The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) located at the Teen Murti complex in New Delhi will now be known as the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Society.
The decision was taken at a special meeting of the NMML Society on Thursday, with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh presiding over the meeting as the society’s vice-president. The NMML Society, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, consists of 29 members including Union ministers Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan, G Kishan Reddy, and Anurag Thakur.
The Teen Murti House, built in 1929-30 as part of Edwin Lutyens’ imperial capital, served as the official residence of the Commander-in-Chief in India.
After India gained independence, it became the official residence of the country’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, from 1948 until his death in 1964. Subsequently, the government dedicated the Teen Murti House to Nehru and established a museum and library in his honour.
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On November 14, 1964, Nehru’s 75th birth anniversary, President S Radhakrishnan dedicated the Teen Murti House to the nation, inaugurating the Nehru Memorial Museum. The NMML Society was established two years later to manage the institution, a role it has fulfilled ever since.
In 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed the idea of establishing a museum dedicated to all Prime Ministers of India within the Teen Murti complex. Despite opposition from the Congress party, the Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya was constructed on the premises and was inaugurated by PM Modi on April 21, 2022. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed concerns about an alleged “agenda” to alter the nature and character of the NMML and the Teen Murti complex and conveyed them to PM Modi in a letter.
During the meeting on Thursday, Rajnath Singh said, “The executive council subsequently felt that the name of the institution should reflect the present activities, which now also include a Sangrahalaya depicting the collective journey of democracy in Independent India, highlighting the contribution of each Prime Minister in nation-building,”
The NMML Executive Council Chairman Nripendra Misra stated “Thus, it recognises all the Prime Ministers, thereby democratising the institutional memory.”
The renovated museum now showcases technologically advanced displays of the life and contributions of Jawaharlal Nehru in the updated Jawaharlal Nehru Museum building. The stories of the other 13 Prime Ministers of independent India are housed in a new building, with displays highlighting their navigation of various challenges.
The Congress party, on Friday, criticized the government’s decision to rename the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Society to Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library Society. They denounced the move as a “petty act” and emphasized that legacies cannot be erased by renaming buildings.