Ram Bahadur Rai
Why was the Prime Minister’s Museum built in the Teen Murti complex? It can be a curiosity as well as a question. The answer was given by Nripendra Mishra, President, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Prime Minister’s Museum. In his brief speech, he said, ‘This museum will in future be recognized as ‘House of Democracy’, Monastery of Democracy.’ The second thing he said is an answer to a question that people have been asking.
He said- ‘There was extensive discussion regarding the selection of the site of the Prime Minister’s Museum. Had the museum been built elsewhere, the museum established before the first Prime Minister of the country would not have got the required respect. Therefore it was found appropriate that it should now be known as Prime Minister’s Museum by adding to the previously established museum.
The meaning of this statement will be discussed for a long time. Its meaning will continue to be extracted. It will also try to find out whether the place of the country’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in the newly built museum is as important as it should be. The museum is made up of two sections. The first section is the old one, which is the Nehru Museum. It is not only kept safe but also furnished.
In the second section, there is a new museum, in which the personality and important dimensions of each Prime Minister have been depicted using new technology. In this way, the abbot of this monastery of democracy became Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. I understand that Nripendra Mishra used the word ‘Math’ in its original sense. Originally, monasteries in India were built in defense of religion. The Prime Minister’s Museum, which he described as the new monastery of democracy, is built to protect the religion of the soul of the Constitution. It is a parliamentary democracy whose journey will continue uninterrupted only when every prime minister gets a proper place in history.
This museum was started in the year 2018 on the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They consider it as a form of democratic heritage of the country. It would be appropriate to understand it in his own words – ‘At a time when the country is celebrating the seventy-five years of its independence, the Amrit Festival of Independence, then this museum has come as a grand inspiration.’ This vision has been in the making of this museum. The Prime Minister’s statement is a great line for the future that ‘there is as much future as there is in this museum’.
The words that the Prime Minister said when he was referring to India’s democratic tradition are synonymous with Indianness. In which there is a depiction of the diversity of democracy as well as its historicity and civilization. Those who have been visiting the Teen Murti complex for a long time will now go through a new experience. They will be two or four due to the changed climate. Teen Murti Bhavan itself is witnessing its changes. The residence of the Commander-in-Chief in British India got the opportunity in 1948 to become the residence of the first Prime Minister of independent India. That was the first conversion.
The second occurred when President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan declared it a Nehru Memorial Museum on November 14, 1964. A society was formed after two years for its functioning. But then the ‘land use’ of this complex was not changed. After three decades, when the Assurance Committee investigated and reported on a question by socialist leader and Lok Sabha member Mohan Singh, everyone was astonished. There was a revelation from him that the Teen Murti complex is still a residential in government papers. Then that mistake was rectified in the government of PV Narasimha Rao.
Teen Murti Bhawan was built in 1930. It was built by the same person who built Connaught Place. Teen Murti Bhawan is a combination of British and French architecture. Its name was Flag Staff House. The question is whether the form of Teen Murti complex made in 1964 after independence, is its continuation in the new museum or not? The answer is ‘yes’.
It should be said that the new museum has opened the Teen Murti complex. The families of former Prime Ministers who are happy came on the inauguration of the museum. Those who did not come, their absence was discussed there. But those present were also astonished. On why such a unique understanding has not come to the mind of any prime minister before! People are becoming convinced of the Prime Minister for such a unique initiative. Culture Minister Gangapuram Kishan Reddy also mentioned the museums built there.
Has the Teen Murti complex reached the destination of realization from its destiny? History’s many ifs and buts emerge from this question. The day the museum was inaugurated, it was the birthday of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar. The Prime Minister remembered him in these words, ‘The constitution of which Baba Saheb was the main architect, that constitution gave us the basis of the parliamentary system. The main responsibility of this parliamentary system has been the office of the Prime Minister of the country. The heart of the Prime Minister’s Museum is found in these words, if you find it.
This is such a museum of the seventy-five years of independent India’s journey, in which truth has been preserved and unpleasant incidents have not been given unnecessary importance while giving facts and details in the description of the journey of the democratic republic. The future generation will decide whether the transformation of the Teen Murti complex into a power center of democracy provides a realization of its destiny. As soon as one tries to examine and know it, he will find that the Teen Murti complex has breathed a sigh of freedom.
This can be easily understood with an example, which the Prime Minister indirectly mentioned in his speech, ‘We have a proud tradition of strengthening democracy in a democratic way, with one or two exceptions.’ He added that ‘therefore we also have an obligation that with our efforts, we continue to strengthen democracy further.’ He explained it in detail. But in the museum that fact is only described as a fact. That is, emergency was declared in 1975.
Had it not been mentioned, history would have been ridiculed. But the description of the emergency excesses has saved the museum. Those who visit the Prime Minister’s museum will find that the Teen Murti complex has now reached its destination of destiny. Destiny has made him the location of the new museum. This museum has become a meeting place of destiny and effort.