No record of 1962, 1965, 1971 wars with National Archives

NEW DELHI: Surprising as it may sound, the National Archives of India — the central repository of the government’s “non-classified” historical records — does not have records of India’s three big wars of 1962, 1965, and 1971 and also the Green Revolution. Several ministries and central government departments have not shared their records with the NIA for years. Even the defence ministry has not shared files with NAI since 1960.
This, however, does not imply that the government has no files/records on such matters; it’s only that they have not been transferred to the NAI’s custody. The defence ministry has sent only 476 files since independence till the beginning od this year.
The NAI is a repository of non-current records of the central government and holds them “in trust” for the use of administrators and scholars. Officials said keeping records in the NAI is “very important” as they are regularly accessed by researchers and the public. It’s difficult for people to get records directly from government departments, hence scholars are forced to depend on other sources, they added.
Speaking at an event on ‘good governance’, NAI director general Chandan Sinha highlighted how no records have been received from at least nine departments besides commissions, institutions and attached bodies. These include agriculture, IT and electronics, social justice, panchayat, rural development, women and child welfare and food and consumer affairs departments.
He said there are 151 ministries and departments, but the NAI has records of only 64 agencies, including 36 ministries and departments. “What does it mean? It means we do not have any records in the NAI of the Green Revolution, which we hail all the time, or the wars — 1962 war, the 1965 war, and the 1971 war — the great victory... We are not holding history in trust. Indeed, the question that we must face is that we are losing a large part of our history since independence,” Sinha said.
He also said that there should be no unauthorised destruction of records and added that an appraisal of records and reviewing and identifying them for transfer to the NAI is a very important aspect of governance.
This is for the second time that the administrative reforms department took up special campaigns to weed out obsolete files and this year there has been special focus on transferring files to the NAI. Speaking on the occasion, both cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba and administrative reforms secretary V Srinivas urged the ministries, departments and other agencies to regularly transfer their files to the NAI.