Selection Bias
The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library put out a call for applications for the position of curator early last year. Founded in 1964, the NMML is set in the midst of the lush-green 25 acres of the Teen Murti Bhavan complex in Delhi. Teen Murti was the official residence of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first and longest-serving prime minister, from 1947 to 1964. Apart from the library, the building currently houses the Nehru Museum, the Center for Contemporary Studies and a planetarium. In the five decades since its inception, NMML has been the country’s premier research library for modern history and the social sciences. When I was a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, from 2007 to 2009, visits to the NMML were a rite of passage. Assuming that the position advertised was to be at the Nehru Memorial Museum, I immediately applied.
After being shortlisted, I was invited for a video “interaction.” The technology department at the NMML appeared anxious to keep the process glitch-free—it conducted two rehearsal video meetings to ensure my connection was up to the task. Despite this, on the final day, the line was shaky. My interviewers—six sexagenarian men and one young woman—included Swapan Dasgupta, a right-wing journalist; Adwaita Gadanayak, the director general of the National Gallery of Modern Art; and the NMML’s director, Raghavendra Singh.
They looked uncomfortable in their tiny windows on my screen as they took turns to quiz me. Every now and then someone would go offline, prompting an IT assistant to help them log back in. A good many of their questions had to do with technology. Museums needed technology, I was told, and did I know how to deal with
