The relationship between museums and the need to promote certain types of public memory plays a pivotal role in the making of nations and societies. The spatial and temporal context for the emergence of museums also actively influences the emergence of public memory, material and spatial cultures. The visual practices demonstrated in museums are not mere illustrations and transparent representations of history. Instead, they demonstrate how questions around power, knowledge, memory and space are shaped through the politics and aesthetics of materials displayed in the museum.
Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum is situated at 1, Safdarjung Road in New Delhi. The museum-cum-memorial has been established in the ex-Prime Minister’s official residence; Indira Gandhi lived in the house for twenty years till she was assassinated on the premises of the same in 1984. The conversion of this private sphere with a deeply political past raises a difficult set of questions around how visual materials control the meaning or how their meanings are reshaped every time they are placed in different contexts and periods.
One recent example of curating a revisionist history through museumization is the “Museum on Prime Ministers of India”. It is still under construction and is coming up in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) complex. The Nehru Memorial Museum is situated in Teen Murti Bhawan which was the official residence of the first PM of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru. After he died in 1964, the government decided to dedicate the space to Pandit Nehru and the national freedom movement as a museum and library. In the last few years, Nehru Memorial Museum has seen several changes in its architectural interiors, display of objects and placement of museum texts. I will be focusing on Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum to understand how museums shape public memory.
The visuals on display in Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum are not just objects and photographs, there has been an attempt to portray the lived experiences of a woman Prime Minister. This has been achieved through the gendered display of her personal belongings, her bedroom and dressing room and other personal spaces used by her in the house.
Intimate spaces and the display of personal objects from Indira Gandhi’s life form a major section of the museum. Bringing the private into public and that too the private of a very public figure puts forward several critical questions. The balance of power is heavily tipped in favour of the institution as the relationship which museums have with their communities is an unequal one. The authority which comes with the choice of what and when to display gives an upper hand to the museum authority. Through the narrativization of displayed objects, museums channelize the memories of the spectators.
As a spectator, one enters IGMM through the main entrance of the Prime Minister’s residence. The first visual display (Image 1) which the spectator encounters mark the direction in which their gaze should navigate and also the affirmation that it is not just another entrance or museum.
Image 1
Museums reflect the concerns of the society in which they are situated. The first two rooms (Images 2 and 3) of the house which is now turned into a museum have been curated to portray the political journey of Indira Gandhi. The landmark events from her political career are displayed through huge framed newspaper clippings alongside her portraits. There is no mention of the Emergency (1975-1977).
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4
Power relations are affected and maintained in places like cinema, art galleries, museums and even living rooms through visuals. The spectating subject produces a considered form of investment in the museum displays or images. Drawing from Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘subjectivation’, power does not pre-exist the relationship between the spectator and the museum image. Power relationships here can be understood in the communicative arena where the spectator-image connection is already given and pre-conceived through the display of images in a particular manner. The museum display arranged in a certain way comes with the privilege of knowing. The power exercised by the museum image then invokes a desire in the museum spectator to be a part of or share that knowledge.
Image 4 shows a constant reminder for the spectators that the events of national importance took place in this house.
Another aspect of this section at the IGMM that is intriguing is the narrativization and construction of events that take place through visuals. Through the display of Indira Gandhi’s portraits and the events which took place under her realm, the museum not only creates the persona of the political leader but also recreates the events (Image 5).
Image 5
The visuals also produce a national memory at the IGMM. The spectator is expected to read the events displayed through sign-boards, texts and other visuals curated in the museum and hence the re-creation of events. The distance can be seen as a precondition for the creation of the museum atmosphere and aura.
Image 6
Image 6 portrays the museum display of the blood-stained saree and shoes which Indira Gandhi wore at the time of her assassination and the bag which she was carrying. The spectator can see bullet holes in the saree and bloodstains on it. Although this visual display brings the spectator very close to the event of assassination, it keeps an unsurpassable distance through its authenticity and originality. The encounter of the spectator with the museum artefacts comes with multiple conditions of distance and this is how the atmosphere emanates or exists within distance.
In a museum, there are various means through which objects are brought into display. Language is one part of the media used in that discourse. Exposing the object is followed by informing the spectating subject about it. Images 7 and 8 portray how texts reflect upon the historical embeddedness of the visuals.
Image 7
Image 8
One of the most unique characteristics of the IGMM is the display of supposedly intimate and personal spaces. The museum does not only display the photographs of Indira Gandhi but also her bedroom, study-room and dressing room. Her personal items have been displayed with a written panel with the text- ‘The objects on display formed an intimate part of Indira Gandhi’s daily life.’ (Image 9).
Image 9
Image 10 displays the written panel put beside Indira Gandhi’s dressing room. The text specifically mentions the kinds of sarees she preferred to wear and her devotion to the spinning wheel as a Gandhian symbol. It also mentions the family photographs which she always kept on her dressing table. This gendered display builds an image of a woman political leader, something which may not be seen in the case of a male political figure.
Image 10
Image 11
Museums are powerful agents of community identity. At IGMM, the entire house is a museum; not just the house but the pathway which Indira Gandhi took on which she was assassinated builds a visual trajectory for the spectator. Museums collect and exhibit memories around material and spatial cultures. The ‘personal’ of Indira Gandhi’s life becomes part of collective memory at IGMM. The museum’s aura depends on the authenticity and originality of the space in which it is set. Though a distance is maintained, the spectator is not detached from the visual displays and public memory is reshaped in innumerable incessant ways.
Whether it is NMML or IGMM, one’s engagement with Museum spaces and displays is located in history and it is also located in the contemporary. How governments construct and control these spaces is as much about revisioning history as it is about creating a new present; with a newer set of lenses for looking at the past.
Anukriti Gupta
Anukriti Gupta is a Ph.D. candidate at Centre for Women’s Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research interests include gender, space, faith-practices, material culture and public history. She is the co-founder and curator of Zikr-e-Dilli, a digital depository of material-spatial memories, history and narratives of the city of Delhi.