The Central Vista Redevelopment Project proposes to demolish, along with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and the Annexe of the National Archives, the National Museum, and has instead assigned spaces in the North and South blocks for museum buildings, which will purportedly represent the story of 75 years of India’s Independence. The lack of information on how this massive a project is being undertaken has scholars and curators raising questions about everything from the security of thousands of national treasures to the very optics of such an execution in the middle of a national health disaster. 

For Mumbai gallerists Shireen Gandhy of Chemould and Geetha Mehra of Sakshi Gallery, the opacity around the project is the most astounding. While there are questions in some circles about the accuracy of even the scant information that is being made available, others wonder about the professionals entrusted with it, the choice of new designated museum spaces and the art they are going to hold. “As citizens of the country, this is our combined heritage,” says Mehra, emphasising the need for more publicly available information even as she wonders if it is all a part of the current government’s plan to gain political mileage, and simultaneously distract the masses.