Jiaganj Museum, Nehalia, Jiaganj; Integrated on 16th Jan, 1999
The Jiaganj museum, built mostly by individual effort, showcases various kinds of rock sculptures, coins, rock carvings, weapons, and rare ancient manuscripts. Jiaganj is located on the river Bhagirathi and falls under the jurisdiction of the Lagbagh 'mahakuma' of the district of Murshidabad. Once upon a time Jiaganj was a trade centre and a port-town of international importance. The Jiaganj Museum (and the proposed 'Murshidabad Zilla Museum') owes its existence mainly to the untiring efforts of one man - Rai Bahadur Surendranarayan Singh (1881-1972) - a man whose interests included archaeology, music and fine arts and whose contribution to freedom struggle and to various other forms of social service are remarkable.
Though we do not have minute details about how he created such a centre for archeological studies in the district and we can only make wild guesses as to the inspiration behind this commendable effort, it can somewhat safely be asserted that some of the motivation came from eminent archeologist Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyayand historian and researcher Gurudas Sarkar who were his classmates. The company of such eminent scholars and the vast troves of archeological treasures scattered all over Murshidabad inspired the Rai Bahadur to painstakingly collect artifacts and bring them to his Nehalia palace.
Rai Bahadur Surendranarayan Singh Nehalia
On the 17th of August 1960, Rai Bahadur Surendranarayan Singh convened a meeting at his palace where he proposed to form a committee that would be entrusted with his collection. This committee included eminent personalities and high ranking government officials of the district. There was some initial confusion regarding the name of the proposedmuseum. While some favored calling it the 'Surendranarayan Singh Nehalia Museum, others were not convinced, arguing that this would deter other potential donors from donating their own collections to the museum. After much consideration, committee member and noted journalist Mr. Kamal Bandyopadhyay proposed the name: the 'Murshidabad District Museum.
The committee tried to construct the museum on 1900 sq. meters of land donated by the Rai Bahadur close to his own residence in Nehalia. The construction of the museum commenced in 1964-65 with the permission of the state government and that of the Govt. of India. The work took place at a rather slow pace and it took painstaking efforts to finally equip it with all modern amenities and finally open it to the public.
[Article By: Koel Banerjee Copyright © 2014 www.murshidabad.net]
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