A museum to commemorate 75 years of the Indian Constitution and celebrate its makers

Kavya Dubey

New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) In a unique initiative, a museum exclusively dedicated to the Indian Constitution and the rights and freedoms enshrined therein will be inaugurated on November 23 on the campus of O.P. Jindal Global University in Haryana's Sonipat, its founding Vice Chancellor, Prof C. Raj Kumar, said.
 

Making the announcement here on Thursday evening, and explaining the occasion nearly coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Indian Constitution, Dr Raj Kumar said the initiative celebrates about 300 individuals who formed the Constituent Assembly and were tasked with drafting the Constitution and commemorates this herculean accomplishment -- that continues to be a work in progress.

The Indian Constitution Day, also known as the National Law Day, is observed annually on November 26. The Constitution of India was adopted on November 26, 1949, by the Constituent Assembly. It came into effect on January 26, 1950.

This singular institution, christened 'Constitution Museum and the Rights and Freedoms Academy,' will be inaugurated this week by Om Birla, Speaker of Lok Sabha, Nayab Singh Saini, Chief Minister of Haryana and Arjun Ram Meghwal, Union Minister for Law.

The elaborate one-of-its-kind museum will serve as a resource centre as it is full of digitised installations equating it with a library and making it a dynamic and evolving space which can be updated with pertinent developments in the areas of law and Constitution.

Replete with aesthetic and mindfully selected depictions through artworks from across India, the handpicked motifs in its ambience represent the coming together of the vast diversity of India, united under the ideals and aspirations enshrined in the Constitution.

The depictions also serve to celebrate the significant milestones in the evolution of the 75-year history of the Indian Constitution.

About 600 individuals in various capacities such as curators, artists and sculptures were associated with building this institution which will be open to the public from this Saturday after its inauguration, the VC shared. From December onwards, entry will require a simple process of pre-registration.

Enumerating five explicit goals of this establishment, Dr Raj Kumar said the museum seeks to “advance ideas of civic education”, pointing out the now-vanishing school subject called Civics that introduced one to the subject of the Constitution and what it stood for. Highlighting that it is not taught the same way now, “one goal of the museum is to promote civic education.”

Further, “to democratise access to the Constitution”, Dr Raj Kumar explained that the Constitution is not just for lawyers and judges but for all ordinary citizens of the country who should “know our history, our freedom struggle, and how it culminated in our Constitution.”

The third objective of the museum is to “pay tribute to and celebrate the members of the Constituent Assembly” -- all of them, the long-forgotten names other than B.R. Ambedkar, Sardar Patel, J.L. Nehru, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad and a few more. “But there were 300 outstanding individuals who were part of the Constituent Assembly,” he reiterated.

The fourth aim is to “recognise some of the most important institutional imaginations -- be it the commitment to democracy, or the rule of law -- and have conversations surrounding those institutions.”

And finally, to look at the evolution of rights and freedoms over the last 75 years; hence the name: 'Constitution Museum and the Rights and Freedoms Academy'.

--IANS

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