NEHRU MEMORIAL MUSEUM AND LIBRARY

NEHRU MEMORIAL MUSEUM AND LIBRARY

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Though historians and biographers have long been known to compile some of their data by talking to those who witnessed or participated in important events, the concept of oral history as the collection of historical material for future scholars – a “continuous process of documentation through interviews” – is a comparatively recent phenomenon.  The first oral history project was started in Columbia University by the American historian, Prof. Allan Nevins in 1948. More than a hundred oral history projects have since been initiated in several countries.

The oral material has, of course, to be used as a source to supplement the existing documentation, to fill in gaps, to cross-check what is already known, to get back a “feel” of the period.  It has its own limitations as an oral recollection of past events, but it is meant for the scholar, who is expected to have already worked in depth on the subject in which he is specializing for doctoral or post-doctoral research, and may, therefore, be expected to make proper use of it.

The oral history project of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library was conceived as part of its research activities and it is one of the pioneer institutions in India which has a huge repository of oral history archival material in the form of transcripts. As on 10 February 2017, the numbers of sessions of interviews have risen to 5,577 with 1,364 persons of which some have two parts. Out of 1,364 interviews, 931 transcripts have been processed and made available to research scholars for consultation.

 In the oral history project of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, the emphasis had so far been on the recollections of persons who came into contact with India’s great leaders or were connected with important political events or movements either as participants or as witnesses.

 Among those who had recorded their recollections are Sri Prakasa, Syed Mahmud, K.M. Munshi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Acharya J.B. Kripalani, Smt. Renuka Ray, Smt. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Dr Sushila Nayar, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, H.V. Kamath, A.P. Jain, Nawab of Chhatari, Dr Jivraj Mehta, H.M. Patel, Mauli Chand Sharma, Bhai Mahavir, General Mohan Singh, Sardar Naranjan Singh Gill, Col. P.K. Sahgal and Shah Nawaz Khan. Among the scientists interviewed are S. Chandrasekhar, Prof.  Satyendranath Bose, Dr Piyara Singh Gill, Dr H.N. Sethna, Dr Debendra Mohan Bose and Dr Suri Bhagavantam. The foreigners who have been interviewed include Lord Mountbatten, Lord Sorensen, Arnold Toynbee, Fenner Brockway, Horace Alexander, James Cameron, Yehudi Menuhin, Mrs Martin Luther King, Willy Brandt, T.F. Erlander, former Prime Minister of Sweden, Chancellor Kreisky of Austria, Pierre Mendes-France, Chester Bowles, Dr E.P. Thompson, Tibor Mende, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and others. Among the economists interviewed are Bimal Jalan, Dr Shankar Acharya, Prof. Ashok V. Desai, M. Narasimham, Dr Deepak Nayyar, Prof. Arvind Panagariya, P. Chidambaram, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and others.

With the passage of time, now the project covers issues of development related to reconstruction of post-independent India. The programme for oral history interviews is a continuing process. However, a body of valuable source material has already been accumulated to assist the historians of the period, who wish to write about the great personalities or movements of recent Indian history. This material, along with the vast and varied printed and manuscript materials collected by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, constitutes a significant contribution to the study of the history of modern India, and especially of Indian nationalism and post-Independence era.