New Delhi: Barely four months before its deadline, the ambitious plan to revamp the Parliament Museum has hit a number of hurdles – such as allegations of “horrible quality” content and references taken from Wikipedia.
The Indian Express reported that it has seen records of the communication between the Lok Sabha Secretariat (in charge of the museum) and the National Museum Institute, a deemed university under the Union Ministry of Culture (which is supposed to create the content).
In April last year, the NMI was “conceptualise, create and curate” content for the revamped museum. The project to redo the museum, originally inaugurated in 2006, was given a budget of Rs 15,000 crore. “Gurugram-based Pan Intellecom, a private company, got the Rs 14-crore contract to implement the upgrade based on content from NMI,” according to the newspaper.
Since the museum is being redone, all exhibits have been dismantled for now, The Indian Express said.
Pan Intellecom hired historian Makkhan Lal, an ex-AMU professor who has also worked on the Prime Ministers’ Museum, to make suggestions on the revamp, particularly on the speeches that should be showcased on the roots of Indian democracy. Lal made the following suggestions, according to The Indian Express: “India is mother of democracy” speech by Modi at Red Fort on August 15 last year; part of Nehru’s speech in the Lok Sabha on March 28, 1957 about why India had chosen a parliamentary democracy; and an excerpt from Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s speech at Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949 about the history of democracy in India.
NMI, however, seemed unhappy that Pan was making content-related suggestions, as it thought this was entirely its turf. So Manvi Seth, Dean (Academic Affairs) and head of the NMI’s Department of Museology, also in charge of the project, wrote to Secretary General of Lok Sabha Utpal Kumar Singh: “It is paramount that narrative and content has to be treated as sacrosanct and thoroughly objective. No modification (addition or deletion) regarding the content is to be done by Pan on its own and without prior consultation with NMI and agreement on the same.”
However, Lal has claimed in response that the content NMI is choosing and curating is of “horrible quality”. NMI is also refusing to share details on what experts it has collaborated with, Additional Secretary of the Lok Sabha Secretariat Prasenjit Singh alleged in an email to NMI.
A week after this, on April 10, NMI responded on the sources of its content with links of articles from Wikipedia about Mysore, Aundh and Travancore and Cochin.
Lal was outraged at this, according to The Indian Express, and said in his email response: “As a historian I am very disturbed and feel ashamed that Parliament Museum is being curated on the basis of Wikipedia and questionable sources from the net rather than published sources in the libraries. NMI should be asked to provide the list of the names of authors of the contents and references from them under their signature and deal. Else it must be disassociated with the project and asked to return the money taken so far for the purpose.”
Speaking to The Indian Express, NMI’s Seth claimed there was no truth to the allegation that content was being taken directly from Wikipedia. “Content has been created through research, field work, consultation with pertinent subject matter experts and archival research…regular consultation and discussions have been held with the Parliament Museum,” she said.