Indian History Congress Opposes Demolition of National Museum Building
16 January 2024 | The Wire
New Delhi: The Indian History Congress (IHC), which recently held its annual conclave in Kakatiya University, Andhra Pradesh, unanimously opposed the proposed demolition of the building that houses the National Museum as part of the Central Vista project and expressed its concern over the shifting of over 2,00,000 artefacts containing “thousands of years of cultural heritage”.
A resolution passed by the IHC said that the National Museum will be eventually shifted to the proposed Yuge Yugeen Bharat National Museum in the North Block and South Block of the Raisina Hill complex, originally planned as new office buildings. While it said that the government’s office premises will be highly unsuitable to accommodate a museum, it added that “the move seems to be an attempt towards making a more controlled and less accessible National Museum”.
“It impedes easy public accessibility and directly contradicts the vision that the National Museum had envisaged in the early years after our Independence. Thus, the core idea of dissemination of knowledge related to history, culture, and artistic excellence gets sabotaged,” the resolution said. It further expressed its concern over the non-transparency over the process of transfer of the artefacts.