The 220-year-old Asiatic Society of Mumbai faces so uncertain a future that its current president herself has expressed apprehensions. The role of the institution in the social and intellectual life of Mumbai, earlier Bombay, has been perhaps at its lowest in the past decade or so as members attending programmes dwindled, new and young members were not drawn to it, funds for digitising old and rare books had to be scoured, library facilities declined to a point where members were asked to come another day because the inadequate staff was over-worked, staff salaries have been pending for months for lack of funds, and the Society accused of making salary payments from the corpus funds. For years, the Society has hardly contributed research or ideas on the city’s condition or its future, or collaborated with other intellectual institutions to lead studies and programmes devoted to Mumbai.

It is, indeed, a sad comment that the Society that once boasted of the best and most creative minds, including judges and scholars, as its members should have sunk to this state. The de-intellectualisation of Mumbai was not due to the Society’s decline but it hardly took steps to counter it with top-class intellectual work. Besides the rare books and manuscripts it holds, the Society can now boast of little else. The crux of the issue, unsurprisingly, is the lack of funds. Dependent on state and central government grants, paltry sums of Rs 1 or 5 crore disbursed at the whims of politicians, the Society has been struggling to keep its head above water. It could consider being designated an “institution of national importance” and receive Rs 50 crore but it would have to trade its autonomy — hardly a bargain for intellectual pursuits.