Focus on Nagas at UK exhibit

LONDON : Hundreds of objects acquired from colonial India – some never before seen – have been put on display at an exhibition at the University of Cambridge focusing on India’s indigenous people, casting a new light on the country beyond Bollywood and curry.

The exhibition, described as a groundbreaking event at the university’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, features objects brought to Britain by the anthropologist and Indian Civil Service officer, John Henry Hutton, who was deputy commissioner of Assam (then including the Naga Hills) in the early 20th century.

New artefacts by Adivasi and other tribal artistes too are part of the exhibition tited “Another India”. Among the objects on display are a Naga head-hunter’s skull, pieces of the Taj Mahal and a snake-charmer’s flute.

Mark Elliott, the exhibition curator, said: “This is an exhibition about the India – or the many Indias – that most people in the UK don’t know. It’s about 100 million people of indigenous or Adivasi backgrounds who are marginalised by majority populations and the state.

“We didn’t want to do a show about Bollywood, saris and curry, but instead highlight a massive body of marginalised people – numbering nearly twice the population of the UK – who to a great extent aren’t seen as having culture, heritage and history of their own.”

Among the historic objects is a coin necklace from the “Criminal Tribes” settlement in Maharashtra which was collected by Maguerite Milward in 1936. Milward went on an expedition to make portrait sculptures of indigenous and Adivasi men and women.