Aditya Singh- 2016130

B.A. HONS. HISTORY

2ND YEAR
Archives Assignment

Q. What do you understand by Archives? How do you account for the emergence of archives

in the Indian subcontinent?

Ans. A place to store data and records of the event either in printed or typed format is what

Archives mean to me. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Archives are a collection of

historical records relating to a place, Organization, or family, in simple terms calling it a

place where historical records are kept. As stated by the National Archives of the United

States of America, Archives is a place where people can go to gather first-hand facts, data,

and evidence from letters, reports, notes, memos, photographs, and other primary sources.

IT was only after the termination of the administration of British East India Company after

the revolt of 1857 that the Britishers realized the importance of keeping the records of the

Government in order. The main motive behind it is said to be the destruction of old records

and systematization of record-keeping and reducing the expenditure on record preservation.

In the very initial phase, the Finance committee was entitled to the job of pruning the records

but the committee was unable to provide the desired results after which the GOI in April

1961 appointed the Records committee to destroy all the useless records in the offices after

careful selection of the text that might have some Historical or Statistical importance. The

records of the National Archives of India do not hold any information upon the initial
members of the records committee but some were known like the first secretary of the

committee Rev. James Long. A.O. Hume, an ICS officer and also the founder of INC (The

Indian National Congress) was also an important outside force in the records committee.

Only some of the papers relating to the internal working of the committee in the early days

have survived, but we have a fairly complete idea of how the committee pursued the task set

for them by the Indian government. As the workload increased so did the needs of the

committee. In the report dated June 21, 1861, the committee recommended for a muniment

room stating “In dealing with this vast mass of records, the primary considerations are —how

the documents to be preserved may be best secured from injury, and rendered most readily

accessible for reference.”.

Several recommendations were given by the committee that we see as standard in the present

time such as the use of a printed index to denote a particular document, important documents

should be gathered at one place and stored and the abridgment of prominent work. But not all

the demands of the committee were met- the demand for a record keeper archive staff was

rejected asking the committee to keep the spending low.

From the year 1871-1872, various topics needed to be talked about as different approaches

were aired by various people in the committee. Some people were in support of a centralized

archive with a muniment room while the others were favouring a decentralized setup. There

were different ideas about who should get access to these documents some were just willing

to give British civil servants the access while others wanted any enthusiast to be able to see

the records in the archives. The Idea of a centralized muniment room was utterly rejected by

two prominent members of the committee- Sir William Hunter and Viceroy Northbrook and

his council calling the process very expensive, not meeting the criteria of the Imperial

government, etc. the period from 1871 to 1891 was a period in which the committee debated

about various issues some of which have been talked about. Another issue that bugged the
committee was whether they should follow the British model of record-keeping that has been

in existence since 1231 or use their decentralized system which has been suggested by Hunter

to them. The big question was – is the British model feasible in India.

The Imperial Record Department which we know as the Archies came into existence on 11th

March 1891 at Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) with Prof. G.W. Forrest as the officer in -

charge who earlier had also worked as the census commissioner at Bombay. The Building of

the present-day Archives was sanctioned by the Britishers on 12th October 1920. Sir Rai

jamini Mitra was the first Indian to be placed as the head of the department in the year 1919.

Around the year 1926, the office of the Archives Was shifted from Calcutta to the newly built

building in Delhi. A decade later the shifting of records from Calcutta to Delhi was

completed. Another major step taken was the establishment of a conservation research

laboratory (CRS) in the year 1940. Many other changes were brought in the span of the next

7 years like the private archival surveys, publication department, a formal course on archive

training, and so on.

After India gained independence in 1947 the name of the Imperial records department was

changed to the national archives of India. The national archives faced various challenges such

as the ill-management of records during British times, recovery of destroyed files, proper

categorization of the texts, and retrieving the historical and social values of documents.

Various techniques such as the hand lamination technique for the repair of fragile documents

were used and were further enhanced with time. The upcoming decades also saw an

enhancement in the size of the national archives. Regional offices were set up in Bhopal in

1956, later in Jaipur, Pondicherry, Bhubaneshwar, and many other cities. Not only did the
department focus upon the records in hand it also made a separate committee called the

Historical Document purchase committee to purchase documents from people and countries

around the globe that held importance to India.

In the early times, common Indian adults just had the access to current records and

documents from the national archives but from 1982 any Indian adult was allowed to look up

non-current records in the archives. The era of the ’90s brought rapid changes in the

functioning of the national archives. The rank of director of archives was renamed as the

Director-General of archives in the year 1990. On 11th March 1991, the department

celebrated its 100th year or the 100th anniversary. As the world moved towards digitalization

so did the National archives. In the year 1998, the digitalization of the archives was taken up

by the department after which anyone could assess current and non-current documents of the

archives from the web in the simplest manner possible.

On 11th March 2015, the National archives of India celebrated its 125th anniversary which

was done on a massive scale. A logo for the 125th foundation year was also launched. A 10-

rupee commemorative coin on the occasion was also launched with the image of the national

archives at the backside of the coin with a lotus on top of it. To date, more than 35 lakh

papers have been made available to the public through the means of the internet and many

more at the national archives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi. 2019. ‘Archiving the British Raj History of the Archival

Policy of the Government of India, with Selected Documents, 1858–1947’. Oxford

Press

• Prasad, S.N. 1978. ‘Archives in India’. Archiveria

• National archives of India. http://nationalarchives.nic.in

• Brochure. National archives of India. Celebrating 125th foundation year.