Oral History Division

The Oral History Project of the Prime Ministers’ Museum and Library (PMML) was conceived as part of its research activities. The first steps towards organising it were taken in the summer of 1966. So far, the PMML has conducted about 1,373 interviews. Out of these, 990 have been transcribed, edited, and prepared in book form. These are available to scholars and researchers for consultation in the Reading Room of the Manuscripts Section.

In the initial phase of the PMML’s oral history project, the emphasis was on the recollections of men and women who came into contact with India’s great leaders or were associated with important political events or movements, either as participants or as witnesses. Gradually, the oral history canvas expanded to include subjects concerning overall national development, including the economy, foreign policy, art and culture, sports, institution-building, etc.

The list of persons to be interviewed is revised on a continual basis.

Among those whose recollections have been recorded are 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, the Nawab of Chhatari, Dr. Jivraj Mehta, R.K. Nehru, H.M. Patel, Jyoti Basu, Gulzarilal Nanda, Chaudhary Charan Singh, P.V. Narasimha Rao, I.K. Gujral, and V.P. Singh.

Among the scientists interviewed are S. Chandrasekhar and Prof. Satyendranath Bose. The foreigners who have been interviewed on Jawaharlal Nehru or on their association with the Indian national movement include Louis Mountbatten, Fenner Brockway, Horace Alexander, James Cameron, Yehudi Menuhin, Mrs. Martin Luther King, Willy Brandt, Chancellor Kreisky of Austria, Pierre Mendès-France, Chester Bowles, Tibor Mende, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and many others.

A wide variety of subjects have already been covered by our Oral History interviews, such as the reminiscences of important leaders; Indian politics going back to the partition of Bengal; the First World War; Satyagraha campaigns; social reform movements; the growth of trade unions and labour relations; activities of revolutionary groups; Hindu–Muslim relations; the growth of the socialist movement; Indo-British relations in the context of Indian and British politics; and the events leading to the partition of India.

The programme for oral history interviews is a continuous process. However, a body of valuable source material has already been accumulated to assist 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 PMML, constitutes a significant contribution to the study of the history of modern India, and especially of Indian nationalism.