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Death of a museum?

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Veenu Sandhu New Delhi
Last Updated : Jan 25 2013 | 2:53 AM IST

An ambitous project that could have ended a neighbourhood’s sense of ghettoisation is hanging fire, finds Veenu Sandhu

The moment you enter Jamia Nagar on the fringes of plush South Delhi, you find yourself at Batla House. For most people, it is synonymous with the infamous encounter that took place in September 2008 when two educated young men, later described as members of a terrorist outfit, were killed by the police and two others arrested, but not before they had fatally wounded a police officer. Most Delhiites have not been here and many don’t even know that Batla House is a locality, and not a house or a building. Like other parts of Jamia Nagar, the area is almost partitioned from the rest of the city.

It’s late in the afternoon and some children are playing gilli danda on a dirty patch in front of a blue building. The signboard outside indicates this is Batla House’s government-run unani dispensary. A huge iron gate that isolates it from its surroundings is unlocked but the barbed wires on top tell a different story. “This is the only dispensary for Jamia Nagar’s population of six lakh,” says a resident, “and it’s hardly ever open.” Similar government apathy towards this predominantly Muslim area is visible everywhere — in the open manholes, in the cramped and waterlogged lanes and in the naked electricity wires hanging dangerously low. Among the residents of the area there is a gnawing sense of being discriminated against. “There’s a subliminal feeling that the ‘we’ in the preamble, ‘We the people’, stands for the powers that be, while they are the other,” says Zeya-ul-Haque, writer and senior resident of Jamia Nagar. “Incidents such as the Batla encounter only reinforce that feeling.”

But things could have been different had a grand multi-crore plan conceived in 2007 — 150 years after the first war of Independence — and approved by the ministry of human resource development come through. Jamia Nagar would have perhaps got independence from the rapid ghettoisation it now faces.

In August 2008, Jamia Millia Islamia, the university after which Jamia Nagar takes its name, announced an ambitious plan to set up a museum of Independence. To be called “The Independence Experience,” it was touted as the first museum of its kind in the country. The project, which was to be completed by 2011-2012, was expected to draw 10,000 visitors per day.

It could have done away with what Musharraf Husain, the general secretary of Jamia Nagar Residents’ Welfare Association, calls a “fundamental difference” with other Muslim-dominated parts of Delhi. “Unlike Old Delhi and Nizamuddin, which are on the international tourist map, no foreigners visit Jamia Nagar. We don’t have mili-juli aabadi (mixed population),” he says. Visitors and tourists would have meant development and greater integration with the world beyond Jamia Nagar.

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The museum, a Rs 60-crore project to be funded by the University Grants Commission, was to come up on a five-acre plot near the Academy of Third World Studies on the Jamia campus. “UGC released part of the funds for preliminary work. Around Rs 40 lakh was spent to level the site,” says a former university official closely associated with the project but who does not wish to be named. “Some illegal structures on the site were also demolished after court orders.”

In December 2008, then HRD Minister Arjun Singh laid the foundation stone of the project, which was to be backed by Zee TV and the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris. The concept was futuristic — to make the visitor experience the freedom struggle and understand the horrors of Partition. “This was to be achieved through interactive audio-visual means, using film and archival footage, multilingual sound tracks, 3D imaging etc,” says Suparna Bhalla, director, Abaxial Architects, who had prepared the proposed architectural design. In a sense, it was more than a museum, she says. Starting in 1757 from the Battle of Plassey, which established the rule of the East India Company in the Indian subcontinent, to the drafting of the Constitution, the museum was to span history over 200 years.

The concept included a series of mini-theatres where the visitor could experience events related to the independence struggle, like the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in 3D. Or Partition, where architecturally an attempt would be made to blur the lines so that the visitor could experience and understand the horror of the largest exchange of population in history. The idea was to bring about a realisation that it was “us” who became “them”. The attempt at every step was to make the visitor part of the event rather than a detached onlooker passing through.

“One of the plans was to have a hologram of Mahatma Gandhi walking across the room while narrating the story of independence,” says Pramod Kapoor, publisher, Roli Books, who was then a member of Jamia Court and closely involved with the project.

More than two years have passed since the foundation stone for the museum was laid, but little has happened since. Kapoor doesn’t know what its current status is. “I am no longer with the Jamia Court,” is all he’s willing to say. Others like Ashok Kurien, director, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, and Sanjoy K Roy, managing director, Teamwork Films, who were part of the project in the beginning, are also unclear about its status. Kurien says, “After spending over a year conceiving and interpreting this project, it was heartbreaking to have to step out of any involvement with its future.”

“The museum project is currently not on,” says SM Sajid, registrar, Jamia Millia Islamia. “But it has not been cancelled, it has been postponed,” he adds. “The land identified for the museum was initially acquired to set up a medical college and change of land use was not possible.” The university, he says, also realised it needed funds for other immediate needs like the upgrade of labs, classrooms and hostels. “The museum project was put on hold and the government was asked to instead sanction funds for these needs,” says Sajid. As for the museum, he says “we plan to submit a proposal to UGC by August this year and will ask for funds from the Planning Commission under the Twelfth Five-year Plan.” That will be from 2012 to 2017 — the museum should have been ready by 2011.

Mohammad Manzoor Alam, general secretary, All India Milli Council, is unhappy with this. One part of the museum was to focus on Jamia which was deeply involved with the nationalist movement. “The museum would have made people, and our own children, aware of the role of Muslims in the freedom struggle,” he says. “People would have felt an affinity towards the community.” The museum, he adds, would have opened minds which, in turn, would have prevented the area’s isolation.

Within Jamia Nagar, it’s a daily struggle for survival. With government agencies turning up only when there is trouble — perceived or real — people like Mohammad Ataur Rehman of NGO Institute of Objective Studies are paying from their pocket to build and maintain streets in their area. Others like Musheer Alam Khan, owner of Unique Bakers and Confectioners, are hoping against hope that this summer is better than the last. Last year, dengue had claimed 25 lives in Jamia Nagar — the highest anywhere in Delhi. Khan's children also got the virus. “The authorities did little to help. All this only adds to the sense of alienation,” says he.

The one idea that could have changed this alienated neighbourhood appears to have been put in cold storage. How much longer it will take for the museum to come into existence is a question even the university has no answer to.

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First Published: Feb 12 2011 | 12:44 AM IST

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