Centre reaches out to states over possibility to set up tribal museums

As part of its outreach to tribal communities, the Centre has approached states like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, and Odisha to explore the possibility of building museums for tribal freedom fighters in their respective states.

The ministry of tribal affairs is also working on a compendium of tribal freedom movements as well as tribal freedom fighters.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to hold a review of the progress of these museums.

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Currently, the Centre has sanctioned 10 such museums. The prime minister and the home minister inaugurated two of them — one in Jharkhand’s Ranchi and the other in Manipur’s Tamenglong, respectively.

Apart from that, museums are coming up in Kelshi (Mizoram), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Rajpipla (Gujarat), Chhindwara (Madhya Pradesh), Lambasingi (Andhra Pradesh), Kozhikode (Kerala), Ponda (Goa) and Hyderabad (Telangana).

Speaking to DH, Union Minister of Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda said the Centre was interested in highlighting the contributions of a large section of valiant tribal heroes who fought for their motherland but remained unsung.

“The ministry sanctioned these museums to bring out the contribution of these brave warriors. It is our duty to make the dreams of those brave warriors come true,” Munda said.

A senior ministry official said that the progress of the tribal museums is being monitored by the prime Minister's Office. As the ministry had no research to begin with, the ministry worked to build a compendium of indigenous freedom movements as well as tribal freedom fighters. While 250 such movements were identified, the Centre has now built a draft of 75 such movements.

Tribal uprisings in Tilka Majhi (Bihar), Nyishi Uprisings (Arunachal Pradesh), and the Chuar Revolution (West Bengal) are mentioned in the draft accessed by DH.

Besides that, another compendium of over 250 freedom fighters from tribal communities is also being drafted, the official added.

“We identified over 600 such fighters, but we could document only 250 of them. Work on validating them from their respective communities is on before we release the compendiums,” the official said.

The ministry has also held workshops to firm up the museums. One such meeting was held in Bhopal recently, while another was held in connection with UNESCO, where the UN body helped them come up with a list of 10 cardinal principles. Foremost among it, officials said, is to involve tribal communities and their art in the construction of the museums.

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