NMML Society: Centre Replaces 4 Members, Arnab Goswami Among New Nominees

The Union Ministry of Culture has replaced four members in the prestigious Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Society – Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Nitin Desai, BP Singh and Udayon Mishra – with TV anchor Arnab Goswami, former Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar, President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, and Chairman of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Ram Bahadur Rai. Names of the new nominees were approved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is the president of the Society. All the new nominees will be in place till April 26, 2020, as per a Ministry of Culture order, dated October 29.

Incidentally, three earlier members "had been critical of the government’s approach towards NMML, with two of them, Desai and Singh, openly stating their problems with the museum for all PMs taking shape in NMML," said a report in The Economic Times.

"In the last annual general meeting, Singh had said that he had "basic problems with the title and the concept of the proposed museum for all Prime Ministers." Questioning the need for a single PMs Museum, he had said, "If there is a PMs Museum, there may be a demand in every state to have CMs Museums as they are the leaders of the States (sic)," the Economic Times reported, adding that Desai too had not agreed with the amendments proposed to bring in the museum inside the Teen Murti Estate. 

Confirming that dissent was a reason for the replacements, NMML head Shakti Sinha told News18:"There have been dissenters to the idea of a museum for all PMs. The government wanted people who could contribute towards the new museum. They wanted to have people with expertise in understanding the contemporary Indian politics, either as participants in Indian politics or as writers and observers. That is why the four have been appointed."

The October 29 order of the Ministry of Culture also mentions that the "resignation of Pratap Bhanu Mehta has been accepted from the membership of the NMML society".

Mehta, an eminent academic, had resigned in August this year, citing "political pressure" that was "compromising the reputation and integrity" of the institution with regard to the decisions of the selection committee.

The NMML Society is responsible for all the key decisions regarding the functioning of the memorial to India's first Prime Minister, Jawharlal Nehru, whose legacy has been repeatedly questioned by Modi. In fact, last month, the Modi government sent an eviction notice to Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, set up in 1964, and housed in Teen Murti Bhavan, Delhi, for "illegal occupation of the premises". The fund offers research fellowships to academics from across disciplines.

Political scientist and a trustee of the Fund, Zoya Hasan, told Scroll.in that she sees the eviction notice as “part of the [Centre’s] whole attempt to diminish Jawaharlal Nehru and dilute his legacy”.

Earlier, reacting to the Modi government's plan to convert NMML into a "museum of all prime ministers", former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had written a letter to Modi, expressing concern over the Centre's attempts to change the "character and nature" of the NMML which was established in the memory of Nehru.

Singh said the NMML must remain a centre of first-rate scholarship and professional excellence and the museum itself must retain its primary focus on Nehru and the freedom movement, according to the report.

That the ruling BJP backed by the Sangh Parivar is driving the agenda of 'diluting' Nehru's legacy, and is pushing its ideology is evident from the fact that there has been an overrepresentation of BJP and Sangh functionaries after the Modi government came to power in 2014.

"Of the 152 events held at the NMML in an 18-month period, from January 1, 2017 to May 31, 2018, at least 50 involved the presence or participation of Union Ministers, a BJP chief minister, top RSS-BJP functionaries or think tanks linked to the ruling party," an analysis by The Indian Express has found. These include Amit Shah to Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar to Krishna Gopal, and Yogi Adityanath to Mahesh Sharma, who heads the Ministry of Culture that has issued the order.