Stories of love and loss: Delhi’s Partition museum opens

Photos, sculptures, newspaper clippings and memorabilia related to the events during the 1947 Partition will be on display at the Partition Museum that was inaugurated by Delhi’s art, culture and language minister Atishi on Thursday.

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The museum has been set up at the Dara Shikoh Library Building (DSLB) on the campus of the Ambedkar University at Kashmere Gate. The museum’s launch coincided with International Museum’s Day.

The museum will open its door to visitors on May 20. The operating hours are from 10am to 5pm, Tuesday through Sunday. The museum will remain closed on Mondays. In view of limited capacity, visitors are advised to register one day prior to their visit through a booking form on the museum’s website. Upon registration, visitors will receive a unique token number which will have to be provided at the entry.

Atishi took a tour of the museum and interacted with various artists including Veer Munshi whose installations are exhibited at the museum.

The museum is managed by The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust (TACHT) which set up a Partition Museum in Amritsar earlier. The trust adopted the heritage building inside the Ambedkar University campus as a part of the Adopt a Heritage initiative. Conservation work at DSLB was undertaken by the Delhi government’s department of art, culture, and language.

“The Partition was the biggest migration. It has changed the history, geography, and culture of the region forever. We want people coming to the museum to understand what the Partition was and remember Partition survivors through oral history, exhibits, and art installations,” said Kishwar Desai, chair, TACHT.

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The museum has six galleries focusing on the national movement leading up to Independence, Partition, and its aftermath — Towards Independence and Partition, Migration, Refuge, Rebuilding Home, Rebuilding Relationships, and Hope and Courage. Each gallery is peppered with audio-visual testimonies, black-and-white photographs, archival newspaper clippings, sculptures, installations, portraits, documents, and other memorabilia.