India’s first bunker museum dedicated to freedom fighters opened

India’s first-ever bunker museum, dedicated to revolutionaries of Indian Independence and located inside the Raj Bhavan here, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday.

The Gallery of Revolutionaries has been opened in a bunker inside the Governor’s residence. The bunker—reportedly used by the Britishers as a secret room to store ammunition—was discovered in 2016 by the then Maharashtra governor Vidyasagar Rao.

The gallery has been opened in the bunker—which was renovated in 2019—as a one-of-its-kind museum, to commemorate the contributions of freedom fighters and revolutionaries from Maharashtra. Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari oversaw the setting up of the Gallery of Revolutionaries with the help of South Central Cultural Centre in Nagpur, under the guidance of historian Dr Vikram Sampath.

The museum acknowledges the contributions of Vasudev Balwant Phadke, the Chaphekar brothers, Savarkar brothers, Madam Bhikaji Cama, V B Gogate, among others, and gives tribute to the Naval Mutiny of 1946.

Inaugurating the museum, the Prime Minister said that we Indians, knowingly or unknowingly, limit India’s road to Independence to a few incidents. “India's independence involved the ‘tapasya’ of countless people; and the collective impact of many incidents at the local level was national. The means were different, but the resolution was the same,” Modi said.

While dedicating the museum to the freedom fighters, he said that irrespective of social, familial, or ideological roles, or the place of the movement, “whether within the country or abroad, the goal was one: complete independence of India.”

In his dedication speech, the Prime Minister said that the freedom struggle spanned locally as well globally. He cited the Gadar Party, Netaji-led Azad Hind Fauz and India House of Shyamji Krishna Varma as examples of the global scale of the freedom struggle.

“This spirit from local to global is the basis of our Aatmnirbhar Bharat Abhiyan”, he said.

The Prime Minister said the indifference towards unsung heroes still remains, and gave the example of the remains of freedom fighter Shyamji Krishna Varma, which reached India only when he brought them back.

The Congress, however, has apprehensions over the museum.

“For years, the RSS has been trying to undermine mainstream non-violent freedom struggle and reinvent the history of freedom movement (as RSS was not part of it) to showcase it through right-wing prism. Mainstream freedom struggle doesn't seem to have a place in this museum although the Indian National Congress was founded in Mumbai,” Congress state general secretary Sachin Sawant said.

“Many sacrificed their lives in mainstream struggle. There were a large number of martyrs in the 1942 Quit India movement. Unfortunately, Babu Genu's name is not in Raj Bhavan's press note. Freedom fighters like S A Dange, and other communist leaders, too, were imprisoned. Since the museum has been created under the guidance of Dr Vikram Sampath, there is a great possibility that the RSS prism may have been used,” he said.

“(We) Sincerely hope along with names mentioned in the press note…Sacrifices of all other revolutionaries take place, and no one is excluded on political agenda. Hope names of all revolutionaries who received penal sentences and those who did not write mercy petitions also will be there. Many Maharashtrian revolutionaries endured Kala Pani. The 1857 revolt was a united fight of Hindus and Muslims. Even Vinayak Savarkar agreed. Would like to see the names of all revolutionaries including Azimullah Khan. Maharashtra has an invaluable contribution in the freedom struggle,” the leader added.