National Treasures

Last week, a friend of mine who’s relocating abroad, shared a predicament of his. He has a Jamini Roy in his collection which cannot be shipped to his new residence. It was only then that I got to know about the Government of India-designated list of Nine Gems whose works are classified as National Treasures. It’s illegal to move any of their work out of the country.

The nine ‘designated’ national treasures are Raja Ravi Varma, Amrita Sher-Gil, Rabindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy, Nicholas Roerich and Sailoz Mukherjee. The last gem was unknown to me until now. I was also pleasantly surprised to see one Russian in the list.

From the internet, I gleaned that ‘The Antiquities and Art Treasures Act of 1972’ is the basis for the export control. While the Act doesn’t list the nine artists, it defines an antiquity or an art treasure from a legal point of view. The GoI being GoI, smartly defines it very broadly.  

• any coin, sculpture, painting, epigraph or other work of art or craftsmanship;
• any article, object or thing detached from a building or cave;
• any article, object or thing illustrative of science, art, crafts, literature, religion, customs, morals or politics in bygone ages;
• any article, object or thing of historical interest;
• any article, object or thing declared by the Central Government, which has been in existence for not less than one hundred years
• any manuscript, record or other document which is of scientific, historical, literary or aesthetic value and which has been in existence for not less than seventy-five years;

The presence of national treasures residing in foreign shores is a political and deeply sensitive issue. Museums all over the western world are being asked to return their ‘loot’ and I had written about this earlier.

While I definitely need to ready up more and be better informed of the nuances of the issue, I wonder what were the criteria by which the nine artists got included in the Gazette notification. Why exclude artists who worked in the previous centuries (Nainsukh of Guler)? What about painters who died post-1972 (M. F Husain)? Why only painters? For many Keralites who lived through the 70s and 80s, Yesudas is a treasure. (May not be a national one, but definitely a state-specific treasure). For the Tamilians, it must be Thiruvalluvar? SRK should definitely count as one, no?

The larger question should be around the power that the State wields in bestowing validity to art and artists. Can a notification signed by an Under Secretary validate an artist’s toil? Should artists celebrate these recognitions, or should they just trudge along? (I’m reminded of Bob Dylan’s famous two-week silence on being awarded the Nobel. Many feared he might reject it. Obama had also famously spoken about Dylan’s stoic demeanor). TM Krishna accepting and acknowledging the Madras Music Academy’s Sangeeta Kalanidhi award is also a recent example which was heavily analyzed by both the Right and the Left. All art IS political. When one reads the ’72 Act, the punitory and license-raj vibe around it is unmissable. It’s also a wonderful example of the ease with which the state can regulate and intervene in individual freedom in the interest of ‘larger’ causes.

This DAG page has a stunning visual overview of the Navaratnas. The next time I visit the National Gallery of Modern Art here in Delhi, I’ll know what to specifically look out for.

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