New Delhi: An exhibition of India’s first Union Cabinet headed by its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is currently on display here.
Using archival material and pictures from the photo division of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), the exhibition currently mounted at the Teen Murti Bhawan is a collaboration with the Culture Ministry.
Part of the commemoration celebrations of the 125th birth anniversary of Nehru, the show titled “Nehru’s first Cabinet” highlights the significant contribution of all 12 of the first Cabinet ministers
“Since this is the 125th birth anniversary of Jawahar Lal Nehru, the ministry of culture directed us to put up an exhibition. However we have been holding exhibitions every year. Last year, it was on Motilal Nehru and this year we thought of paying a tribute to Pandit Nehru and his colleagues,” says Satish Kumar, assistant curator, Nehru Museum.
With one panel each for the ministers, the exhibition in the library of the Nehru Museum has the pictures along with the reforms and policies undertaken by the various cabinet ministers.
Old and rare newspaper cuttings of their speeches along with various other tidbits about the ministers are on display.
One of the panel includes excerpts of the opening speech of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the then Minister of Industry and Supply at the Industries Conference in Delhi on December, 15 1947
A letter from Jawaharlal Nehru to C Rajgopalachari minister of Home affairs dated 3rd November 1951 and to N.V Gadgil, minister of works, power and mines dated 24th February 1948 finds a place in the exhibition.
“We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies in the base of its social democracy” a quote by B R Ambedkar, the then minister for Law and Justice gives a different meaning to the importance of the first cabinet and speaks for itself.
PTI
