to India — The Nepal earthquake caused massive damage to Chhauni National Museum, Kathmandu in 2015. The iconic Louvre and Musee d’Orsay Museums of Paris faced major threat due to floods in 2016.

Unfortunately, these are just a few events from a long list of irreversible damage caused to heritage across the world. It is not just loss of heritage of any one country or state but it is a loss of entire humanity. So, the museums, archives, libraries, ancient temples and other heritage buildings have to be taken care of priority basis.

Museum safety is an emerging area catching the much needed attention of the policy makers.

The Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, 2015 specifically highlights the need for “protection of sites of historical and cultural heritage”. The National Disaster Management Authority has published comprehensive guidelines for Museum Safety in 2017. NDMA guidelines provide an excellent frame work and establish new benchmarks for security of museums.

But hardly any museum has actually developed museum disaster management plan. Without that we can’t move forward on museum safety. The disaster management plan for heritage buildings covers the structural safety assessment of the buildings and their retrofitting as well as the fire safety plans, evacuation plans, first aid safety plans, emergency store planning, assembling points plan, communications plans and disaster risk reduction team etc.

Let us get together to realise our fundamental duty, as per article 51A of our constitution, to “value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture”.