Chittaranjan Das’s house in Darjeeling. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, June 20: The house in Darjeeling where Chittaranjan Das, the legendary lawyer-freedom fighter who mentored Netaji among others, spent his last days will be made a museum.

The historic building in the heart of the hill resort, neglected for long and in need of immediate repair, will be the country’s only museum dedicated to Deshbandhu (a friend of the nation, as Das was fondly called).

“We’ve approached the Union minister of culture (Ambika Soni) with a Rs 33-lakh proposal to renovate the building under the department’s assistance scheme for strengthening local museums. We expect to receive the funds by September-end,” said Jyotishman Chattopaddhaya, the Darjeeling subdivisional officer.

The bed on which Das breathed his last on June 16, 1925, and rare photographs, including one during Mahatma Gandhi’s only visit to Darjeeling in 1922, are still housed in the two-storeyed building.

It was taken over by the state government in 1953 and handed to the Deshbandhu Memorial Society, formed the same year by then governor Haren Mukherjee. However, the society has been near defunct since the early 90s, though a mother-child clinic still runs there.

Educated in England, Das’s public career began in 1909 when he successfully defended Aurobindo Ghosh in a bomb blasts case. One of the highest earning professionals in the country then, he burned down his European wardrobe to take up khadi clothes.

Chattopaddhaya said: “We have begun by restructuring the trust. Earlier, most of the members were from Calcutta and the meetings would usually be held at Raj Bhavan.”

Present Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi, the head of the dying trust by virtue of his post, took the initiative to revitalise it.

The plan for the museum was worked out at a meeting attended by officials of the Indian Museum, public works department, Netaji Institute of Studies and the district administration.

It decided that the museum would be housed on the first floor, while the mother-child clinic would continue to function from the ground floor.

“Deshbandhu always wanted to provide educational and medicinal facilities to the poor and we want to keep his ideals alive,” said Chattopaddhaya, who has been appointed assistant secretary of the trust.

One of the first things he will have to focus on is to remove encroachments from the premises.

The district officials will call on Deshbandhu’s granddaughter Justice Munjula Bose, who has promised to contribute some of the articles to be displayed at the museum.