Modi govt wants to evict Sonia Gandhi-led Jawaharlal Nehru Fund from Teen Murti

Nehru Memorial Museum | PTI

The Fund is due for eviction Monday, after being charged with being in ‘unauthorised’ possession of the premises since 1967.

New Delhi: For 51 long years, the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund (JNMF), whose current chairperson is Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, shared an intimate relationship with the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) and assisted it by keeping in “safe custody” the personal papers, photographs, film reels, video records etc. of India’s first Prime Minister.

On 11 September, the union ministry of housing & urban affairs, through its directorate of estates, sent an eviction notice to the JNMF, asking it to leave its premises adjacent to the NMML by 24 September.

Addressed to JNMF administrative secretary Dr Balakrishnan, the eviction notice charges it with “unauthorisedly” being in possession of this portion of Teen Murti Estate since 1967.

But even as the Narendra Modi government strikes another blow at Nehru’s intellectual legacy, it seems the JNMF is not about to take the challenge lying down.

‘A symbiotic relationship’

“The Jawaharlal Nehru Fund has had a symbiotic relationship with the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library for decades,” JNMF secretary Suman Dubey told ThePrint.

“We are not in unauthorised occupation of these barracks in Teen Murti Estate, because the NMML gave us this space 51 years ago after following due process,” he added.

“It was through the JNMF that the library was seeded with Nehru’s personal papers,” Dubey said.

“We have been a partner of the NMML for over half a century. This is not a one-sided relationship,” he added.

Clearly, the government has other ideas.

At a 6 June executive committee meeting of the NMML, director Shakti Sinha said that as the meeting discussed the “unauthorised occupation” of the JNMF, he realised the NMML was “in dire need of space” and needed to expand its infrastructure.

Sinha told ThePrint: “The NMML is growing, we are bursting at the seams. We need space for our collections.”

So, one very quick week after its executive committee meeting, on 14 June, Sinha wrote to the ministry of housing & urban affairs, referring to earlier discussions on the “unauthorised” occupants at Teen Murti estate.

A second letter from Sinha to the ministry, dated 23 August 2018, “requested” that the “portion of Teen Murti Estate occupied by the JNMF be vacated”.

Certainly, the fact that the NMML’s international reputation is growing by leaps and bounds cannot be doubted.

The Nehru personal papers, before 1947 and after, form the nucleus of the Nehru Memorial Library and by themselves constitute an incredible legacy. These include his three great works, Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History, and Letters from a Father to his Daughter.

Along with the Nehru papers, Dubey said, personal papers of Nehru’s father Motilal Nehru were also extant.

A shrine for history’s pages

Over the years, the families of several other historical figures, those ideologically in agreement as well as opposed to Nehru – such as C. Rajagopalachari, Veer Savarkar, K.B. Hedgewar, Charan Singh, Jayaprakash Narayan, P.N. Haksar, G.V. Mavlankar, R.N. Kao etc – also donated their collections to the NMML, seeing that these were being looked after with a great deal of respect and affection by those in charge.

Nor can the importance of the JNMF be underestimated.

Apart from several fellowships and scholarships seeded by the ministries of human resource development (1993) and culture (2010) over the years, internationally renowned historian Madhavan Palat is directing a massive project devoted to bringing out the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru. Around 91 volumes have been published so far; the team is currently working on the India-China border war of 1962.

Evicting, or shutting down, the JNMF at this point would mean another period of instability for Selected Works.

But key to the battle around the JNMF today is also control over the Nehru papers.

There remains some ambiguity. In November 2014, after the Modi government came to power, Sonia Gandhi gave permission to view the post-1946 papers (pre-1946 had always been open to the public), but these are said to remain restricted to his official correspondence and speeches.

Some say that access is subject to permission by the culture ministry, under which the NMML functions, but others believe that the Prime Minister’s Office retains control.

But JNMF administrative secretary N. Balakrishnan, in his 20 September reply to the eviction notice, makes the case quite clear.

Pointing out that the objectives of the JNMF and the NMML are complementary, he said: “The JNMF greatly assisted the NMML in fulfilling its objectives by transferring for safe custody, beginning from 1968, the massive collection of archival papers, photographs, film reels, video records, etc, of Jawaharlal Nehru and his times, besides his family members…”

The key phrase here, according to Balakrishnan, is “transferring for safe custody”, implying that the NMML only keeps, but doesn’t own, Nehru’s personal papers.

Dubey confirmed to ThePrint, “Nehru’s private papers continue to be owned by his family or descendants.” He pointed out that the papers in safe-keeping with the NMML were “routed through the JNMF”.

A new museum

It is also being speculated that another reason for the government’s keenness to clear out the JNMF from Teen Murti – apart from critics like Rajya Sabha member and NMML executive council member Swapan Dasgupta, who believe that Teen Murti Estate has become a shrine to the Nehru-Gandhi family and dynasty doesn’t relinquish real estate easily – is that it is looking for a large enough spot to build its new museum of prime ministers.

As Sinha confirmed to ThePrint recently, this new museum will include a section devoted to Narendra Modi.

It seems that an NMML committee in 2017, set up to identify a location, had zeroed in on two spots – one behind the existing museum and another where the JNMF is currently located.

Meanwhile, the eviction notice by the directorate of estates says that if the JNMF doesn’t leave by 24 September, it will start proceedings.

“Further, you are also liable to pay damage charges for illegal occupation of the premises w.e.f. 28.08.1967, the details of which will be communicated to you separately,” the notice said.

According to deputy director (estates) G.P. Sarkar, under whose name the letter has gone, the JNMF has been in unauthorised occupation since 22 August, 1967.

Neither the NMML, nor the CPWD or the superintendent engineer of the Delhi circle in charge at the time wrote to the central government seeking permission to move the CPWD godown out and let the JNMF take its place, Sarkar said.

According to JNMF’s Balakrishnan, the reverse is true. First of all, the JNMF’s presence at Teen Murti Estate has never been challenged for 51 years, since the then foreign minister and chairman of NMML’s executive council, M.C. Chagla, gave the organisation the right to locate itself in the current property “in the east of Teen Murti House (Nehru’s residence) and within the boundary wall of Teen Murti House…”

Reiterating that right granted by the NMML to the JNMF, Balakrishnan said it “has remained unchallenged and never been questioned”. “To date that right has not been revoked,” he said.