Currently, world cultures museums are grappling the afterlives of decades of collection, classification, storage and exhibition practice that have been steeped in a dehumanizing vision of the world. In an attempt to seriously consider Arjun Appadurai’s (2013) call for culture to construct futures with the possibility to uplift and reorganize the current world order, this paper interrogates the museological construction of South Asian religious material culture in Wereldmuseum (The Netherlands).
The word Bahujan (the many, majority) is a Sanskrit term that appears in Buddhist texts. Since the 1980s, the term has been used as a political marker to denote the religious communities in India that numerically constitute a majority, but whose social position remains marginal to twice-born Hindus. While the term has become an important marker of anti-caste resistance in political and social spheres, this paper is a preliminary reflection on the possibilities of Bahujan art histories, as an organizing, emancipatory concept. Bahujan here denotes scheduled castes, OBC (other Backward castes), tribal, Muslim, and certain diasporic religious contexts, such as those that arise in the Caribbean, following the curatorial work of Manu Kaur (2024).
While categories like ‘Islamic art’ and collections of so-called tribal and Dalit artifacts have historically existed, the logic under which these objects are collected, classified, and exhibited in the context of South Asia play not only into colonial logics of racial supremacy, but also casteist languages of hierarchy. What is more, permanent galleries dedicated to large themes around material religion in South Asia rarely display these collections or artefacts. I will introduce here the concept of representational provenances (Swamy and Lewis 2021), to demonstrate how ‘tribal’ art has been collected, hidden, and strategically mobilized to bolster grand narratives of ‘Hinduness’.
Related to this, I also reflect upon diasporic perspectives on religiosity and material culture in an attempt to broaden the conceptual space of South Asia. Diasporic voices are increasingly visible in World Cultures museums as a way to correct or repair biases in collections and exhibition practices. In navigating the multiplicity of community-based voices, museums must negotiate between their own ethical commitments, while also honoring the idea of shared authority, particularly with grassroots organizations. These negotiations are sensitive, playing into popular discussions around decolonizing the museum and anti-racism on the one hand, but also can be weaponized by religiously conservative groups and Hindu nationalist sympathizers. Delving into this through two object lessons, the Ram Lila Masks from Suriname, and the future acquisition of a Hantu Tetek statue from Malaysia, this paper introduces the possibility to subvert ahistorical gazes on diasporic heritage, as these objects respond directly to claims about authentic practice and twice-born Hindu supremacy, in relation to Indo-Caribbean and Indian Ocean World spaces.
As way of conclusion, I will interrogate two interrelated provocations, one that presents a significant limitation, and the other that opens up possibilities for more just futures: On the one hand, there is danger in using emancipatory concepts like Bahujan, as they may be stretched in ways that reinstate epistemic colonial violence through classification and storage. On the other, paying attention to Bahujan objects, in the vein of Amade M’charek (2015) opens up the possibility for narratives to be told otherwise, potentially resisting the pull of essentialized, grand histories of religion that are increasingly normalized through global fascisms and nationalisms.
This paper introduces preliminary research into the possibility that the concept ‘Bahujan’ has in world-making and futures, inside museum collections. Bahujan, a political term meaning ‘many, or ‘majority’ refers to the diversity of religious peoples who numerically make up a majority in comparison to so-called twice-born Hindus, but whose practices, social positions, and everyday lives are increasingly marginalized in India and in diaspora communities. Historically, institutions have prioritized casteist perspectives on and of South Asian religious material culture, based on colonial logics of classification and history. These perspectives have rearticulated themselves in contemporary diasporic narratives, often normalized through appeals to affect and heritage. What is at stake for contemporary museum practice if we mobilize ‘Bahujan’ as an art-historical concept? This paper approaches this broad question by working through examples of Indo-Caribbean and Indian Ocean religious materiality.