PremiumThe photographs tucked away in a family album, the papers dismissed as “rubbish”, and the voices of women whose stories were never written down, are some of the fragments of India's post Independence history being preserved at the Archives of Contemporary India in Ashoka University.Photograph of S. Radhakrishnan being welcomed by US President John F. Kennedy during his visit to America in 1963. (Archives of Contemporary India, Ashoka University)AI Narration Listen 00:000.5x0.75x1x1.25x1.5x2xThank you for your feedback.Your feedback has been reported succesfully.8 min readNew DelhiOct 23, 2026 11:43 AM IST First published on: Oct 23, 2026 at 11:40 AM ISTA large screen displaying photographs of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan at a landmark exhibition of Indian art in Germany is among the first things to catch the eye on entering the Archives of Contemporary India (ACI) at Ashoka University. The exhibition, 5,000 Years of Indian Art, held at Villa Hügel in Essen in 1959, was an important moment of post-war cultural diplomacy, bringing the depth and diversity of India’s artistic and civilisational heritage to European audiences.For decades, however, the exhibition had all but slipped from India’s historical memory. Its traces resurfaced only a few years ago, when Deepa Bhatnagar, founding director of the ACI, and her team came across a cache of photographs tucked into an album that had been carefully preserved by Radhakrishnan’s descendants at his home in Chennai.AdvertisementAmong the other fragments of Radhakrishnan’s life preserved in the archives are a 1934 letter he wrote to Mahatma Gandhi, requesting a contribution to a book he was writing on Indian philosophy; correspondence he exchanged with Rabindranath Tagore; and photographs of him being welcomed by US President John F. Kennedy during his visit to America in 1963.The archive currently houses the private papers of 112 personalities who helped shape post-Independence India. Its holdings extend beyond the conventional history of the freedom movement to include the writings and legacies of political figures, journalists, academics, writers, environmentalists, filmmakers and others who played an active role in independent India.© IE Online Media Services Pvt LtdAdrija Roychowdhury leads the research section at Indianexpress.com. She writes long features on his... Read More# Ashoka University# Express Premium ShareWhatsapptwitterFacebook