New Delhi, (Samajweekly) Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday criticised the BJP-led Central government for changing the name of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) to the Prime Minister’s Museum, saying “those who do not have own history are trying to wipe the history of others”.
In a tweet, Kharge said: “Those who don’t have a history are now trying to erase the history of others. The ill-fated attempt to change the name of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cannot belittle the personality of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of modern India and fearless watchdog of democracy.
“This only shows the low mentality and dictatorial attitude of BJP-RSS. The dwarf thinking of the Modi government cannot reduce the huge contribution of ‘Jawahar of Hind’ towards India,” Kharge added.
Taking to Twitter, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh said: “Pettiness and Vengeance, thy name is Modi. For over 59 years the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) has been a global intellectual landmark and treasure house of books and archives. It will henceforth be called Prime Ministers Museum and Society.
“What won’t (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi do to distort, disparage and destroy the name and legacy of the architect of the Indian nation-state. A small, small man overburdened by his insecurities is the self-styled Vishwaguru.”
Even Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari also took a jibe at the government, and said: “I wish those who want to erase Jawahar Lal Nehru’s contribution to freedom struggle and building of Modern India would once read Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History to fathom the depth of Nehru. Legacies don’t get erased by renaming buildings.”
Speaking to media here, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor criticised the government, saying: “Nehru Memorial Museum and Library is the original name but now you are changing it into a museum of all Prime Ministers, it’s fine but you can still keep the name Nehru Memorial because he was the first and longest serving Prime Minister.”
“Why can’t we leave the past in the past and acknowledge what has happened and move on. The spirit of compromise seems to be missing, it is all about knocking things down,” Tharoor added.
Even speaking to the media here at the party headquarters, Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said that whatever the government does, the name of first Prime Minister Nehru cannot be wiped from the memory of the people.
“Nehru is responsible for the development of the country. It was his vision which has brought India this far, he led the industrial revolution after independence. And despite all your efforts to remove his name from the walls, you cannot remove his name from the memories of the people,” Vallabh said.
One cannot become big by indulging into petty politics as Nehru is a towering figure, he added.
Vallabh further said that the Congress hails the role of all Prime Ministers, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which they (BJP) want to erase.
The Congress leaders’ remarks comes a day after the decision was taken at a special meeting of the NMML Society on Thursday, which was presided over by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who is the vice-president of the Society.
The Society has Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its chairman, and Union Ministers Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan, G. Kishan Reddy, Anurag Thakur, among its 29 members.
The museum was inaugurated at the Teen Murti complex last year in April, which served as the official residence of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru from 1948 till his death in 1964.
