PRIME MINISTERS’ MUSEUM & LIBRARY (Syllabus: GS Paper 2 – Polity)

Context: The Prime Ministers’ Museum & Library (PMML) has decided that it will not permit future donors of Private Papers of eminent personalities to impose indefinite conditions on the declassification of such material.

Prime Ministers’ Museum & Library (PMML)

• About: It is housed in the historic Teen Murti campus, located south of Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi, the capital city of India.
• Designed by: Robert Tor Russel and built in 1929-30 as part of Edwin Lutyens' imperial capital, Teen Murti House was the official residence of the Commander-in-Chief in India.
• Objective: To promoting advanced research on Modern and Contemporary India.
• Private Papers: It come from diverse sources like families, institutions, universities, and private donors.
• Personal Papers: It held in a purely personal capacity are typically excluded from private collections.

Nehru's Papers at PMML

• Origins of Nehru's Papers: The Jawaharlal Nehru Papers were the first set of Private Papers obtained by the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library (PMML).
• Initial Transfer: The Private Papers of Nehru, spanning both the pre-Independence and post-Independence periods, were transferred to PMML in several batches starting in 1971.
• Facilitation: This transfer was facilitated by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund (JNMF) on behalf of Nehru’s legal heir, Indira Gandhi, who apparently remained the owner of these documents until her assassination in October 1984.
• Post-1946 Papers: Subsequently, a substantial collection of Nehru’s Papers from the post-1946 period was handed over to PMML by Sonia Gandhi.
• Collection of Private Papers at PMML
• Diverse Leadership Papers: The PMML has the largest collection of Private Papers in the country, which originally belonged to some 1,000 personalities of modern India.
• Prominent Figures Included: This collection encompasses the papers of notable leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, B R Ambedkar, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Bhikaji Cama, Chaudhary Charan Singh, and many others.