Public history, as it is practised in India, defies easy attempts at classification. This is partially because hardly anything that would be recognised as public history is identified as such by its author(s). For the term, despite its ever-increasing acceptance outside India as a discipline and a practice distinct from history, has yet to gain any currency within India. Any attempt to identify works that are self-consciously public history in the Indian context will likely not yield much fruit. Nor, for that matter, will borrowing any of the many definitions of the term from the West and trying to find works that adhere to it in India. Instead, this chapter will try to highlight the myriad forms that public engagements with the past have taken place in India. This article focuses specifically on museums, arguably the preeminent site of public engagements with the past in India. To that end, it will look at a new generation of museums that are charting new paths towards enabling a better public engagement with the past. It will also analyse a few institutional forms of public engagements with the past.

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西方东部：拥有印度的过去

正如印度所实行的那样，公共历史无视分类的简单尝试。部分原因是因为它的作者几乎没有将任何可以识别为公共历史的东西识别出来。就任期而言，尽管它在印度以外的地区日益受到人们的认可，成为一种与历史截然不同的学科和做法，但在印度国内尚未获得任何认可。在印度背景下，任何试图识别具有自觉性的公共历史作品的尝试都不会产生太多成果。就此而言，也不会从西方借用该术语的许多定义中的任何一个，并试图在印度找到符合该术语的作品。取而代之的是，本章将试图强调印度过去与公众接触的多种形式。本文专门针对博物馆，可以说是印度过去与公众互动的绝佳场所。为此，它将着眼于新一代博物馆，它们正在开辟新的道路，以使公众能够更好地与过去互动。它还将分析过去与公众互动的几种制度形式。