A room in the capital's national Gandhi Museum has precious artefacts. It also has holes in its roof, exposing the memorabilia to the vagaries of nature
A room in the capital's national Gandhi Museum has precious artefacts. It also has holes in its roof, exposing the memorabilia to the vagaries of nature
Gandhi lives on, in the minds of many Indians, more than 60 years after his death. But for the National Gandhi museum in the capital, the Father of the Nation is dead and buried.
There's the ventilator! A foreigner points towards the gaping holes
in the roof of the museum.
Inside the museum is a replica of Hriday Kunj, the ashram in Ahmedabad where Gandhi stayed for a while during his Dandi March. The archetype in Delhi has the bed-sheets, table, charkha and slippers, once used by the Mahatma.
However, what comes as a dampener is the fact that the ceiling of the room is riddled with holes and volumes of water seep through whenever it rains in the capital. The management has received several complaints about the leakage but has failed to plug the problem.
At least one out of five visitors has criticised the state of affairs, in the suggestions book. A board member's wife identified as Indira Rahi says in her statement, "I came to Hriday Kunj along with my family and was shocked to see water all around the room. The rain had fallen on all the pictures of the wall and there were tears in my eyes when I saw Bapu's room. People of the city do not understand how to take proper care of the ashram. Why is the state of the room like this? Think and do something about it."
Another visitor, Veronique Payetee writes, "This is Mahatma Gandhi's room. For God's sake, maintain the room and his belongings properly. This room is for us and our future children to see how the Mahatma was. We were not born during that period. All that is left is his legacy and how he lived and how his room was."
A staff member from the ashram said on conditions of anonymity, "On February 12 when it rained in the capital, we had a hard time protecting the belongings in the room. Everyone complains about the state of the room.
Water has seeped through the walls inside the room. The higher authorities receive huge amount of grants for maintenance but do not maintain the ashram properly." Gandhi himself once said, "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." It seems some of us have taken that to heart.
| In memoriam |
|
After theu00a0 assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948, started a process of collectingu00a0 and preservingu00a0 the personalu00a0 relics, manuscripts, books, journals and documents, photographic and audio-visual material, all that could go into a museum on the life, philosophy and work of Mahatma Gandhi. It started in Mumbai but the work was later shifted to Delhi. In its infancy, the museum came up in the government hutments adjoining Kota House. Later in mid-1957, it was shifted to the picturesque old mansion at 5,u00a0 Mansinghu00a0 Road. Finally it was brought to its present new home, most appropriately built opposite the samadhi of Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat, New Delhi, in 1959. It was formallyu00a0 inaugurated by Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, on January 30, 1961. |
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