PAU’s unique treasure: Museum of Social History of Punjab

Renu Sud Sinha

At the fag end of the summer of 1970, Punjab Agricultural University’s (PAU) second Vice-Chancellor, Dr MS Randhawa, was on one of his usual strolls around the campus when he came across some young students of the Home Science College having cold drinks. “Don’t you drink lassi?” he asked. “Sometimes, at home,” the girls replied. “Kadi kade wale pittal de glass vich peeti hai?” (Have you ever had it in a ringed brass glass?) he asked again. The girls stared at him blankly.

This drove home the change — initially slow, but rapid now — that he had been observing all around. “On account of Green Revolution, rural Punjab is changing fast. The wooden Persian wheel, dhingli and charsa... have been replaced by electric motors and pump sets. The gandasa... has vanished. The bullock-driven kharas is now a rare sight... Mechanical threshers have replaced the bullock-driven phalas. The beautiful old utensils of bronze, the chhana and the thali are now rare antiques. No woman in rural Punjab embroiders phulkaris anymore. The old architecture which graced our havelis has vanished.... It was with the idea of conserving the rural past that I thought of this museum,” wrote Dr Randhawa in an official communication.

Sometimes referred to as the sixth river of Punjab, the farsighted administrator was keen to preserve the past. A museum seemed an obvious custodian to safeguard a legacy on the verge of disappearance.

Fifty years later, inaugurated by noted author Khushwant Singh in April 1974, the Museum of Social History of Punjab at PAU campus in Ludhiana stands testimony to Randhawa’s vision.

In an article in the 1986 edition of Roop-Lekha, a journal published by the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, art historian Kanwarjit Singh Kang wrote, “ ...it was aptly decided to house it in a building raised on the principles of vernacular architecture... Dr Randhawa visited old towns of Punjab like Sultanpur Lodhi, Goindwal Sahib, Bhadaur, Jagraon, Rahon, Zira and Sunam with a team of architects, engineers and photographers.” Eventually, an 18th-century haveli at Rahon near Nawanshahr formed the basis of the building’s design.

A young architect, all of 24, from the Chandigarh College of Architecture was selected to design the museum. “In 1969, I had gone to show my thesis on a ‘model village’ to Dr Randhawa, when he offered me a job at PAU,” recalls Surinder Singh Sekhon. “I was part of the team that would often travel with him across Punjab.”

While the building of the museum was a replica, the objects were all authentic, most of them at least 100 years old now. “PAU employees, including professors, visiting villages to educate farmers were asked to collect or purchase articles that were in use in the late 19th or early 20th century in homes, fields, etc. Besides, musical instruments that were getting obsolete, traditional dresses, phulkaris, coins, jewellery for animals, agricultural implements, charkhas, lacquered palangs, pirhas, sandooks, paraats, etc, were acquired,” adds Sekhon.

Carved wooden doors, chogath (door frames), painted ceilings, windows — major ornamental features of old Punjabi havelis — were also acquired to be fitted in the building. The heavily-carved wooden door at the main entrance came from a dharmshala in Rahon; a false painted wooden ceiling came from the 200-year-old Qazian Haveli in Sunam, recalls Ranjit Singh Tambar, former Additional Director, Communication, PAU. In many cases, these doors and ceilings were replaced by new teakwood ones on Randhawa’s orders.

From conception to completion and even beyond, the museum remained a labour of love for Randhawa, who would visit the construction site at least three times a day.

In 1971, he sent Sekhon on a study visit to National Institute of Design’s co-founder Gautam Sarabhai’s house and handicrafts museum in Ahmedabad. In 1972, Dr BP Pal, first Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, wrote to Randhawa seeking his advice about his late sister Rampa Pal’s phulkari collection. He wanted to donate some to a museum and sell the rest and use the proceeds to help underprivileged women. Randhawa persuaded him to donate, and not sell, the whole collection to the museum and proposed to name the textile section after his sister.

When the building was near completion, an advertisement was placed in The Tribune and other language newspapers, requesting people to donate relevant items.

Support also poured in from friends, fellow civil servants and public alike. Once bureaucrat MS Gill wrote to Randhawa about a Persian wheel he had spotted at the roadside on way to Jalandhar from Ferozepur via Gidder Pindi.

The museum, the foundation stone of which was laid on March 1, 1971, was completed on November 30, 1973, with skilled carpenters and masons replicating the features of old havelis to the minutest detail.

Randhawa’s aim behind starting this museum was two-fold — to conserve Punjab’s vanishing heritage and use it to provide holistic education to students that should be not just science-based, but also about Punjab’s cultural heritage and traditional lifestyle and methods of agriculture.

As young visitors peer closely at displays in the museum, which had received a footfall of 69,000 till June this year, Dr MS Randhawa’s vision stands realised.

LABOUR OF LOVE

• Initially built at a cost of Rs 3.4 lakh, with contributions from the Punjab government, US Peace Corps as well as donations from various market committees and individuals, the museum was renovated in 2022-23, ahead of the 20th Congress of International Agricultural Museums, held last year in October, where the half-centenary celebrations were held.
• Since 2022, after the museum was marked on the Punjab tourism website on World Tourism Day (September 27), awareness and footfall have increased, says Dr TS Riar, Additional Director, Communication, PAU. It is also being used for film and pre-wedding shoots. In two years, the museum should become self-sustaining, he adds.