Nehru Library to digitise historical records
It’s a gargantuan task, no doubt. But the prestigious Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) in the capital has undertaken the daunting yet challenging task of digitising all the historical records it has in its possession.
These include personal papers, manuscripts, newspapers, films, audio recordings, photographs, etc. that are part of its rich repository of records related to modern and contemporary Indian history.
Till now, the digitisation project has seen 50 manuscripts collections digitised. Among the manuscripts are those of such luminaries as Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai, Rajkumar Amrit Kaur, Kamladevi Chattopadhyay as well as the AICC papers. In addition, 834 transcripts of oral history interviews too have been digitised.
Take, for instance the letter that Motilal Nehru wrote on June 30, 1919 to his son, beginning with “My dear Jawahar...” and signed off with a “Your loving father” in which the former recounted his visit to Jallianwala Bagh.
“It was a truly gruesome sight. In spite of the lapse of nearly two-and-half-months after the incident, there was more than one corpse which could be seen floating in the well in a highly decomposed state.”
Or the one that Panditiji’s sister, Vijaylakshmi Pandit wrote to him while serving as a diplomat and earned the Indian protocol officer’s ire for not addressing the then crown prince of Japan as “Your Imperial Highness”.
The task of putting into digital format its wide-ranging and vast collection of records is on as part of the NMML’s efforts to reach out to a wider audience.
However, the Nehru Museum and Library is still grappling with issues like the access policy it should adopt as digitised records are concerned. Whether these records should be made available for free on-line or should some fee be charged.
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