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Connaught Place is a bustling shopping district that no visitor to New Delhi can miss, but it should come as no surprise that its labyrinthine circles hide a number of little-known gems. Located on the outer circle, the Heritage Charkha Museum is one such obscure attraction.
Founded in 2017, the Charkha Museum is a tiny museum focusing on the charkha, the Indian spinning wheel, particularly on its dramatic journey from being a traditional instrument to the symbol of national resistance. It owes a lot to Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy, which led to the Swadeshi movement and then to Indian independence.
The spinning wheel, as Gandhi insisted, represented self-reliance and self-sufficiency, as it provided a means to fend for oneself while rejecting exploitative textiles made by the British. In 1931, the National Congress adopted a new flag in the familiar tricolor of saffron, white, and green, with a charkha in the center. After independence, it was replaced by an ancient symbol called the Ashoka Chakra, but the wheel motif has remained.
The Heritage Charkha Museum celebrates this iconic national symbol with a small collection of vintage charkhas, including one used by Gandhi himself, some textile works, and a gigantic stainless steel charkha that stands in front of it, which it claims to be the world’s largest spinning wheel. Beside a bust of Gandhi, a large Indian flag also unfurls in the wind in the rooftop garden, overlooking the busy streets of Connaught Place.