Tryst with history

The Parliament Museum, which will be thrown open to the public in the first week of September, showcases milestones and vignettes from India’s history. A. J. Philip visits the museum conceptualised and designed by Dr Saroj Ghose

FORGET the supreme stupidity of housing a museum meant for the general public in the high-security Parliament House complex. Past several security checks, including an encounter with an intimidating sniffer dog, we finally reach the Parliament Museum located in the Parliament Library building built over a decade with stones of the same type used in the construction of Parliament House.

On a Saturday afternoon, the Library building looks deserted and the few staff on duty laze around. Down a long corridor, we reach the museum. As soon as we step inside, we find so many things in so small a space. There are statues and murals, paintings and pictures overshadowed, of course, by a model of Parliament House.

Suddenly you remember Dr Amartya Sen’s thesis in his Argumentative Indian that democracy is not a gift of the British Raj and it predates the arrival of the East India Company at Surat by several millennia. The depictions convey the essence of this section that India holds a long tradition of democratic society and mutual tolerance – religious, social and political.

The models of the Stupa at Sanchi and the Ashokan pillar at Sarnath, the lion capital of which was adopted as the official national emblem and the wheel design on its base as the centre of India’s national flag, throw light on the rich Buddhist heritage of India.

A ship braving the high seas brings out not only the rich maritime traditions of the country, which it lost following the religious injunctions against crossing the seas but also Ashoka’s missions for peace and harmony that continue to influence India’s foreign policy.

For over four centuries following Buddha’s nirvana, the dhamma and sangha received directives from successive Buddhist Councils. The Councils were the forums where issues of religion and state were discussed and reconciled. The mural that depicts one such session gives a peep into the democratic traditions of India, the idea of which existed thousands of years before Sunil Khilnani wrote his Idea of India.

Much before the Chinese Tsai Lun invented paper in 104 AD, Emperor Ashoka tried to preach high ethical values through his rock edicts. The craftsman engraving such an edict on a rock instils pride in you as you bemoan the lack of values in modern-day statecraft. The attempts of Emperor Akbar to set up a pluralist, composite culture that tried to reconcile different faiths also find a due place.

We walk from the ancient to the modern where with the aid of sound-light-video synchronisation, we hear and see India in all its diversity valiantly fighting for freedom. Period settings enhance the experience. Mahatma Gandhi’s towering presence is not at the cost of the roles played by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s idealistic Indian National Army and the involvement of the youth in the national movement. The Naval mutiny, which hastened the transfer of power, is not underplayed, either.

Once the doors in the next room are closed, we find the huge screen coming alive with Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March of 1930. As we face the march, we find ourselves on the screen. When we move forward as slowly as the Mahatma walks, we find ourselves taking part in the Salt Satyagraha in a thrilling virtual reality experience.

Several satyagrahas later, India gets her independence. Less known are the legislative reforms that eventually led to the transfer of power. There is a whole section to depict the story of legislative reforms starting with the Charter Act of 1833 and ending with the India Independence Act of 1947.

A large multi-media projection with artefacts of the time, including the chairs on which the Constituent Assembly members sat, makes the presentation all the more delectable.

Walking through a room which has on its walls depictions of all the symbols allotted to political parties, which contested for the Lok Sabha, we reach a miniature theatre, where a computerised multi-screen projection that lasts 15 minutes presents the story of the freedom movement, transfer of power, framing of the Constitution, founding of the Republic and establishment of a multicultural democracy.

There are so many screens and so many depictions that it is nearly impossible to grasp all in one go. Mohammed Ali Jinnah is shown twice or thrice but there is no caption for him. Those who have executed the project have not crowned themselves with glory by not identifying the founder of Pakistan. Be that as it may, the roles played by the Gadar Patrika, the mouthpiece of the Gadar movement, the exploits of Bhagat Singh and Madanlal Dhingra and the arrival of Communism with M.N. Roy are duly recognised.

Next is the Constitution section where calligraphic copies of the Constitution in Hindi and English are kept in a glass case. Through a multi-media device, every page of the text can be accessed. A large-screen interactive computer multi-media device projects important constitutional provisions with photos and short video clippings of all presidents, vice-presidents, prime ministers and chief justices of the Supreme Court.

The drafting of the Constitution is recreated by life-size statutes of Dr Ambedkar and six others sitting across a table. Dr Ambedkar’s voice lends it a feeling of reality. A short video on the election process with a recreated polling station, a vote counting centre and a polling booth is quite an attraction. Not to leave out the details, there is a peanut seller at a poll rally.

A stall that depicts the three arms of the state – the legislature, the executive and the judiciary – has newspapers emblazoned in its façade.

In a country with such diversity of languages and newspapers, it is puzzling why two copies of The Hindustan Times and that too of the same issue in which the lead item is "President’s rule in Karnataka" is displayed. We are saddened by the non-presence of The Tribune, the only newspaper of eminence which was uprooted by the Partition.

Suddenly we find ourselves in a simulated Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha and take part in the proceedings of the two Houses through computer interactives. A recreated Central Hall of Parliament presents animatronics of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru delivering his with Destiny" speech. In the hall I sit next to Dr S. Radhakrishnan and my wife next to Sucheta Kripalani and observe Nehru speaking with full animation. Unfortunately, the Nehru does not look like Nehru.

Parliament’s link with similar other bodies is highlighted in the next stall. Click on any country on the Atlas and instantly the photograph of its legislative body appears on the screen. I click on Bangladesh and there is that beautiful building in Dhaka. The evolution of the Parliament building from the sketches of Edwin Lutyens to the present Parliament Library Building are projected through a computerised multi-media mechanism.

From there we walk into an open space where the portraits of national leaders like Birsa Munda, Baba Kharak Singh, Madam Bikaji Cama and Subramania Bharati are displayed. Objects like an old Philips radio from the personal collections of speakers from G.V. Mavlankar to Somnath Chatterjee adorn the galleries. The photographs of all the Delhi policemen who were killed while defending Parliament from the intrusion by the militants are encrusted on a small monument.

We finally reach a computerised information bank with visual and textual references stored in digital format and project the information on large screens for viewing.

While the idea of the museum is the Speaker’s, it was conceptualised and designed by Dr Saroj Ghose, past President of the International Council of Museums. He borrowed ideas for animation from the National Museum of American History in Washington DC.

In many respects it compares favourably with Lok Virsa, Pakistan’s national museum of ethnology on Shakaraparian Hills in Islamabad. Spread over 60,000 sq.ft., it is larger than the Parliament Museum which has about 16,000 sq.ft. However, technologically, the Delhi one is vastly superior. But how durable the systems and devices are is a matter of speculation as when we pressed for a Malayalam version, we got the Bengali version and vice-versa.

As preparations are afoot to throw open the museum to the public in the first week of September, discussions are still on among Parliament staff and security agencies on how to go about the job. How we wish the museum were in a less fortified area than the Parliament Complex.

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