Nehru's name dropped, NMML renamed Prime Ministers' Museum and Library Society

Teen Murti Bhavan served as the official residence of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru

Following the renaming of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library as the ‘Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library’, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabudhe - a member of the NMML Society - defended the move, saying that the renaming is an “expression of national gratitude” towards all former prime ministers.

The ministry of culture announced the move on Friday, triggering a major political row; it came after a special meeting of the NMML Society, which passed a resolution to that effect on Thursday. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who is the vice-president of the Society, presided over the meeting.

PM Modi heads the NMML Society, whose members include Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan, Anurag Thakur, V Muraleedharan, and G Kishan Reddy, among others.

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Sahasrabudhe said that the character of the museum has gone through a drastic change and that it now no longer houses the exhibits of PM Jawaharlal Nehru alone.

“The logical corollary to this change is that the name also changes,” the lawmaker said.

He added that the change has 'democratised' the institution; and treated all previous PMs as equal.

“Prior to this, we had exhibits celebrating the lives of only three PMs — Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shashtri and Indira Gandhi. The lives and struggles of Prime Ministers Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Inder Kumar Gujral remained ignored,” he said. “This museum is the expression of national gratitude to all PMs, a democratisation of their representation.”

The renaming of the NMML comes a year after the Modi government inaugurated the PM Sangrahalaya at the complex, after refurbishing the Jawaharlal Nehru Museum to include exhibits and details from the lives of all 13 Indian former prime ministers. The Congress had opposed the move vociferously. The Ministry of Culture said that the renovated and refurbished Nehru Museum building is now updated with technologically advanced displays on the life and contributions of Nehru.

The ministry, in a statement on Friday, said that the museum housed in the new building “tells the story of how our Prime Ministers navigated the nation through various challenges and ensured all-round progress of the country”. “Thus, it recognises all the Prime Ministers, thereby democratising the institutional memory,” the ministry said.

“The Executive Council subsequently felt that the name of the institution should reflect the present activities which now also include a Sangrahalaya depicting the collective journey of democracy in Independent India and highlighting the contribution of each Prime Minister in nation-building,” the statement added.

In his welcome address, Nripendra Misra - who is the chairman of the Executive Council - spoke about the need for the change in name. He emphasised that the Prime Ministers’ Museum “expresses the nation’s deep commitment to democracy” and that the name of the institution should reflect its new form.

In his address, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh welcomed the proposal for a change in name, and said that since the institution, in its new form, now exhibits the contributions of all prime ministers from Nehru to Modi, and their responses to various challenges faced by them, the move will ensure that all prime ministers are “proportionately represented” and that displaying all of their stories is “democratic in content”.

The Teen Murti Bhawan, which houses the NMML, was built in 1930 by Lutyens and became Jawaharlal Nehru’s official residence as prime minister. He passed away here in 1964, after which the decision to dedicate NMML to his life was made.