It’s not easy being a historian in India.
I made that discovery seven years ago in June 2014, when I first arrived at the National Archives of India (NAI). I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew was that I had quit my job, and had arrived at the NAI with a vague idea of finding out more about my great-grandfather, Vappala Pangunni (VP) Menon.1 I didn’t know how to begin doing that — and as a new scholar at the NAI, my path was not made any easier.
Main gate to the National Archives of India (NAI). The archive is the repository to all non-current records of the Government of India. Photo by Marc Reyes.
If you are not familiar with the NAI or its labyrinthine methods of functioning, then it is utterly bewildering. To start with, there are ledgers — some of them yellowed, with their pages gently crumbling — to go through. Indexes, as they’re politely called, with never-ending alphabetical lists of subjects, personalities, and events. In order to request files, a visiting researcher has to write the file name, reference number, year, department, and ministry individually on requisition slips. At no time can the scholar request multiple files on one slip. There are three times a day when a researcher can submit their requisition requests. By the end of the day, the archivist’s simple wooden collection tray brims with sheaves of paper, each bunch neatly pinned together by the dint of the steel-tipped pins kept in a nearby bottle. If you’re lucky, you’ll get five out of the ten files you requested. If you’re divinely blessed, you’ll get those five files that same day. Sometimes, though, you’ll get your slips back with NT scrawled across the top. The first time this happened to me, I was confused. So, I asked the archivist what it meant.
Not Transferred, I was told smugly.2 The file, you see, hadn’t been transferred from the respective ministry. But I persisted (forgive me but I was younger and full of hope then), the file was mentioned in the index. Surely that meant it was here?
No.
Uninhibited access to archives is — and should be — an essential characteristic of a democracy. There is much to glean from the study of the past. I say this not just with regard to history, but to politics, law, society, culture, economy, and science. Researchers who use an archive are usually from varied academic backgrounds. In itself, this brings a considerable nuance to an archive: of pluralism and diversity of interests. The records of past choices are proof of the fact that every decision has a consequence. Citizens of a democratic society hold the right to understand their past as well as the right to learn truths governments may find uncomfortable or contentious. In this sense, an archive holds a government and society accountable. It helps a people understand the motivations of previous public officials and the workings of older regimes. In its best form, then, a nation’s archive is much more than a keeper of its records and memories. It is a living testament to the many facets of national identity and history.
Walking towards the Main Building of the NAI. In addition to the Main Building, there is an Annexe and a Museum. Besides the primary location in New Delhi, the NAI has a Regional Office in Bhopal and three Records Centres located in Jaipur, Puducherry, and Bhubaneswar. Photo by Marc Reyes.
That is why the impending demolition of the National Archives Annexe — as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s prized Central Vista project — is a looming crisis, not just for the study of history, but for Indian democracy. Symbolic of Modi’s preference for sweeping changes and leaving his mark on older Indian institutions, the project will witness the razing of existing buildings along Central Delhi’s Rajpath road, in order to construct a new Parliament, a new Central Secretariat (Indian civil service agency) office as well as new residences for the Prime Minister and Vice President.3 As far as the NAI is concerned, government officials have argued that the historic main building will remain standing while only the Annexe will be demolished. It’s a simple enough explanation, that is until you look at the fine print.
The NAI collectively holds about 4.5 million files, 25,000 rare manuscripts, and more than 1 million maps, along with nearly a million Mughal Empire documents.4 The Annexe is home to a vast number of pre-1857 documents,5 as well as the Accession Records Division, which houses millions of post-Partition documents, records of the Archaeological Survey of India and editions of old Urdu language newspapers.6 That the historical value of these documents is unparalleled goes without saying. It also begs several questions. Where will the records of the Annexe be stored (and in what conditions) while the Central Vista project takes shape? Given that scholars and academics alike have to plan research schedules and write their theses and dissertations, how long will it be before documents can be accessed? With the complex narratives of religion, integration, and Partition that wind through India’s history, what do the circumstances of this transfer mean for the simple act of remembering who we are? More practically, what does this mean for the telling and teaching of history and the training of historians?
At this point, there are too many questions and far too few answers. Transparency of access allows an archive to become a crucible of critical thought, with primary sources used to engage with new perspectives and launch new inquiries. Archival sources allow us glimpses to the past, watching as societies transformed across centuries; as regimes shifted from democratic to authoritarian; as international allies and observers react to changing geopolitics and laws; as civilian protests and popular uprisings shape the outcome of politics in a particular country. With ambiguity surrounding the transfer, storage and access to the contents of the NAI Annexe, the fear of what the scholar Swapna Kyona Nayudu calls “the manipulation of national memory” is becoming increasingly real.7
As I said, it’s not easy being a historian in India.
Opacity is always the background noise to archival life in India. It is in the NTs you receive on your requisition slips, in maps you are denied access to study or permission to publish, in private papers that are open yet censored and in boxes that lie unseen and uncataloged for years. It is in the lack of administrative attention to the question of training archivists familiar with ancient documents that are composed of a multitude of scripts, dialects, and languages. It is in the 35-year declassification criteria that embargos papers from the public eye.8 It is also in the bureaucratic obstacles that surround the writing of diplomatic and political history in modern India. Recently, the central government announced a new amendment to the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972. According to the amendment, retired defense and intelligence officials will be prohibited from publishing any work related to the organizations where they previously worked.9 They now need prior approval from the head of their former office. Failure to do so may result in a pension being withheld or withdrawn.10 What is different is that there aren’t any loopholes to find and utilize. Nothing can be published now without prior permission. The tightening of this bureaucratic noose is an ominous omen for the writing and studying of India’s political and diplomatic past – both of which are vital to understand her future.
When you consider all these barriers, both new and old, that is why the study of post-independence India is still a nascent field. Indeed, much of the research that scholars have conducted on modern India today is based on material declassified in the 2000s. In 2014, for example, a small but significant body of Jawaharlal Nehru’s letters and other writings were made available to the public for the first time. The qualification: permission was still required to look at these papers, with approval being granted by no less than the Prime Minister’s Office on a “case-to-case basis.”11
Historians in India, especially those specializing in sensitive or politically-tricky periods or regions, are familiar with a Radcliffe Line of red tape, slashing random borders around narratives that can be written and subjects that may, without controversy, be studied. Apathy is also not an unsurprising issue, for those of us who have worked at the NAI for any amount of time.12 In her essay for The Telegraph, historian Sana Aziz points out that the gap between acquisitions and available expertise (linguistic skills for instance) has led to many rare documents in a wide variety of languages being locked up permanently.13 Those of us who have persisted with humanities and social science research in India have learned to work within these boundaries. As scholars, we acknowledge that we are, from the outset, stymied by apathy, privilege, and nuanced layers of administrative opacity.
Sign outside the Main Building of the NAI. Photo by Marc Reyes.
The demolition of the NAI Annexe rips away the veil between privately acknowledged roadblocks and the possibility of open manipulation of the national narrative. Now, opacity is no longer background noise. It is very much at the forefront. Yet it is not just India’s past that is at stake. The National Archives of India is home to countless stories of the South Asian and Southeast Asian subcontinents. The records here are vital in order to construct nuanced histories of the Global South — across law, migration, trade, politics and geopolitics. How will the demolition impact not just the study of the region, but the writing of an entire regional historical discourse? We have no answers.
Despite open letters from national and international historians and petitions demanding transparency (to say nothing of a cruel second wave of Covid-19), construction has already begun on the Central Vista project. According to Aziz, officials at the National Archives have received no plan of action regarding the safe transfer of documents. Nor, as a petition introduced by historians Meghna Chaudhuri and Shweta Banerjee points out, has there been any kind of engagement with the community most interested in preserving these documents — historians, librarians, architects and archivists. With documents at risk of being lost due to a confusing or ill-defined transfer process, of being irrevocably damaged by environmental threats (as basic as humidity or termites) if not maintained at the correct temperatures in their new places of storage, the study of Indian history stands jeopardized in ways that it has never been before.
If it is affected in the ways we fear, the demolition of the NAI Annexe threatens to take an entire discipline — and with it, a country’s history and memory — beyond manipulation, right to the brink of erasure.
Erasure, you will say, is a strong word. But consider the deliberate lack of political transparency, the reinforcement of administrative apathy, and finally, add the recent order issued by the Government of India, preventing retired bureaucrats from any kind of publishing without prior approval. Considered collectively, then, erasure is not just a powerful and potent word, but a precise one.
- Narayani Basu, V.P. Menon: The Unsung Architect of Modern India (Simon & Schuster India, 2020); Narayani Basu, “How Do You Write a Biography?,” Contingent, May 21, 2020.
- There are other variations along this original theme, some of them being, “Tracing,” “Sent to Ministry,” “Supply to R.R.”, “Brittle,” and “Destroyed.” The other problems at the NAI are myriad. Photocopying takes months. Photography of documents is not allowed. Digitization at the NAI is proceeding at a glacial pace, and its online portal, Abhilekh Patal, is untidily catalogued. Once you return a document, you cannot repeat a request for it. If the document you’re looking for is in high demand, scholars might have to wait months to access it at all. Documents from post-independence years are cataloged in Transfer Lists — a superficial topic-based sub-section compiled by archivists during the declassification process — which unfortunately denudes a collection of context and nuance.
- Oscar Holland, “Even before Covid struck, Modi’s $1.8B New Delhi revamp divided opinions,” CNN, May 8, 2021.
- All this, of course, is to say nothing about the myriad of documents on trade and commerce with the British Empire’s colonies in Southeast Asia, the transfer of power, independence, Partition, the claims and rehabilitation of refugees and immigrants, the integration of the princely states and the framing and the adoption of the Constitution of India.
- 1857 was the year of a widespread rebellion (sometimes referred to as a mutiny or insurrection) of Indians against the then-ruling British East India Company. The rebellion was ultimately unsuccessful, but it did end the rule of the British East India Company. As a result, the British government came to directly rule the Indian subcontinent.
- The Accession Records Division is where newly acquired documents are stored, and due to lack of trained archivists, that is usually where they are left. As a result, nearly all the documents in the Accession Records Division are uncatalogued to this day. For more on the subject, see Sana Aziz, “Demolition Squad: India’s Archives and the Central Vista Project,” The Telegraph, May 30, 2021.
- Swapna Kyona Nayudu, “Central Vista Project Raises the Question: Who owns the National Archives of India,” Scroll.in, June 1, 2021.
- Economist and senior Indian National Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s landmark biography on VK Krishna Menon, India’s former Defence Minister, was heavily based on Menon’s private papers — which were opened to the public only in 2018. Similarly, we still do not know the entire story behind India’s annexation of Sikkim, because the private papers of the prime mover, R.N. Kao, are embargoed until 2027.
- “Centre amends pension rules, bars security officials from publishing info after retirement,” Indian Express, June 2, 2021.
- But it should be noted that this isn’t a departure from the norm. India’s policy with regard to what different regimes have deemed “sensitive” or “problematic” has varied with alacrity. For example, the All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968, state that “Greater care/discretion should be taken about the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1923, while giving permission to serving/retired officers to publish books/articles.”More recently, in 2008, the UPA government had brought in similar rules, which mandated retired officers to seek permission from the head of their departments, if they published any material that might “prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India. For more information, see Sanya Dhingra, “No more tell-all books by retired intelligence or security officials without Modi govt nod,” The Print, June 2, 2021.
- Seema Chishti, “Sonia Gandhi hands over key to Nehru Papers, access now controlled only by the PMO,” Indian Express, Nov. 16, 2014; Also see Brandon Kirk Williams, “Treasures Unseen: The Opening of Nehru’s Post-1947 Papers,” Wilson Center, May 22, 2017.
- In his introduction to White Mughals (Penguin India, 2004), historian William Dalrymple writes, “In Delhi in the vaults of the Indian National Archives, someone installing a new air conditioning system had absentmindedly left out in the open all six hundred volumes of the Hyderabad Residency Records. It was monsoon. By the time I came back for a second look at the records the following year, most were irretrievably wrecked, and those that were not waterlogged were covered with thick green mold. After a couple of days a decision was taken that the mold was dangerous and all the six hundred volumes were sent off ‘for fumigation’. I never saw them again.” (xxxvii)
- Sana Aziz, “Demolition Squad: India’s Archives and the Central Vista Project,” The Telegraph, May 30, 2021.
