Jallianwala Bagh: Kishwar Desai offers to revamp museum

CHANDIGARH: After her book ‘Jallianwala Bagh, 1919 – The Real Story’, Kishwar Desai, author and columnist, has offered to revamp the museum located in the memorial complex in Amritsar. She has proposed to carry out the facelift through the The Arts And Cultural Heritage Trust (TAACHT) that she chairs.


Kishwar, who was in Chandigarh for release of her book by Punjab governor V P Singh Badnore, told TOI, “We have given our suggestions to the Centre that the museum needs to be revamped. We have put up an exhibition on Jallianwala Bagh in the partition museum and it has the material and documentation recounting the massacre. We can shift the exhibition to redo the museum if the government so wants.”

“People can join in with contributions. We have already done door-to-door survey around the Bagh and we have information. The museum has been there for a while and can be upgraded to make sure that the horror of the event and also the sacrifices of people of Amritsar comes out. Whoever does it eventually, that should be the attempt,” she added.

Talking about the book, the author said, “I have tried to talk from people’s perspective in this book. One, of course, was the atrocious act of General Dyer killing and murdering so many people. The horror only comes through when you imagine yourself to be a common man who is going through the ordeal at a time when power supply has been cut, there is no medical treatment available and there are bodies lying in the house you cannot even wash before last rites.”

About the need to conserve heritage, she said, “We should make efforts at preserving at least recent history, history of people. The partition museum too is about people of India.”

Desai said that Punjab was still to recover from the shock of the massacre. The catalyst for the events of that day became a turning point in India’s struggle for independence.

“The impact of that tragedy was so severe on the mind of Mahatma Gandhi that he changed his soft stand towards the British and similarly Rabindra Nath Tagore returned his Knighthood after the

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

,” she said.

Based on the reports of the Hunter Committee and the Indian National Congress, as well as, other historical documents, the book provides an analysis of Dyer’s actions and their fallout — the official narrative and the Indian counter-narratives, said Desai.