Arunachal professor wins SAARC grant for tribal heritage museum study

Assistant Professor Prem Taba of the Mass Communication Department at Arunachal Pradesh University has been awarded the SAARC Research Grant 2026–27 by the SAARC Cultural Centre in Colombo for a project examining how museums represent tribal communities in the Eastern Himalayan region.

The award was confirmed in an official letter dated July 8, with the SAARC Cultural Centre describing the selection process as highly competitive and stating that Taba's proposal demonstrated strong scholarly merit and relevance to the grant theme.

His research project, titled When the Vitrine Silences the Forest: Decolonising Tribal Heritage Communication in the Museums of the Eastern Himalayan SAARC Corridor, will study how the Jawaharlal Nehru State Museum in Itanagar and the National Museum of Bhutan in Paro portray — or overlook — the histories and knowledge systems of indigenous communities.

The SAARC Research Grant carries funding of US$3,000, to be released in two instalments. Grant recipients are required to submit a publishable research report, which will undergo review by the SAARC Cultural Centre before potential publication.

Reacting to the recognition, Taba said the grant was an opportunity to place the heritage of Arunachal Pradesh's tribal communities within a broader South Asian cultural discourse.

"This grant is a recognition that the heritage of our tribal communities belongs not only to Arunachal Pradesh, but to the shared cultural memory of South Asia. For me, this is deeply personal: it is an opportunity to bring the voices of our own people into a global conversation on how museums represent, or fail to represent, indigenous knowledge," he said.

The SAARC Research Grants 2026 programme invited proposals from researchers across the eight member states of the regional bloc under the theme Interpreting Shared Heritage: Cross-Cultural Narratives in Museums in the SAARC Region, making the award one of the region's competitive academic research initiatives.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu congratulated Taba, saying the recognition reflected the quality of research emerging from the state and would draw wider attention to the region's tribal heritage.

"Scholars from across South Asia competed for this grant, and Dr Taba's research stood out. It will bring global attention to the rich heritage of our tribal communities and explore how museums tell their stories," Khandu said in a social media post.