Hyderabad: Social and cultural activists in Telangana have thrown their weight behind a proposal to set up a tribal art museum, Aadhya Kala, inside the Nampally campus of Suravaram Pratapa Reddy Telugu University, amid an ongoing standoff with a section of students and faculty over the plan.
Activist Vimalakka of Arunodaya Samakhya, MLC Goreti Venkanna, S Jeevan Kumar of the Human Rights Forum and others held a round table meeting at the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Baghlingampalli on Friday, July 10, demanding that the state government implement a recently issued order to set up the museum on the ground floor of the university.
Museum project driven by Prof Jayadheer Tirumala Rao
The museum is being spearheaded by Professor Jayadheer Tirumala Rao and his organisation, the Adi Dhwani Trust. Speaking to Siasat.com, Tirumala Rao and retired professor Dr G Manoja sought to address concerns raised by university students and faculty, who fear losing campus space to the museum.
On the students’ claim that around 650 of them attend classes at the Nampally campus, professor Manoja said that most of these students were enrolled in certificate courses, and not regular university-level programmes with some exceptions. Tirumala Rao questioned why an institution of the university’s stature was offering certificate courses that require only a Class 10 qualification.
He also pointed out that the university had already rented out a portion of the main building to the Institute of Handlooms and another building to the Telangana Public Service Commission (TGPSC), which he claimed was illegal. He questioned why a museum could not similarly be accommodated.
He asked why the university needed to run a distance education programme from the Nampally campus when it had shifted to a 100-acre campus in Bachupally three years ago.
He also questioned the need for the vice-chancellor to maintain two separate chambers across two campuses.
Tirumala Rao clarified that his trust had not chosen the Telugu University building for the museum on its own, and that the state government had allotted the space after considering a representation submitted by his organisation in 2024. He said his vision was to have the museum located close to students so that they could learn and carry out research by directly examining artefacts tracing the roots of the Telugu language to indigenous tribal life.
He appealed to students who have been protesting for the past 10 days against the museum to reconsider their stand, saying a museum was equal to a hundred libraries and that reading and copying from books alone was not enough to learn. He said he had collected 4,500 artefacts over the decades during his career as a professor at the university, all of which he described as priceless and rare.
Plan for six mini-museums under one roof
Prof Tirumala Rao’s proposal envisages six mini-museums under the larger tribal museum, wherever the state government provides space. These include Adi Dhwani, showcasing 387 rare tribal musical instruments, Adi Aksharam, featuring paper and palm-leaf manuscripts, stylus pens and literature on Telugu, tribal languages and Dravidian studies; sections for metal works, including statues, utensils and pottery used in tribal rituals, a section for tribal apparatus and tools; Adi Chitram, displaying tribal art expressions and scroll paintings, and a section for traditional Indian lamps used by indigenous communities.
Manoja pointed to 250 tribal artefacts sourced by President Droupadi Murmu for display at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, of which 175 were presented by the Adi Dhwani Trust two years ago.
She said that during a visit to Paris three years ago, trust members had held discussions with the management of the Musee du Louvre, who were impressed by some of the artefacts shown to them and expressed interest in entering into a formal arrangement with Adi Dhwani for exchange of artefacts and research, provided the trust set up a museum at a physical location through which such an exchange could be officially channelised.
Prof Manoja also said the state government had picked the Telugu University’s old building for the museum, given its proximity to several other institutions in the area, including the State Archaeological Museum, the Health Museum in Public Gardens, the Centenary Museum, the Birla Planetarium, the Science Museum and the Salarjung Museum, which, she said, would together turn the area into a museum circuit in Hyderabad.
Responsibility to preserve heritage: Vimalakka
Vimalakka said it was the responsibility of the people of Telangana to preserve heritage passed down over generations in the form of such indigenous artefacts. Asked about the prolonged standoff between the students and Tirumala Rao over setting up a tribal art museum inside an educational institution, singer and cultural figure Goreti Venkanna told Siasat.com, “If not in Telugu University, where else can be the right place.”
Tirumala Rao’s collection remains temporarily housed in locked rooms at Telugu University, at his residence, at another place in Adilabad and at other locations. Many of the artefacts have reportedly been exposed to rain and remain susceptible to wear and tear if not properly preserved.
Whether his effort to pass on these rare artefacts, collected from forests across the country, to future generations will eventually bear fruit is something only the students can judge.
| Edited by Osama Salman | | 
