For an Indian, a ticket to the Taj Mahal costs about INR 50 (approximately 50p). When the world reopens, and all Covid restrictions are lifted, the economy of one of the seven wonders of the world will hopefully be back on track sooner or later.
But if you take a moment and pause, the cost of a single entry ticket to the Partition Museum in Amritsar is INR 10 (10p). Unlike the Taj, which has umpteen international bodies and the government to its economic rescue, what is the fate and challenges of maintaining a memorial and a museum which commemorates the people of India and Pakistan, who suffered during partition? We find out in an exclusive conversation with Lady Kishwar Desai about the Partition Museum in Amritsar and a new upcoming museum in Delhi.
Speaking to Asian Voice, Lady Kishwar Desai said, “There is no other space in the world, anywhere in the world, that commemorates the people who went through so much during partition. So this was a very important moment in history, to be able to capture this and to present the narrative of what actually happened.”
Over the years, the museum has attracted a lot of attention from all over the world. Last year, the British Guild of Travel Writers nominated it as the best tourism project in the world, reacting to which, Lady Desai said, “We were so astonished because we're a very small organisation. We are really a tiny NGO, and we live on donations. We require a constant infusion of funds and also look out for people who have oral histories. We work with anybody in their family who was affected by the partition, we would love to have and capture their oral histories and narratives and also put whatever is available with them from that time, from 1947 in the museum, so that it remains as a permanent reminder how much people lost, but also give inspirational stories of how sometimes entire families had been destroyed.”
A new museum in Delhi
Lady Desai told us that somebody liked it so much that they decided that there would be a similar Museum in Delhi, which also because Delhi was completely impacted by the partition and many of the colonies and so on today in Delhi didn't even exist that time.
She told Asian Voice that there was a huge migration of over 20 refugee camps all over the city, in which migrants would come and take shelter, then they will be put on trains, and then people would come from either Bengal or Punjab and then they would be kept here.
“Housing was a mammoth task that the administration had at that time, but was also very terrific, because then the description of the camps at that time, which we are putting both in the Amritsar museum as well as the Delhi Museum, people who were in the camps and what they remember, it's really very horrific what they went through, even after the migration was over. So, it was not an easy thing. So, they really completely changed and that is why we are now setting up this petition Museum at the Dara Shikoh Library,” she told the newsweekly.
Further describing it, Lady Desai said, “This library space is a building which is in Old Delhi near Kashmiri gate, is a very good sight for that because it was there. Of course, it is named after the son of Shahjahan, Dara Shikoh, who was the favourite Prince of Shahjahan. We have the last remnants of his palace, within in the Delhi palace within this complex, but now mostly a colonial structure because of one of the Delhi residents.”
Resources and support during the pandemic
Maintaining a museum during the pandemic, especially when it can be expensive to find researchers, especially when the museum’s findings are exceptional, has not been an easy task. Lady Desai said that she receives a minimum of two work applications a week because there are patrons who want to be a part of the museum in some capacity or the other.
She mentioned the contribution and support of the then Chief Minister, Prakash Singh Badal and now, Captain Amarinder Singh.
She said, “But we had no money, we didn't even have a collection when we talked about first talked about the museum. But this was where the media has been extremely helpful and very good for us. Because through them, we were able to talk about that we want people to come forward and tell us their stories, as well as the families if they have anything.
“Since last year, for almost 12 months the museum has been shut, so even though we have to continue paying salaries and continue maintaining and looking after and sanitising the museum supplemental. Can I pull up higher? No. Even though that was coming in, no donation came in, because all the donations went off to Covid. So all of it became a big challenge. However, it is now reopened in Amritsar. And we are very happy to report that even given all the difficulties and the fact the flights are not working, greens are not working properly. Hardly anyone is going to be even today it is getting to between 250 to 300 visitors, which is quite good. Because earlier we were getting in 1000s.”
“That is how we're also developing a whole generation of a new generation of curators, and they actually work on the job, you know, they're not just being told by someone. This is theoretically in a class case. They actually do it physically. So they understand the issues, they understand how a museum is created, and all the hard work that goes into it. That’s how we are now working. It's a huge amount of work. And please remember, we always have a very short deadline, I don't know what happens to us. But even in Amritsar, at the time, when we needed to set up the museum, we had only six months. And so all the people could very energetically come in and work hard. I'm sure within the next two, three months as if the third wave doesn't happen, we should be in a position to complete the museum, the one in numbers in Delhi, by then,” Lady Desai signed off.
