As the nation remembers its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal lal Nehru on his birth anniversary on Friday, the Uttarakhand Government seems to be oblivious of the fact that the legendary leader had spent a considerable amount of time in the jails located in the State while he and his family were engaged in the struggle for the nation’s emancipation from the alien thralldom. Nehru was imprisoned by the British at the Dehradun and Almora jails in 1930s and 1940s.
The leader who was to don the mantle of the first PM of the country a few years after was given the prisoner tag number - 95 when he was transported from Central Jail Alipur (Bengal) on May 9 1934 to the Dehradun Jail. At that time, he was serving a sentence of Simple Imprisonment (SI) of two years under section 124 of Indian Penal Code. From here, Nehru was transferred to Central Prison in Naini (Allahabad, UP) on August 11, 1934. The Dehradun Jail was again chosen to keep Nehru imprisoned when on November 18, 1940 he was taken from District Jail Gorakhpur. This time, he was serving Rigorous Imprisonment of four years under section 38(1) (5) DIR. On February 28, 1941, he was shifted to Central Prison lucknow. Similarly, Nehru was also kept in the jail located in picturesque hill town of Almora, first in October 28, 1934 for a period of eleven months and then for the second time in June 10, 1945 for five days.
The Uttarakhand Government did prevent the historic cell in the jail premises where Nehru spent days, a captive of the British, from being razed to the ground like other part of the historic premises when the jail was being shifted to the city outskirts in Sela- Qui. The prison cell of Dehradun jail was accordingly converted into Nehru Heritage Centre with a sum of Rs40.4 lakhs at the behest of the State Government.
The place is now looked after by the department of culture which has placed beautiful murals outside the structure, depicting the legend in his myriad moods of struggle.
The centre has a small sleeping room where the cot, the table and the chair which Nehru used during his periods of imprisonment are kept. Moreover, there is a store, a toilet and a kitchen hallowed with Nehru’s memory. However, the absence of proper upkeep is conspicuously glaring. The bed sheet and the table cloth are found tattered. Things are in a bad shape in tune with the nation’s penchant to see, unperturbed, history sinking into oblivion.
The Pioneer found out that due to the absence of proper awareness and publicity, very few people care to visit the place that is a glorious part of the India’s colonial history when the nation was rousing itself from the age-old somnolence into a sense of a luminous national identity that harks back to a hoary past.The place is only visited ritualistically by some leaders on the birth anniversary of Nehru and is conveniently forgotten for the rest of the year.
When contacted, the Director, Department of Culture Beena Bhatt said that the articles Nehru had used were given chemical treatment some years ago. If required, they would be treated again for preservation. She claimed that the department does adequate publicity for the place where Nehru had spent days in imprisonment.
