A museum based on the partition of the Indian subcontinent is set to open this week in Amritsar, AP reported on Tuesday. The museum will feature photographs, newspaper clippings and personal items showcasing the struggle for freedom and the violence that followed during the partition of the country.
“If you look at any other country in the world, they have all memorialised the experiences that have defined and shaped them,” said Mallika Ahluwalia, chief executive officer of the Partition museum. “Yet this event that has so deeply shaped not only our subcontinent, but millions of individuals who were impacted, has had no museum or memorial 70 years later.”
An antique pocket watch that belonged to someone killed in mob violence in Pakistan, old black-and-white family photos and screens showing video interviews of the now-elderly survivors will be some of the artifacts on display at the museum.
Tickets have been priced at Rs 10 for Indians and Rs 150 for foreign nationals. The Punjab government donated the space for the museum at the Town Hall building in Amritsar.
Ahluwalia said she was inspired to create the museum after hearing several stories about undivided India from her 83-year-old grandmother, who had to flee Pakistan when she was just 13.
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