JOIN USBurnt memories and dark shadows
The all-new Partition Museum in Delhi is set to open its doors to the public on May 18. Seven years after the first Partition Museum opened in Amritsar, this is the second such museum to open in the country. Housed within the Dara Shikoh Library on Delhi’s Ambedkar University campus, the museum is in a mansion that was gifted by Shah Jahan to his eldest son Dara Shikoh. Originally built in 1637, the building has, over the years, served as a residency, college and school.
The project has been conceived and managed by The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust (TAACHT), in collaboration with the Delhi Government and the Ministry of Tourism’s ‘Adopt A Heritage’ scheme. The Chair of TAACHT, Kishwar Desai, whose parents had to flee Lahore during the Partition, was previously also involved in setting up the Partition Museum in Amritsar. “When one listens to the stories of my parents’ generation, one realises how quick we are at forgetting. How did we get this collective amnesia? How did we just wipe out this terrible chapter in our lives?” she questions.
The project came together when in 2020, the Director General of the Ministry of Tourism, Manisha Saxena, who had seen the Partition Museum in Amritsar, suggested that another one be created in the capital. After three years of collecting several stories as well as massive renovation and restoration of the old heritage building, the museum is finally ready. “One side of the museum is devoted to the Partition, with its seven galleries focusing on the people of Delhi. Since we also want to keep the legacy of Dara Shikoh alive, the other part has narratives about him and the other residents of this space over the years,” explains Ashwini Pai Bahadur, Director, TAACHT.
Memorabilia at the museum is a mix of visual and oral histories of people in the form of black-and-white photographs, videos and newspaper cuttings. Some of the objects donated by families include old letters, certificates, stamps, bank chequebooks, ledger books, ration cards, utensils, trunks, furniture, sewing machines, bedposts, electricity metres, musical instruments and crockery. Other interesting artefacts include a joint Indo-Pak passport, which existed before separate ones were introduced as well as the invite for the ‘last peaceful wedding’ that took place just before Partition occurred.
One of the galleries is dedicated to the Railways, where a number of train coaches have been created — recalling much of the horror of Partition that was experienced by those who were forced to migrate to a new hometown overnight in trains that later came to be known as ‘blood trains’ and ‘ghost trains’. One of the sections also displays a tent that was used as a refugee camp in which Partition survivors lived for many days before rebuilding their lives. Another section has artworks that illustrate the atrocities of Partition by well-known artists such as Krishen Khanna, Satish Gujral, Arpana Cour and Jogen Chowdhury, who were personally affected by the event. In between, there are also contemporary installations by various artists on subjects and themes that relate to the Partition. A permanent exhibit at the museum is called Project Dastaan, which has been founded by Sam Dalrymple and Sparsh Ahuja. The duo has converted the personal Partition experiences of their families and other eyewitnesses into an intense 20-minute 3D animation film, told through the perspective of two young children.
Desai explains that a lot of the popular narrative of the Partition is about violence, which is only one side of the story. “But when you talk to the people who were impacted, everyone talks about how peaceful things were — that there was never a question of any enmity between religions — until Partition happened,” says Desai.