Folk Musical Instrument Museum under pressure to relocate

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, Apr. 25: The Nepali Folk Musical Instrument Museum is in crisis because of a lack of alternative space to move its collection to.

The museum, which houses more than 650 rare and disappearing folk instruments of the country, currently functions out of a run-down building at Tripureshwor, Kathmandu, that was severely damaged by the 2015 earthquake. Since then, various bodies have asked its founder and director Ram Prasad Kandel to vacate the structure, without providing any alternative for him to move the priceless artefacts to.

Most recently, Kathmandu Metropolitan City's city police came to the museum and asked Kandel to leave. They came on the basis of a notice issued by the Guthi Sansthan to vacate the building.

Kandel said that the authorities had requested him to relocate dozens of times. They pointed the dangerous condition it is in and stressed the need for reconstructing it. But where to relocate to is a question that remains to be answered. "This worries me greatly," he said.

It's a choice between a rock and a hard place for Kandel. The building, and especially the roof, is weak and he is unsure about how well it will handle the coming monsoon. But he also does not have a safer place where he can take the historically and culturally significant musical objects to. Of the unique instruments in the museum's collection is a 200-year-old Nagada drum. 

The institution, registered in 1997 and opened to visitors in 2002, also contains musical instruments of the Tamang, Gurung, Magar, Newar, Hayu, Rai, Limbu, Gandharva, Tharu, Sherpa, Kisan, Kumal, Saika, Musahar, Jhagad, Thami, Santhal, Raute, Kusunda and other indigenous and marginalised groups that are fast vanishing from their native communities. 

The museum is no less than a child to Kandel. He started travelling the country and collecting instruments that represented the musical richness and diversity of our country in 1995. 

"I have been collecting these instruments on my own for the last 28 years," he said. "But now, the threats I have been receiving from government bodies and the inability to find a safe place to shift the museum to cause me great anguish."

The lack of understanding and cooperation from the state has sometimes frustrated Kandel so much that he had wanted to burn all the instruments and be done with it. "But then I stop. What is the fault of the musical instruments?"

"It is sad that no one sees the need to preserve these. The local government, Guthi Sansthan and others peddle the slogan of heritage preservation yet, do little in terms of action," he lamented.

The Guthi Sansthan wants to evict the museum to rebuild the Sattal it occupies and lease it and other buildings on the premises of the Tripureshwor Mahadev Temple to Kathmandu University. The University plans to run its Department of Music from here.

Kandel reminded all that the museum and the department shared the same objective. But both the Sansthan and the University have been pushing the museum to leave without providing any alternative location. 

In addition to folk musical instruments, the museum also holds books on folk singers, fairs, dances and audio-visual materials. The museum is working to document folk songs too.