Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday marked Jawaharlal Nehru's birth anniversary by taking an apparent swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying those seeking to "defame and denigrate" India's first prime minister would be countered by the digital archive dedicated to his legacy.
Referring to the controversy surrounding Modi's educational qualifications, Ramesh said the "distorians led by the supposed MA in Entire Political Science" would continue their attempts to discredit Nehru, but the archive would serve as a "kavach" to preserve his legacy.
"The distorians led by the supposed MA in Entire Political Science himself will do what they have been doing to defame and denigrate Nehru. But this digital archive will be a kavach that will preserve, protect, promote and propagate his monumental legacy," he said in a post on X.
Ramesh was also marking the first anniversary of the Nehru Archive, an initiative of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund. The digital repository of the 100 volumes of the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, covering the period from 1903 to 1964, has recorded well over one million unique visitors and more than four million page views in its first year, he said.
The collection spans around 77,000 pages and includes more than 34,000 text documents and 3,000 images. Ramesh said the archive offered an important primary source for understanding 20th-century India through the life and work of a leader who profoundly shaped it.
He said the smartphone-friendly website, nehruarchive.in, allowed users to search, download and translate material for free. It had attracted interest from the general public, students, scholars, historians, journalists, admirers, sceptics and critics.
Ramesh said the archive would be expanded with more material from sources in India and abroad, including letters, photographs, documents, books, films, audio recordings and cartoons published during Nehru's lifetime.
The Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund's Deed of Declaration of Trust was signed on December 21, 1964, by then Vice-President Zakir Husain, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and 30 other prominent individuals. Ramesh also recalled an appeal by then President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.