Museums In India

Gandhi Memorial Museum Madurai

In 1959 the establishment of this museum took place. This museum is situated in Madurai City of Tamil Nadu state and is the museum base on the memories of Gandhi and famous as Gandhi Museum. Out of the 5 Sanghralayas (Museums) in India based on Gandhi this is one among them. The garments of Gandhi Ji that got blood stained during his murder by Nathuram Godse are also present in this museum.

This Memorial museum of Gandhi was established and organized by Gandhi Smarak Nidhi.

History

A number of years after the murder of Mahatma Gandhi a request were made in front of the Indian people for making the buildings in the memories of Gandhi through out India. As a result of which the the amount was donated by the rich as well as the poor people and a trust was made in the name of Mahatma Gandhi named as Mahatma Gandhi National Memorial Trust. The inauguration of this trust was done on April 15th 1959 by the former PM of India Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. The UNO has selected this Gandhi Memorial Museum of Madurai as one of the Peace Museums through out the world. Madurai was the place in 1921 where Mahatma Gandhi adopted loin as his permanent dress and he became famous in the world by the title of ;Half Naked Fakirquot;. Madurai is the very great place where Gandhi ji leads to the opening of the doors of famous Minakshi Temple for the people called as Harijans and resulting in the winning of the long lasting battle against 'Untouchability'. In 1946 this temple was visited by Mahatma Gandhi along with the Harijans for providing them entry in this temple. The building on which this Gandhi Memorial Museum has been built is the palace of Rani Mangammal belonging to the Naick Dynasty around the period of 1670 A.D named as Tamukkam Palace.

Collections and Exhibitions

Following sections have been made out of this Museum that is as follows:

An extraordinary Exhibition along with about illustrations of 265 based on the “India Fights For Freedom” showing the movement of freedom history greets the visitors at entrance.

After this, the handicrafts specimens of Kerala, Mysore, Andhra, and Tamilnadu states were shown through exhibition.

Following this, there is a picture gallery that shows the displays of Gandhiji’s biography, paintings, quotations, photocopy of important letters of GandhiJi.

After this gallery, you can enter the “ in which all the personal belongings of the Gandhiji were kept and preserved.

At last, an industrial section of Khadi came in the building’s ground floor. In this section, all the things related to the village industries were shown in display that were revived by Gandhiji.

There is a large open air theatre on the south side of this building having capability of gathering of about 8000 people. This theatre carries all the special occasions, meetings, cultural programmes and also film shows in it.

India Fights for Freedom

First greeting is get by the illustrations of about 26 based on the “India Fights For Freedom” that shows the freedom’s history in the form of an exhibition.

Visual Biography of Gandhiji

This building is a special memorial of Gandhiji and situated in a very quiet place. This building has collection of things related to Gandhiji like Bapuji’s visual biography, quotations, manuscripts, paintings, photos, copies of letter written by Gandhiji and also renderings of him. All the photographs counting 124 showing the whole life of Gandhiji from childhood days to the adulthood along with variety of phases up to taken to the crematorium were shown in this section. All these pictures shows the importance of great leader who sacrifice his life for the nation and also make the public remember him.

Relics and Replicas

In this section, original artifacts that are 14 in number related to Gandhiji were shown. This section also contained the cloth stained of blood that was wear by him on the day of murder, but there is a myth that this replica is not the original one. This is preserved in the box made of glass and makes the public remember that day of history.

How toReach

Address:

Tamukkam, Madurai, Tamil Nadu 625020, India

Timings and Ticket Prices

Hours:  Timings for Thursday 10:00 am–1:00 pm, 2:00 pm–5:45 pm

Photo Gallery