Freedom fighters’ portraits struggle to live on

Amarjot Kaur
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 17

The fate of nearly 500 books on the country’s freedom struggle and portraits of freedom fighters have been left to the mercy of termites and leaking roof at the National Gallery of Portraits in Sector 17. 

Located behind the TS Central State Library, the gallery displays 41 computer-generated panels that document India’s Independence, with material collected from the country’s top historical research organisations, institutions and archives. With a separate book section, 44 oil painting portraits, 14 metal and plaster cast sculptures of selected freedom fighters, two murals and six dioramas support the panel.

The roof of a panel depicting Individual Satyagraha (1939-1940), which houses paintings of Mahatma Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad and Vinoba Bhave,  is broken. Water leakage from the library toilets has been a niggling worry for the gallery’s staff, who wrote copious letters detailing the issue to the higher-ups, but in vain. “Because of the leakage, water seeps down to the false ceiling, which broke a couple of weeks ago. It damaged the lighting too,” said an attendant at the gallery.

Though the exact date of the gallery’s inauguration is unknown, the memory of the gallery’s oldest attendant gave away a cue. In May 1987, on the first day of his job, Satish Kumar, 56, stumbled upon a photograph of a firebrand freedom fighter Babu Jagjivan Ram upon which was printed the museum’s inaugural year: “1977”. In those days, the UT Education Department was running the gallery until it was renovated in 2007 and rechristened as ‘India’s Struggle for Freedom Visuals and Documents’, a title that’s printed on its entrance. Now, the gallery is a part of the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Sector 10.

Locked away in a cupboard at the gallery’s storeroom, over 500 books on the freedom struggle, meant to be exhibited at the gallery’s book section, are gathering dust. The empty wooden cabin, where the books were once housed, has turned into a haven for termites that have eaten way most of its base. “The frail wood-and-glass kiosk will not be able to take the weight of the books and can fall anytime,” a staffer said.

Radhika Singh, director, Museums and Art Galleries, said, “I’m aware of the broken ceiling, but not of the termite-infested book cabin. We wanted the library to first fix the water leakage, since it would be futile to rebuild the ceiling if leakage persisted. I will get the ceiling fixed soon now.” Apart from the regular budget, Singh said, the museum received a grant of Rs 99 lakh from Getty Foundation for the conservation of the museums in 2016. “The museum cannot receive foreign grants directly, so we collaborated with Punjab Engineering College, which receives the grant, and it has tied up with Delhi-based Dronah Foundation to make a conservation management plan for the museums and galleries here,” Singh added.

Few visitors

• Earlier, the gallery was frequented by students from government schools. Now, it only receives occasional visitors, which are few and far between.
• “Before renovation, black and white photos of freedom fighters were hung here. The supporting literature was penned in Hindi, English and Punjabi,” said attendant Munesh Kumar.
• Now, most material printed on the panels is in English, except those showcasing original documents of revolutionaries; the autobiographical account of Ghadrite Sunder Singh penned in Urdu and Sukhdev’s letter written in Hindi to his uncle from Lahore’s Borstal Jail, for instance.