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Freedom at 75

Partition Museum on Wheels inaugurated by Firhad Hakim

Museum to be on display at Esplanade till December. Come January 2022, it would travel across the city

Kinsuk Basu Calcutta Published 16.08.21, 11:25 AM
LESSONS ON FREEDOM STRUGGLE: Transport minister Firhad Hakim browses through the exhibits at the museum on Sunday.

LESSONS ON FREEDOM STRUGGLE: Transport minister Firhad Hakim browses through the exhibits at the museum on Sunday. Telegraph photo

The city got a ‘Partition Museum on Wheels’ on Sunday.

Transport minister Firhad Hakim inaugurated the museum on India’s freedom struggle and Bengal’s Partition inside a tramcar.

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The New Delhi-based The Arts and Culture Heritage Trust and the West Bengal Transport Corporation have come together to set it up.

The museum on wheels is on two bogies. The first highlights the rising resistance against the British Raj from the 1900s.

It delves in to key moments during the 1900 to 1947 period, leading to Independence and how the borders were drawn dividing Bengal and Punjab in two.

The second car focuses on the mass migration and rehabilitation that took place post-Partition and explores the humane angle.

The museum will be on display at Esplanade till December. From January 1, 2022, the museum on wheels will trundle down other parts of the city.

The two tram bogies have been done up with rare photographs of some of the tall figures of India’s Independence movement, including Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi, black and white pictures of hundreds of refugees at bridges, river banks and railway stations awaiting transport to cross over to India following Bengal’s Partition.

It has posters and items of daily use by some of the families before Independence — a serving spoon made of brass that a family used since 1943, which was brought over with other things of value when migrating to Kolkata from East Pakistan.

Hakim said the museum captured the ethos of Bengal. “The museum on wheels beautifully depicts the efforts of our freedom fighters and the impact of the division of Bengal and Punjab on the national psyche,” he said.

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