This volume brings together a range of essays that offer a new perspective on the dynamic history of the museum as a cultural institution in South Asia. It traces the museum from its origin as a tool of colonialism and adoption as a vehicle of sovereignty in the nationalist period, till its role in the present, as it reflects the fissured identities of the post-colonial period.

Introduction Saloni Mathur and Kavita Singh. Part I: Inaugural Formations 1. The Transformation of Objects into Artifacts, Antiquities and Art in Nineteenth-century India Bernard Cohn 2. The Museum in the Colony: Collecting, Conserving, Classifying Tapati Guha-Thakurta 3. Staging Science Gyan Prakash Part II: National Re-orientations 4. The Museum is National Kavita Singh 5. Grace McCann Morley and the Display of Indian Modernity Kristy Phillips 6. Museumising Modern Art: National Gallery of Modern Art, the Indian Case-Study Vidya Shivadas Part III: Contemporary Engagements 7. Museums are good to Think: Heritage on View in India Arjun Appadurai and Carol Breckenridge 8. Recollecting the Rural in Suburban Chennai Mary Hancock 9. Reincarnations of the Museum: The Museum in an Age of Religious Revivalism Saloni Mathur and Kavita Singh 10. Museum Watching (13 ethnographic portraits from the field). About the Editors. Notes on Contributors. Bibliography. Index