No politicians will speak in Delhi Oral History Project as AAP govt looks to avoid controversy

New Delhi: The Delhi Oral History Project — a government initiative meant to record the national capital’s experiences through the years, in the words of prominent personalities who saw them unfold, played a part in them or studied them, or have a significant role in the city’s development — will not include political figures, ThePrint has learnt.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has, instead, decided that the project will focus on prominent personalities like economists, cultural enthusiasts, historians, former civil servants, authors, and journalists, apart from the common Delhiite. 

An initiative of the Delhi government’s department of language and culture, the Oral History Project was officially launched in August 2019, but discussions on the different personalities to be included began around a year before. 

Officials of the Delhi government said there were long debates on the inclusion of former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani, 93, who migrated to Delhi after the Partition, and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s personal secretary R.K. Dhawan (he died in 2018), who was expected to offer an account of the Emergency.

The two names, among others, were proposed by people involved in the project, but declined by the Project Monitoring Committee (PMC) of the AAP government, citing the potential for “controversy”, the officials added. 

“There were concerns that perhaps the government in power, AAP, might include only politicians who are of the same ideology. If not, then it was a sensitive matter to decide which all parties’ leaders will be included,” said a senior Delhi government official privy to the development.

People involved in the project acknowledge that political names are off the agenda, at least for now.

Surajit Sarkar, associate professor at the Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK) in Ambedkar University, the executing agency for the project, said, “I was also keen on interviewing a senior female AAP supporter/political figure but even that was declined.” Politicians, he added, will not be part of the project’s first phase at least. 

Approached for comment, Sanjay Garg, head of department at Delhi Archives — a government body tasked with preserving the capital’s history — said politicians won’t be in the project.

Work on the Oral History Project — which seeks to record the accounts of 100 people in all — is slowly getting back on track after its pace slowed down on account of the Covid-19 pandemic. Delhi Archives has so far finalised names of 40 people.

These include photographer Raghu Rai, MDH spices owner Dharampal Gulati (who died in December 2020), former lieutenant governors Tejinder Khanna and Vijai K. Kapoor, international table tennis player Indu Puri, former Delhi High Court judge Badar Durrez Ahmed, Urdu shayar Seemab Sultanpuri, artist Gogi Saroj Pal, and historian and scholar Romila Thapar. 

Interviews with all these people have already been conducted, said sources in the Delhi government. 

Likely to be included

Historian, author and curator William Dalrymple, it is learnt, has been included in the latest list of people to be interviewed. A Scotsman based in Delhi, Dalrymple’s books include a travelogue on the capital, City of Djinns. 

Media personality Vinod Dua, human and animal rights activist Anjali Gopalan, who set up Delhi’s first HIV Clinic in 1994, and theatre activist and playwright Anees Azmi have also been included in this list, subject to a final approval. 

This list will be taken up later this month at the next meeting of the stakeholders with the Delhi government. 

Asked about the names to be included in the project, Garg said: “We will share the final list only after approval of all stakeholders in our next meeting.”

Covid-19 challenges

Ambedkar University’s Centre for Community Knowledge — a research centre — has recorded over 300 interviews over the last eight years for a similar project documenting experiential histories of communities. 

For the Delhi Oral History Project, the centre’s initial plan was to conduct 100 interviews with 100 people till 2021. 

However, due to the pandemic, only 17 of the 40 people finalised so far have been interviewed so far. 

“Among other things, more often than not, people were reluctant to meet for the interview. While we did do about 7-8 interviews over Zoom last year, we don’t want to compromise too much on quality and getting in-person interviews,” Sarkar said. 

“While we are willing to speed things at our end over the next 6-8 months, a lot depends on hearing back from people we approach for the interviews.”

Delhi Archives officials said many of the historians and retired civil servants finalised are aged above 75-80 years. In light of the Covid pandemic, they added, many of them are hesitant to participate in physical meetings. 

On the flipside, the officials said, the pandemic has led the team to widen their list to include more healthcare workers. Dr K.K. Kumar, a 90-year-old Army doctor, who later went on to open a clinic in West Delhi, is among those interviewed for the project.

A book in pipeline?

One of the project’s key objectives is to become a reference point for academics and students. While the interviews will be posted online, there are also plans to compile them in a handy picture booklet or a book comprising images and anecdotes to disseminate information about the project. 

“While a plan has been drawn out by the team working at Ambedkar University, it will be finalised in the next meeting on the Oral History Project later this month, depending on feedback from senior government officials,” Sarkar told ThePrint. 

Whether the book will be included in educational institutions or be available for purchase at book shops is yet to be decided.

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