Demanding back Nehru documents, Prime Ministers Museum and Library opts for legal action

During the annual general meeting Monday of the Prime Ministers Museum and Library (PMML) Society, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, members expressed their strong consensus that the issue of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi withdrawing the Jawaharlal Nehru papers needs to be pursued legally, The Indian Express learnt.

Apart from the Prime Minister who is also the president of the PMML Society, the 47th AGM included Union Ministers Rajnath Singh (vice-president), Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Chairman Nripendra Mishra, and members such as BJP leader Smriti Irani, adman-lyricist Prasoon Joshi, and PMML's new Director Ashwani Lohani.

Although the issue of Sonia Gandhi appropriating a significant portion of donated Nehru documents – 51 cartons in 2008 – was brought up at great length during the previous AGM in February 2024, the subject arose for discussion again Monday during the 90-minute meeting at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi.

Sources added a general agreement was reached that the documents relating to the nation's first Prime Minister are a "national treasure and must be returned to the museum as its rightful location to store his legacy".

At the 46th AGM last year, when the matter came up for discussion, it was decided by the members to seek a legal opinion regarding taking back donated papers. Consequently, in view of the legal opinion, for the first time, a letter was sent by the PMML administration to Sonia Gandhi’s office earlier this year, seeking return of the papers for scholars and historians.

This was the first that the museum administration placed on record, in an official missive to the Gandhi family, regarding Sonia Gandhi appropriating part of the papers from the Nehru collection, which they had donated to the museum decades back.

Sources indicated that no response had been received from the office of Gandhi. Sources said, on this point, that it was considered that the issue should be taken to court arguing that documents once gifted or donated cannot be withdrawn and therefore they still belong to the organisation and must be returned to its custody.

A source stated that it was also moved at the AGM that the issue was in relation to 2008 (the UPA regime) and that the organisation was now trying to correct the administrative loopholes of the pre-2014 period by asking for additional legal opinion in the issue and how it could be taken forward.

The matter of Sonia Gandhi reclaiming some portion of the private papers contributed by the Gandhi family was thoroughly debated during the AGM of February 13, 2024, presided over by Rajnath Singh and attended by Sitharaman and Pradhan and other members.

Members had a perception that those papers had to be withdrawn, and there was a consensus also that legal opinion had to be obtained on matters like "ownership, custodianship, copyright, and use of these archival collections" because the papers were given to the organisation by Indira Gandhi in 1971 (as successor of the Nehru papers) and later by Sonia Gandhi, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

The issue was brought before the 47th AGM as a follow-up to the previous AGM deliberations. The early legal advice suggests that the ownership of the papers is with the museum, even as the issue must be pursued on their return.

On January 15 this year, the PMML society and executive council were reconstituted with former Principal Secretary to Prime Minister, Nripendra Mishra, getting another five-year term as the organisation’s chairperson. There were several new entrants to the society including former Union Minister Smriti Irani, former NITI Aayog Vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar, retired Lt General Syed Ata Hasnain, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and Sanskar Bharati’s Vasudev Kamath.

As per PMML records, the letters retrieved by Sonia Gandhi in 2008 are some of Nehru's letters to Jayaprakash Narayan, Edwina Mountbatten, Albert Einstein, Aruna Asaf Ali, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Babu Jagjivan Ram.

At the AGM on Monday, the Prime Minister also floated the idea of an India museum map, and proposed the establishment of a complete national database of all museums in the nation, as per a release made by the Ministry of Culture.

A compilation of all the legal struggles associated with the Emergency era can be done and stored in view of the fact that 50 years since the Emergency have passed, Modi stated, since June 25 this year is 50 years of the Emergency.