Partition Museum
Dara Shukoh Library
Testimony from 1947, housed in the seventeenth-century library of a prince who lost his own succession.
History
The building was Dara Shukoh's library — the Mughal prince who translated the Upanishads and lost the throne, and his life, to Aurangzeb. It was later refaced as a British residency and then a college, so its façade is Palladian and its bones are Mughal. Since 2023 it has held Delhi's Partition Museum.
The museum is built from testimony rather than treasure: recorded voices, photographs, and objects people carried across a new border — a key, a shawl, a set of scales. Delhi received hundreds of thousands of refugees in 1947 and lost a comparable number of its residents, and the city that came out the other side is largely the one outside the door. The galleries end by saying so.
Nearest Metro
Kashmere Gate, where the Red, Yellow and Violet lines all meet, is a short walk from the campus gate.
Parking
Limited parking within the Ambedkar University campus; the surrounding roads carry busy Old Delhi traffic.
Food & Canteen
No food inside the museum; the campus and the Kashmere Gate area around it have ordinary eateries but nothing geared to visitors.
Visiting Tips
Closed Mondays. Allow ninety minutes; the last gallery is heavier than visitors usually expect.
- 01The oral historiesRecorded voices of people who made the crossing, listened to through headphones in near-dark.
- 02Objects carried acrossWhat families chose to take when they had minutes to choose — mostly small, mostly useless, mostly kept.
- 03The building itselfA Mughal prince's library behind a colonial façade, on the Kashmere Gate campus.