AGRA: The museum in Agra originally planned to showcase the Mughal culture of the city, now renamed in honor of the warrior king Maratha Shivaji, will also undergo a “conceptual change.”
UP Additional Chief Secretary Awanish Awasthi told TOI on Tuesday that “the museum will be dedicated to what is Indian, the culture, the tradition and the heritage of Braj.” This comes a day after CM Yogi Adityanath He said that the original name, Mughal Museum, was a display of “servility” because Mughals “cannot be our heroes.” So, the CM had said, the museum would be named after the 17th century Maratha ruler. Chhatrapati Shivaji, who had participated for 27 years in wars against the Mughals.
Work in the museum, near the east door of the Taj Mahal, had started in 2016 with a goal of completion for 2017. “The idea was to introduce tourists to the great Mughal era of the city. In a creatively created space, Mughal history and architecture would be showcased … Historians and academics would be brought to the committee to ensure accuracy. ”Alok Ranjan, former chief secretary who was part of the project when the then chief laid the foundation. Minister Akhilesh Yadav told TOI.
The decision to change what the museum will display has surprised historians. “The Mughals were in Hindustan 150 years before the Taj was built. All the monuments in Agra were built by them. The history of the city is the history of the Mughals ”, historian and emeritus professor at the Muslim University of Aligarh. Irfan Habib he told TOI. “I don’t have an opinion on what the museum should be called, but this is wrong.”
Other academics said they were shocked. “It is shocking to learn that a museum in a Mughal city will bear the name of Shivaji. There is no connection except that he was imprisoned in 1666 in the haveli of Ram Singh, son of Mirza Raja Jai Singh, who had defeated Shivaji and forced him to surrender. Later, he escaped from Agra, ”said Professor M Pundhir from AMU’s history department.
Former department chair Professor Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi added: “Braj is a region dedicated to the worship of Krishna and Chaitanya, it has no link with Shivaji … It is a general consensus that the museums close to the monuments reflect the culture of the latter. They could build another museum away from the Mughal monuments to the Braj culture. Tourists come to Agra to see Mughal architecture. When they want to immerse themselves in Braj culture, they go to Mathura. The history of a city cannot be set aside. ”
For now, however, work on the structure is stalled. “Approximately 75% of the project is complete … the design plan for the exhibition has been started,” said a representative from Noida-based architecture firm Studio Archohm. The firm is collaborating with the Berlin office of British architect David Chipperfield on the project.
.
