RAWALPINDI, Dec 7: The doors of the National Art Gallery in Islamabad are expected to open by early winter next year. A new Rs66 million Museum of Ethnography will be in full swing on Shakarparian Hill in 2004. A full cleaning and restoration of the pink and yellow sandstone has been completed on Karachi’s prestigious Mohatta Palace exterior and the scaffolding will finally be pulled down to greet visitors for the upcoming art spectacular, the largest ever definitive Sadequain retrospective, in which major paintings from national collections including a large number of canvasses owned by the federal ministry of culture will be displayed.

These developments could hardly be said to constitute a cultural revolution. But, in their own way, they have heralded a change in the way business is done in the federal ministry of culture and the way it conducts its affairs in Pakistan’s four provinces.

The architect of this policy, Mr. Samin Jan Babbar, the outgoing secretary, ministry of culture and tourism, vacates his chair today after a 40-year career, of which the first half took place in the Pakistan army, and a subsequent civil service career was capped in its twilight years by a two-year stint in the culture ministry.

The outgoing secretary could hardly be compared to Jack Lang or a Melina Mercouri as a high profile steward of cultural policy. Yet, the fact remains that over the past 24 months, a newly constituted two-pronged policy — firstly formulating and codifying cultural blueprints and road-maps, and secondly helping open new cultural institutions both in Islamabad and the provinces — has been in evidence.

For the first time, Islamabad’s new cultural policies have been categorized as “sensible and not repressive”, with an increased measure of autonomy being transferred to the provinces. The most remarkable example of this is the setting up of the National Fund for Moenjodaro in Karachi with the governor Sindh as its head instead of a distant remote control of all cultural operations from Islamabad. The transfer of authority has not led to unmixed results and complaints persist about sluggishness in the provincial administration of such projects. Yet the rationale for such transfer of autonomy in cultural institutions and the setting up of regional and cultural micropolicies as a partnership in a newly defined federal-provincial relationship augurs well for the future.

Samin Jan Babbar, whilst earning the Sitara-e-Jurat twice for courage in military combat, has as federal culture secretary left behind a more enduring and workable legacy for the establishment and working of cultural institutions in the centre and for a healthy decentralized partnership for his ministry in the provinces.