Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya – A Hidden Gem That Should Be In Your Mysuru Itinerary

When I visited Mysuru in December 2019, I decided to give the usual tourist favourites a miss. So I explored the city beyond the travel guides in search of lesser-known places that deserve any discerning tourist’s attention. To my delight, I discovered that Mysuru is home to many hidden treasures that may not attract a great volume of footfall but definitely offer an enriching experience to those who visit. One such place is the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (IGRMS) or National Museum of Mankind.

IGRMS Mysuru is located in Lashkar Mohalla on Irwin Road, not far from the Mysuru Palace. Set up in 2001, it is an anthropological museum. It functions as the Southern Regional Centre of IGRMS, Bhopal – an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Culture dedicated to the preservation and promotion of India’s diverse cultural patterns.

The Museum Building

Though the Mysuru campus is nowhere near the sprawling 200-acre campus of the Bhopal headquarters, it certainly has a charm of its own. The compound has beautiful terracotta exhibits and panels of folk paintings from different corners of India. The museum building is simple a two-storey house. But don’t mistake it for any ordinary structure. The property is steeped in rich history. It was one of the earliest colonial houses to be constructed in Mysuru. It’s most famous resident was Colonel Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, better known as the man who defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo. He lived here from 1799 to 1801 while serving as the governor of Mysuru after the English victory in the Fourth Anglo-Mysuru War. The building has been named ‘Wellington Lodge’ after him.

The ground floor of the ‘Wellington Lodge’ houses the IGRMS Mysuru while the upper storey is an art gallery of the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums. The gallery has a collection of some interesting paintings by different Indian artists and a few portraits of the Mysuru royal family. Though the entry to both the museum and art gallery is free, photography of the museum exhibits is allowed while you can't take any photos of the paintings displayed in the gallery.

This year’s exhibits

While talking to the IGRMS Mysuru staff, I learned that the museum changes its main exhibits every year. This year, it focused on the nomadic tribes of India. The exhibition covered nomads from various parts of the country, including Rabaris and Ahirs of Kutch, Gaddis of Himachal Pradesh, Gujjars and Bakarwals of Jammu and Kashmir, and Bhutias of Sikkim, to name a few.

The museum has a couple of mid-sized rooms, of which one serves as the office. Needless to say, the exhibition on nomads didn’t boast of a huge collection. But the objects on display were well curated. Each object was labelled and most were accompanied by photographs to give the visitors a better understanding of the item and its use. The exhibition aimed at creating a vignette of the day-to-day life of the nomadic tribes. Therefore, the displays were sourced from a wide array of categories ranging from textiles, ornaments, and household items to tools, and animal husbandry.

Apart from the exhibits, there were also information panels describing the way of life of the nomads to give us the complete picture. I learned that many nomadic tribes practice the same occupation, but there are certain key characteristics that distinguish one tribe from the other. For instance, though both Gujjars and Bakarwals rear livestock, you can easily differentiate between the two on the basis of the type of cattle they rear.

Exhibit of the month

Like many other museums in the country, in addition to the regular displays, the IGRMS choses to highlight a particular work as the ‘Exhibit of the Month’. When I visited it in December 2019, Ambari Hathi - a handcrafted wooden carved image of an elephant and its rider, collected from Murshidabad, West Bengal, was the chosen piece of work.

What else do they do?

The IGRMS also conducts seminars and special projects and programmes throughout the year. They organize special educational programmes like the ‘Do and Learn’ series where they invite well-known traditional artists to train people in their particular craft and to spread awareness about folk art forms through workshops. I was thrilled to learn that artists from my home state Assam have conducted multiple workshops here and Bihu performances are a major crowd-puller.

The Museum Shop

The IGRMS Mysuru has a small shop selling traditional handicrafts and artwork. Though it doesn’t have a large stock, the items are reasonably priced. Moreover, their authenticity is guaranteed as the museum sources them directly from the artists. So in case you are in Mysuru and want to buy some beautiful traditional artefacts, you could try the museum shop.

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