"Partition Is A Terrible Thing. It
Is Like When A Family Breaks-up"
~Salman Rushdie
Kishwar Desai, chairwoman of The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust of India launched this museum under the Indian government's 'Adopt a Heritage' initiative, which is separated into six galleries that highlight the lives of individuals touched by the Partition and its aftermath. 'Towards Independence and Partition,' 'Migration,' 'Refuge,' 'Rebuilding Home,' 'Rebuilding Relationships,' and 'Hope and Courage' are the titles of the galleries.
During my talk with Mrs. Desai, I learned many interesting insights about the museum, as well as how many individuals contributed goods and things that led to the success of establishing a museum in Delhi.
The Idea of Partition Museum:
Well, I believe that as a country, we are not very good at preserving history, and many countries abroad have done a very wonderful job in this regard, such as the Holocaust Museum in Germany and the Hiroshima Memorial in Japan. These are not easy museums to visit since they discuss conflict, settlement, and moving on.
I come from a partition family myself because my parents were in Lahore when the partition was announced they had to leave overnight, so having listened to some of these stories has always intrigued me of such a big calamity where over 20 million people were displaced; the world's largest migration. If one goes around these galleries one will notice that there has been so much uprooting so much loss of identity, culture, and tradition.
Already In Amritsar, Why Bring It To Delhi:
We did not move it to Delhi; it is a completely new museum; of course, historical research stays unchanged, and one or two halls have some identical information. However, the plan was to create a museum that would depict the consequences of division in Delhi.
Delhi, in particular, has a compelling tale to tell, and because it is going to be a people's museum, we need to include them, and people must donate pieces, artifacts, and memories. It seemed like an unattainable goal at first since it was difficult to obtain a single piece of data, money, collection, or oral history at the time, etc., because all the records and papers were spread all over the world. At last, we went to the national archive and the Nehru Memorial to piece together the tale.
The Artefacts Gathered
The study team mostly collected all of the objects. Later, many individuals began to contribute to the museum, and there are currently over 500 families involved with it. Over 200 oral histories have been collected, with each oral history representing more than one family.
Speciality & Future Plans:
We have open garden spaces that we aim to transform into a culture center, similar to the one in Amritsar, where we can have different events such as music concerts, book launches, seminars, theatre and culture events, and art exhibitions. Finally, we will have an entire gallery dedicated to Sind, which will be unique in the world, and for which we are collaborating with the Sindhi Culture Foundation and other interested parties.
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