A treasure trove of Gandhi memorabilia lies in a state of neglect.
What Thames is to London, the Ganges is to Kolkata. The government in West Bengal has envisaged a plan to adopt London as the theme for the development and beautification of Kolkata. Yet, one historic part of the city remains unnoticed.
Barely 23 km from Kolkata lies Barrackpore where, in 1772, East India Company built its first “barrack” in India giving the town its name. Barrackpore is reminiscent of an era gone by. Part of Gandhi’s ashes are strewn here in an area called Gandhi Ghat. Surrounded by gardens, Gandhi Ghat also has a mural of the Mahatma and his words inscribed on a wall. In this lush environment stands a museum on the shores of the Ganges — Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya or Gandhi Memorial Museum. Today, not many people are even aware of its existence.
The museum is a testament of the time Gandhi spent in Bengal while visiting Rastraguru Surendranath Bandyopadhyay, called the father of the Indian Nationalist Movement, during his illness at his residence. Gandhi was a frequent visitor to the nearby town of Sodepur where he built the khadi industry and which he called his second home.
The Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya in the eastern region came up at Barrackpore in 1961 and was thrown open to public on May 7, 1966. In 1971, the museum became an autonomous institution run by a managing committee chaired by Tapas Kumar Banerjee.
The museum has a collection of rare pictures of Gandhi from 1869 to 1948 across five galleries: mural gallery, biographical gallery, portrait gallery, Bengal gallery, and Noakhali and Orissa gallery. The last one houses memorabilia of his Noakhali Peace Mission during 1946-47. Noakhali, a district in the erstwhile East Bengal, had witnessed a massacre of Hindus. The museum contains his personal belongings which he used during his trips to Bengal and especially during the Noakhali trip. These include a bedcover, wooden spun, a palm leaf Bolepur hat, a desk, lantern and utensils.
Besides these, there is a library with a collection of 12,000 books on Gandhi, Gandhilore and allied subjects. It also has the entire collection of books edited by Gandhi. Among those who once frequented it are former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi and research scholars like Dr Mario Prayer.
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Though the museum does not charge any entry fee, it now draws only about 125 tourists in a year and is run on an annual grant from Gandhi National Memorial Trust and the interest from the fund created from an ad hoc grant from the Government of India. In the last two decades, it has received Rs 1 crore each from the Central government — once in 1995-96 and then in 2004-05.
The museum’s secretary, Professor Supriya Munshi, has been working here for the last 46 years. “I joined straight out of college,” he says. “We wanted to make an animated show from the rare pictures we own. But it turns out that each picture has 64 frames and each frame costs Rs 1,000. We have 400 photographs that need to be worked upon. Though we are unable to put together this show because of financial constraints, we do have three movies that run through the day.”
A walk on the road from the museum leads to a memorial of Mangal Pandey. While movies have depicted Mangal Pandey’s story, the monument dedicated to him stands desolate braving the sun and the rain. Hawkers stand in the shade nearby blocking the entrance of the gate that leads to the memorial of the martyr who sparked the Indian freedom struggle. This is the spot where Mangal Pandey triggered the first war of Independence in 1857. Over 150 years have gone by since and the historic spot lies forgotten.