Exhibition Panel Review Under a 'Marwar' Brief
A district museum in Jodhpur has ₹1,20,000 sanctioned for a four-panel exhibition titled 'Crafts of Marwar'. The curator proposes five panels, each pairing an object with an origin district: P1 Thewa jewellery - Pratapgarh; P2 Molela terracotta plaques - Rajsamand; P3 Ajrakh block printing - Barmer; P4 blue pottery - Bikaner; P5 Kathputli string puppets - Udaipur. Panel costs are P1 ₹38,000, P2 ₹26,000, P3 ₹30,000, P4 ₹34,000 and P5 ₹24,000, and the museum must hold back a 10% contingency of the sanctioned amount before spending on panels. P3 is the only panel that includes a live demonstration by an artisan, and the director insists that the final exhibition must contain one demonstration panel. The sanction letter also states that the exhibition must represent the Marwar cultural region; any object not native to that region may be shown only after the exhibition title is revised with the sanctioning authority's approval, and any object labelled with the wrong district must be re-labelled before display.
1. Which panel carries a wrong district label, and what is the correct district? Explain how you would justify the correction to the director.
Read the worked answer
Panel P4 (blue pottery - Bikaner) is mislabelled. The correct district is Jaipur.
Reasoning chain:
- Object exists, pairing is false. Blue pottery is a real Rajasthan craft with a recognised Jaipur identity (Jaipur and Sanganer workshops, GI-tagged as Jaipur blue pottery). The error is not that the craft is invented, but that the district is wrong.
- Check what Bikaner is actually known for. Bikaner's documented craft identity is Usta gold work on camel hide, camel-hair products and kundan-meena work. If a Bikaner panel is wanted, the object should change; you cannot keep the object and keep the district.
- Why the correction matters more than it looks. A government-funded exhibition label is a factual claim displayed in public. A wrong attribution is challenged first by local artisans and craft bodies, and it also misleads school groups, who are the main audience.
- How to present it to the director. Bring the object–district evidence, state that the object is retained and only the label changes, and show that re-labelling costs almost nothing compared with dropping the panel. Note also that after re-labelling, P4 still sits outside Marwar, so the regional question remains open (see next task).
2. Apply the regional test. Which of the five panels fall outside Marwar, and what does that imply for the 'four-panel Marwar' brief?
Read the worked answer
District-to-region mapping:
- Marwar (Jodhpur region and adjoining western districts): Jodhpur, Pali, Nagaur, Jalore, Sirohi, Barmer, Jaisalmer.
- Mewar: Udaipur, Rajsamand, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Pratapgarh.
- Dhundhar (Jaipur region): Jaipur, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur.
Applying this:
| Panel | District | Region | Verdict under the Marwar rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 Thewa | Pratapgarh | Mewar | Outside |
| P2 Molela | Rajsamand | Mewar | Outside |
| P3 Ajrakh | Barmer | Marwar | Inside |
| P4 Blue pottery | Bikaner → Jaipur | Not Marwar (even after correction) | Outside |
| P5 Kathputli | Udaipur | Mewar | Outside |
Implication: only one panel, P3, survives the regional test. A four-panel Marwar exhibition is therefore not constructible from this list at all - the problem is not the curator's selection but the brief. Dropping four panels and keeping one is not an exhibition, and it wastes the sanction.
The defensible judgement call is to go back to the sanctioning authority with a title revision, for example 'Crafts of Rajasthan: Marwar and Mewar', rather than quietly displaying Mewar crafts under a Marwar label. Quiet mislabelling is the one option that must be refused: it converts a design problem into a factual misstatement.
3. Given the contingency rule and the demonstration requirement, what is the maximum number of panels affordable, and which panels would you finally select? Show the arithmetic.
Read the worked answer
Step 1 - spendable amount. Contingency = 10% of ₹1,20,000 = ₹12,000. Spendable on panels = ₹1,20,000 − ₹12,000 = ₹1,08,000.
Step 2 - test the four-panel assumption. The four cheapest panels are P5 ₹24,000 + P2 ₹26,000 + P3 ₹30,000 + P4 ₹34,000 = ₹1,14,000. ₹1,14,000 > ₹1,08,000, so four panels are impossible by ₹6,000. The maximum affordable is three panels.
Step 3 - apply the hard constraints. P3 (₹30,000) is mandatory because it is the only live-demonstration panel. Amount left = ₹1,08,000 − ₹30,000 = ₹78,000 for two more panels. Every remaining pair fits (most expensive pair P1 + P4 = ₹72,000), so the budget no longer decides; cultural accuracy and variety decide.
Step 4 - the recommendation I would put in writing.
- Obtain approval for the revised title (Marwar + Mewar) - otherwise no panel except P3 is legally displayable.
- Re-label P4 as Jaipur before any future use.
- Final set: P3 (Barmer, ₹30,000) + P2 (Molela, ₹26,000) + P5 (Udaipur, ₹24,000) = ₹80,000, leaving ₹28,000 of panel budget unspent and the ₹12,000 contingency untouched.
- Justification: one living craft demonstration, one endangered/ritual craft (Molela plaques), one performance craft (Kathputli) - three different categories, two regions represented, and a comfortable financial buffer if transport or insurance costs rise.
An alternative set of P3 + P2 + P1 (₹94,000) is equally fundable and defensible if the director prefers high-value metalwork over puppetry; what is not defensible is squeezing in a fourth panel by eating the contingency.