PARTITION MUSEUM: STORY OF PAIN, RESURGENCE

AMRITSAR: Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal inaugurated the country’s first Partition Museum at Town Hall here on Monday evening. This museum is dedicated to India-Pakistan Partition in 1947 – its victims, its survivors and its lasting legacy.

Housed in a heritage building, the museum, once completed, will contain seven galleries on two floors, space for holding events, an area for recording people’s stories, an archival room and a shop. The museum will showcase the memorabilia related to the Partition, such as official documents, rare photos, literature, artefacts and films.

On Monday, the soft launch of the project took place and the formal inauguration will take place once the restoration work is completed, said Kishwar Desai, the trustee of The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust, that will look after the museum.

Sukhbir said the decision to create the Partition Museum was taken by the Punjab government in May 2016, following which the trust was allotted the task of creating and maintaining the museum. “We want the future generations to know about the Partition through the museum.”

“When Kishwar Desai met me regarding Partition museum, I promptly said Amritsar is the place for this museum. Then the next thought was where? Town Hall is one place where I always wanted to create something memorable, thus we set this up here,” Sukhbir said.

Sukhbir said the museum will have recorded stories of people who experienced the Partition, photographs, letters and other personal artefacts. “The museum will treasure memories of migrated families who braved themselves to stand up again from scratch after migration,” he said.