Nehru Memorial - museum of neglect?

- by Malvi

After living in Delhi for more than nine years, this month I finally got an opportunity to visit the famous Nehru Memorial Museum at Teen Murti Bhavan.

I wanted to revisit my memories of the place which I had seen in my childhood during a “Delhi-Darshan” tour in my summer holidays. The Teen Murti Bhavan with its well-kept gardens is inviting and I entered the huge iron gates to begin my tour of the museum.

The place houses some personal artifacts of India’s First Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and showcases his life and works during the struggle for India's independence. Nehru's ideas and life as well as different aspects of the Indian freedom movement are portrayed in the Museum. The Teen Murti Bhavan had been home to Nehru for around 16 years after he became country’s Prime Minister and until he passed away in 1964.

In the ground floor room, Nehru’s South Block office in the Ministry of External Affairs has been recreated with the same furniture and other articles he used. On the first floor, some of the rooms, such as Nehru's bedroom, the drawing-room and study have been preserved as they were during his lifetime which gives a very interesting glimpse of Nehru’s life. Like the narrow single bed on which he took his last breathe his study/Library with a huge collection of old and classic books still preserved.

Details of modern and contemporary Indian history are displayed in such a manner that visitors walking through the galleries are led through the many phases of India's colonial and post-colonial history and our freedom struggle, spanning nearly a century and a half.

However, as you progress in the rooms which showcase some historic documents and pictures of pre-Independence and post-Independence days, I felt as if an air of neglect had en-wrapped these priceless artifacts and photographs.

It was really disheartening to see the condition of the historic picture of Pandit Nehru welcoming the first President of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad in 1950.

The picture has been scratched by somebody and the notice boards on which the photographs have been mounted have a torn and faded cloth.  Seeing the pictures of such great importance of our post-Independence history showcased in such a condition made me sad!

Similar wear and tear is visible in the next two rooms which house the laminated pictures and historic documents including manuscripts and newspaper headlines of big events in the post-Independence era. 

There is no dearth of visitors to the place and even school children are brought in study tours. But the neglected showcases are not being able to hold the attention of the visitors, who rush through the rooms as if walking on a busy street.  Moreover, some visitors even spoil the artifacts in the absence of adequate number of overseers and guides and an interactive museum model, which was evident in the scratches inflicted on the Nehru-Prasad photograph.

On the positive side, the interesting display of life-size mannequins recreating the Central Hall of Parliament on the midnight of 14-15 August 1947 showing the figure of Jawaharlal Nehru delivering the 'Tryst with Destiny' speech' in the presence of other members of the Parliament gives a real-time glimpse of the momentous day.

There is no doubting the efforts of people involved in visualizing and creation  of the Nehru Memorial as a prominent reminder of our valuable history, but we should not let it  slip away into the hands of neglect.