PRESERVING DARK SECRETS

The lesser-known Dagshai Jail Museum is about rediscovering important pieces of history connected with the Indian Independence movement and before.

There are 54 cells in this jail. Abandoned and heavy with silence. They carry the stories of those who once held the bars. Dagshai Jail, about a two-hour drive from Chandigarh, which has now been converted into a museum, was where Mahatma Gandhi was housed for a day. His assassin, Nathuram Godse, was also kept here.

Looking Back This 160-year-old stone prison is the only jail museum in India apart from the Cellular jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Here, 16 cells were meant for solitary confinement, which allowed no ventilation and access to natural light. With two doors that are three feet apart, the prisoner stood against one door while the other one was locked. He would serve his sentence standing between the steel grills, with body movement almost impossible. Many Indian soldiers who were part of or sympathised with the Ghadar Movement in 1915 were kept here. Nobody ever escaped from this jail.

The Exhibit Area The jail has two sections—an exhibit area and the actual jail premises with the cells. In the exhibit area, photographs of British and Indian soldiers, well-known residents of the area including Rudyard Kipling, who wrote Plain

Tales from the Hills, and those of the Kalka-Shimla train track under construction have been put up on the walls. Several water motors manufactured in England and other mechanical tools including dead mortar ammunition are also on display. Outside the courtyard of the cell, there is a solid gun-metal fire hydrant made in 1865 in the UK.

The Jail Premises There is a VIP cell boasting of a fireplace and washroom – where Mahatma Gandhi was lodged. Other cells are crammed and have little ventilation and light. Outside the courtyard of the cell, one can see the solid gun-metal fire hydrant made in 1865 in the UK.

The Metamorphosis For decades, the premises was used by the MES as a dump-yard. It was only in the year 2010 that the then Brigade Commander Anand Narayanan, on the insistence of Anand Sethi, procured orders to convert the place into a museum.

Curator Speak Anand Sethi, a military historian and long-time resident of Dagshai whose father, Balkrishan Sethi was the first Indian to be a Cantonment Executive Officer (1941-42), is the man behind the project who funded the project and collaborated with the Army to make the museum come alive. “Not just the fact that

I am a history buff, but this place has a strong emotional connect. My father used to have a cottage near the museum.” The 72-year-old, who at present is writing the book Aayo Gorkhali, Mahakali adds, “We are continuously adding to the museum and want more people to know about it.”

Where Dagshai Cantonment, Himachal Pradesh