There are moments when a seemingly ordinary conversation reveals something deeply uncomfortable about the way we treat our culture. For me, one such moment came inside an office of the Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages (JKAACL). I had gone there one morning for an interaction on an upcoming cultural initiative. As I sat in the officer’s chamber, my attention was drawn to a series of beautiful miniature paintings in the Basohli tradition.

The works immediately transformed the otherwise functional government office into something that resembled a small gallery. I remarked, that it was refreshing to see an officer’s chamber adorned with such exquisite works of art. The reply was unexpected.“We are planning to shift these to the Secretariat,” the officer told me. “They will be put up on the Civil Secretariat walls.” I was taken aback. Not because the paintings were being moved. But because of the way their cultural value seemed to be understood, as objects that could simply be transferred from one government building to another depending on where they looked better. I expressed my disagreement.

“These paintings deserve a museum, not Secretariat walls,” I said. That exchange has stayed with me. Because perhaps the real issue was never where those paintings should hang. The real issue was whether we understand what we possess.A miniature painting is not merely something beautiful to put on a wall. A manuscript is not an old document. A traditional musical instrument is not a prop. A folk song is not simply entertainment. They are repositories of memory. They carry histories, techniques, identities and stories that may have travelled across generations.

And if an institution entrusted with preserving that inheritance treats such treasures primarily as décor, we have a much larger institutional problem. The Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, popularly known as the Cultural Academy, is supposed to occupy a special place in the region’s cultural landscape. It is an apex institution entrusted with promoting literature, languages, visual arts, performing arts and the wider cultural traditions of Jammu and Kashmir. That mandate is enormous. But the cultural world around it has changed dramatically.

The artist has changed. The audience has changed. The technology has changed. The economy of culture has changed. The way people create, consume and distribute art has changed. The only question is: has the institution changed enough? Today, a young Kashmiri musician can record a song independently and reach listeners across continents. A filmmaker can distribute work digitally without waiting for a conventional gatekeeper.........

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