Silent Garners of the Past: The Museums of Dakshin Dinajpur


As originally published in:

Editorial Section, 16 April 2012, Monday, p.4, Gangtok edition

The Spaniard-American philosopher George Santayana had once predicted, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it!” In order to avoid this forcible and often-unpalatable repetition, it is necessary to have a well-supplied and accurately-informed knowledge of the past. In the district of Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal, the responsibility of imparting historical knowledge to individuals rests with the District Museum of Dakshin Dinajpur and Balurghat College Museum. But lack of interest on part of the Dakshin Dinajpur residents has begun to induce an element of frustration and disillusionment among those who are in charge of these two treasure-troves. What is desperately needed in these trying times is a resurgence of enthusiasm in the glorious past ages of Bengal when chivalrous kings and their courageous soldiers clashed against the marauding foreigners and left behind relics of their times which have been diligently and cautiously collected by the two individuals associated with these museums – Narayan Choudhury, the sexagenarian curator of the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, and Achintya Krishna Goswami, the late Associate Professor of the Department of Sanskrit, Balurghat College, whose personal interest and endeavours had led to Balurghat College Museum becoming one of the more enriched museums in whole West Bengal.

A brief sojourn at the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, in which approximately one hundred and six ancient images, broken idols, statues, and other artefacts dating between 5th and 12th centuries have been carefully displayed for public-viewing, is bound to fill visitors with awe and nostalgia. The museum itself is housed in a reconstructed colonial sub-gaol built in 1910 to incarcerate primarily the armed Indian freedom fighters. Even after independence, it acted as a detention centre until 2002, when it was closed down and a new correctional home became operational near Khanpur. The district museum was inaugurated on 13 October 2004 by two of the the-then left-front ministers of the Government of West Bengal, but the credit for the establishment rests especially with Choudhury, a Balurghat-resident who personally collected almost every historical object displayed at the museum from all over Dakshin Dinajpur, including Harirampur and Gungarampur, and the two former Dakshin Dinajpur district magistrates Sushil Paul and Romit Mutsuddi, who actively supervised the reconstruction of the sub-gaol. Today the museum is a spacious construction, with cream-coloured walls, close-circuit cameras, an internal police camp, and a museology library, which has an impressive collection of approximately 450 rare books. “If funds permit, we shall provide for a light-and-sound show, secure the blackstone and sandstone idols with glass-boxes, and there are plans to inaugurate a Muslim-era-coin-display-centre on the first floor of this museum”, informs Choudhury, the retired-district-library employee and honorary curator, who is assisted in his work by Tapash Mondol (38) and Kaushik Roy (30), other than three personnel from a local security agency. Roy, who seems as interested in speaking about the artefacts as Choudhury, adds, “A catalogue regarding the displays is scheduled to be released by the Office of the District Magistrate of Dakshin Dinajpur, which is directly in charge of the museum’s affairs, very soon”.

In spite of the apparent lack of general enthusiasm in watching historical displays, times are changing, but Choudhury, who had once begun to feel desperate and disillusioned, is happy that they are for the better. “Earlier, people would simply conceal these invaluable statues and idols at their houses or sell them. They would even break the idols to see if there are treasures hidden inside. Now-a-days, we do not have to persuade them too much to hand the ancient idols over to us for display”. Are there noticeable differences in numbers of those who visit the museum as part of the tour to a district that has become famous because of the Bangarh ruins? Both Choudhury and Roy do not believe it. “We get approximately 40 to 50 visitors a day, without remarkable changes in the number other than conducted tours and occasional congregations”, they say in unison. In the register of visitors’ remarks which Choudhury proudly displays to this correspondent are appreciative notes by museologists and archaeologists from different universities of Germany, China, Japan, and the United States of America, other than several Indian dignitaries and educationists. “People should know what wealth is there in their own district! They need to visit here in larger numbers. They should come and watch history speak to them! Where other than the Andaman Islands’ Cellular Jail-National Memorial would you find a prison-house-turned-into-a-museum?” asks the curator. “Visits by officers of the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, both aided and encouraged us, but we were scared lest these idols, many of which belong to the periods of the Pala (A.D. 750 – A.D. 1174) and the Sena dynasty rulers (A.D. 1070 – A.D. 1230), should be taken away from the district”. Both Choudhury and Roy, who are perceptively satisfied with the official aid and grants extended to the museum by both the Government of India and the state government, are waiting for the Gungarampur Museum to become fully operational in order to cater to the historical interests of the district residents and national and international intellectuals.

On our way to the Balurghat College Museum, barely a quarter of a kilometre away from the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, we recall that Bangarh, whose ruins are strewn around the sub-divisional town of Gungarampur, forty-five-kilometres north of Balurghat, was the capital of the ancient Koti Barsha district. During the Gupta period (A.D. 320 – A.D. 550), the whole of northern Bengal was known as ‘Punda Bardhana Pradesh’, which was subdivided into several ‘vishaya’-s (that is, districts). Koti Barsha, also earlier referred to as ‘Debikot’, was one such vishaya. Bibek Das, an assistant professor of history who is in charge of the Balurghat College Museum, discusses the historical significance of the Bangarh ruins with us. He is obviously proud that the museum is the oldest preserving-house in the district, having had been established in 1968, and collects over one hundred blackstone, sandstone, and terracotta images, idols, artefacts, and a number of catapultable-missiles – excavated by the late Professor Goswami – which were used by the military personnel of King Lakshman Sen of Bengal against the invading forces of I.U. Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji in early-13th century. The Turkic military general of Qutb-ud-din-Aybak defeated King Lakshman Sen in A.D. 1206, and started his Tibet expedition from Debikot in the same year only to be assassinated by the later-days’ independent and cruel sultan, Ali Mardan Khilji.

Contrary to the District Museum of Dakshin Dinajpur, Balurghat College Museum is not open to general public viewing. “We are waiting for further release of funds by the Directorate of Archaeology and Museum and the Department of Culture, Government of India, and thereafter we would be in a position to inaugurate the museum within two months”, informs Das. The museum in his charge houses an impressive collection of ruins, images, artefacts, coins, and other historical materials from the ages of the Mauryas (322 B.C. – 185 B.C.), the Sungas (185 B.C. – 75 B.C.), the Guptas, the Palas, the Senas, the Sultani and Mughal periods. There are some fossils, weapons, bronze statues, manuscripts, British-period silver coins and ornaments, and a (68 x 47.4) square-centimetre stone-inscription belonging to the period of reign of Nayapala (A.D. 1043-A.D.1058). Just like the images in the District Museum, the ancient idols and statues preserved at the Balurghat College Museum are principally of the Hindu gods and goddesses, particularly Shiva, Vishnu, and Durga.

Though the two ‘curators’ of the museums perceptively do not have a direct interaction, both of them are hopeful about the ultimate spread of the reputation of Dakshin Dinajpur as a region rich in historical artefacts. “We want more attention of the public to what we are doing. History is invaluable”, chants Choudhury as we bid goodbye to him in a noon swept by a languid breeze, and take photographs. Das, on the other hand, is waiting for the day when the college-museum would be one of the more important visiting-places for archaeologists and historians working in the district.

– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 13 April 2012. Photographs by: Sreeparna Roy (Chattopadhyay).