INDIA’S ARCHIVES: HOW DID THINGS GET THIS BAD?

[Perhaps the most important factor has been India’s moribund bureaucracy. During the Raj, government archives were treated as repositories of sensitive information, carefully guarded by officials. This attitude did not change much after 1947. Bureaucrats censored scholars’ notes at the end of the workday. Remarkably, many files about nationalists, marked “confidential” by the British, remained inaccessible in the post-independence period. A certain colonial paranoia about free information access persists in the halls of many Indian government institutions.]

By Dinyar Patel

Courtesy of Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library

A leaf from a rare undated copy of the Holy Quran written in Kufic script, 

believed to be from the 9th century.

Manpreet Romana for The New York TimesA farman or imperial directive issued by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb lies in a torn folder at the National Archives of India, New Delhi. The label reads, “It is very badly damaged and broken at places.”

Why has modern India had such a difficult time preserving its history?

Tridip Suhrud, professor who has written extensively on Mohandas K. Gandhi, blamed a lack of historical sensitivity for problems in his state. Gujarat’s local maharajas and business families, he remarked, did not place much importance on keeping records.

Consequently, there has been little interest in creating or patronizing archival institutions. Mr. Suhrud can only count three other scholars currently working at the Sabarmati Ashram Library in Ahmedabad, the principal repository of Gandhi’s personal papers (properly preserved in a locked, temperature-controlled room, he noted).

Murali Ranganathan, an independent researcher, based in Mumbai, pointed out that the pre-colonial tradition of archives and libraries was extremely strong elsewhere in India: dynasties in Maharashtra, Assam, and Mysore kept vast collections that still survive. Beginning around 1900, he argued, Indians started to become too poor to properly maintain their collections, although several institutions, such as the Khuda Bakhsh Library in Patna and the Saraswathi Mahal Library in Thanjavur (Tanjore), have maintained excellent traditions of preserving pre-British era books and manuscripts.

Courtesy of National Mission for Manuscripts The digitization

of manuscripts at the National Mission for Manuscripts

in Delhi, which sources historical documents from Manuscript

Partner Centres including the Forbes Gujarati Sabha in Mumbai.

Perhaps the most important factor has been India’s moribund bureaucracy. During the Raj, government archives were treated as repositories of sensitive information, carefully guarded by officials. This attitude did not change much after 1947. Bureaucrats censored scholars’ notes at the end of the workday. Remarkably, many files about nationalists, marked “confidential” by the British, remained inaccessible in the post-independence period. A certain colonial paranoia about free information access persists in the halls of many Indian government institutions.

The government, furthermore, failed to woo many of India’s qualified historians and preservationists, instead staffing its archives, museums, and libraries through bureaucratic and frequently highly politicized channels. As a result, many institutions remain what they were a hundred years ago — simple “godowns” (warehouses) of supposedly sensitive documents and artifacts, staffed by individuals resistant to innovation, openness, or a culture of scholarly investigation.

“When you think of the pace at which other nations are digitizing their archival collections, cataloging information, and disseminating knowledge to scholars and citizens, India is falling behind,” commented Durba Ghosh, a historian at Cornell University. “It is a shame that the Indian government has so severely under-invested in the improvement and maintenance of its archives. Given India’s growing prowess in software and technology and its aspirations for producing a highly educated public, the indifference to archives and India’s history can no longer be explained by a lack of expertise or wealth.”

Several private institutions have now harnessed increased funding opportunities, access to technology, and a new generation of trained archivists to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. Sabarmati Ashram and the Netaji Research Bureau in Kolkata, which has the papers of Subhas Chandra Bose, have digitized their collections, thereby preserving the letters of two of India’s preeminent independence leaders. One of the largest repositories of Jain manuscripts in the world, the Hemacandra Jnan Mandir in northern Gujarat, has also scanned its holdings. In addition to digitization, the Forbes Gujarati Sabha in Mumbai, home to a rare collection of Gujarati books and periodicals, has constructed a special chamber to mitigate the high acid content of Indian paper, one of the primary reasons why books in India fall apart so easily.

Courtesy of Maharashtra State ArchivesSome of

Maharashtra’s oldest newspaper such as “Bombay Courier”

and “The Bombay Durpun” have been preserved by the

Maharashtra State Archives in Mumbai.

In addition to the National Archives, other government institutions are finally following suit. Digitization has been a popular first step for preservation since proper temperature control remains a challenge for many institutions. The Maharashtra State Archives in Mumbai, for example, is housed in an open-air structure built in 1888. Suprabha Agarwal, who became director of the Archives in July 2010, tried to install air-conditioning but ran against the strict heritage laws governing the building. Even utilizing fans, she noted, is problematic since the breeze tears apart brittle documents. As a result, the Archives bought a fleet of scanners and has started digitizing its oldest and most damaged collections. Aside from sending her staff to training seminars, Ms. Agarwal has also lobbied the government to build a modern, fully air-conditioned structure for the Archives in a Mumbai suburb and hopes to relocate the institution here around 2015.

Ultimately, Indian citizens themselves will need to play a much greater role in ensuring that their government properly maintains the country’s history. Mr. Guha is optimistic that this will happen. “It is now clear that a historical sensibility is developing amongst the Indian public,” he said, observing a surge in the number of history titles in Indian bookstores. “Now that more Indians are getting interested in history, people should play a part in helping preserve it. Private philanthropy is needed. Local pressure is needed for proper preservation.”

India has the resources and the talent, Mr. Guha noted, but the government needs to channel this into moribund institutions. “The leadership provided by Mushirul Hasan at the National Archives and Mahesh Rangarajan, the new director at the Nehru Library, shows that places can change,” he concluded. “If you have good archival historians in positions of authority, look at what can be done.”

In this four-part series, a historian examines the appalling condition of India’s archives, the reasons for the neglect and what can be done to fix the problem. Previously: Repairing the Damage at India’s National Archives. Next: The Parsi Community’s Impact.

Dinyar Patel is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Harvard University, currently working on a dissertation on Dadabhai Naoroji and early Indian nationalism. He can be reached at dpatel@fas.harvard.edu.

@ The New York Times

CHINESE LAWYERS CHAFE AT NEW OATH TO COMMUNIST PARTY

[Several prominent rights lawyers have been subjected to lengthy and sometimes unexplained detentions, including Gao Zhisheng, who was initially convicted for inciting subversion in 2006 and is now in prison in Xinjiang; Chen Guangcheng, who has been forcibly confined to his home in Shandong Province with his wife and daughter since completing a four-year, three-month prison term in September 2010; and Jiang Tianyong, who was detained for two months last year.]

By Edward Wong

BEIJING — China’s Justice Ministry has issued a requirement that new lawyers and those reapplying for licenses swear an oath of loyalty to the Communist Party, another step in a campaign to rein in lawyers who continue to challenge the political and legal systems by which the party maintains power. 

The Justice Ministry posted the oath on its Web site on Wednesday. The core of it says: “I swear to faithfully fulfill the sacred mission of legal workers in socialism with Chinese characteristics. I swear my loyalty to the motherland, to the people, to uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system, and to protect the dignity of the Constitution and laws.” 

Several lawyers said the oath was the first they knew of to force them to pledge fealty to the Communist Party. China has been tightening controls over liberal voices for several years, prompted by fears of unrest during the 2008 Olympics, concerns that the Arab revolutions might inspire domestic dissent, heightened tensions with ethnic minorities like the Uighurs in the west, and the need for stability during this year’s once-a-decade leadership transition. 

Rights lawyers say the controls have contributed to a severe rollback of legal reforms and are undermining efforts to strengthen the rule of law. 

Chinese officials, and those overseeing the security apparatus in particular, have long been suspicious of the efforts of lawyers to ensure that everyone is protected equally under the law. The ability of lawyers to practice has been curtailed, and some have been punished, particularly those championing issues related to civil rights and political expression. During a broad security crackdown last year, some lawyers who were detained secretly say they were beaten and tortured. 

Several prominent rights lawyers have been subjected to lengthy and sometimes unexplained detentions, including Gao Zhisheng, who was initially convicted for inciting subversion in 2006 and is now in prison in Xinjiang; Chen Guangcheng, who has been forcibly confined to his home in Shandong Province with his wife and daughter since completing a four-year, three-month prison term in September 2010; and Jiang Tianyong, who was detained for two months last year. 

On Wednesday, the Justice Ministry posted an explanation with the oath that said its goal was to, among other things, ensure that lawyers follow the core values of “loyalty, devotion to the people, justice and probity.” The aim of the oath is also to “effectively improve the ideological and political quality, professional ethics and skills of lawyers.” 

But some critics said the oath was a farce. “The oath itself is full of contradictions,” said Pu Zhiqiang, a lawyer who has represented Lu Qing, the wife of Ai Weiwei, the rebel artist who was detained without charge in two secret locations for 81 days last year. “Lawyers swear loyalty to the party and to the sanctity of the law? We all know that the party’s interference is often the reason why the law can’t be implemented.” 

Politics and the law are inseparable under Communist rule. This month, there was much debate during the National People’s Congress over proposed revisions to the criminal procedure law. Legislators eventually passed a law that had one notable win for legal reformers and rights lawyers: family members of detainees must be notified within 24 hours of the detention, though the police do not have to say where or why the person is being held. But the new law has been widely criticized for a clause that allows the police to hold a suspect in secret for up to six months in cases involving national security, terrorism or serious bribery. The police tend to define “national security” or “state security” in broad terms. 

Like that statute, the new oath required of lawyers is a step backwards for legal reform. 

The Justice Ministry Web site said new lawyers would have to take the oath within three months of acquiring licenses. It was unclear whether the mandate for those reapplying for licenses referred to the mandatory annual renewal, or whether it was for other applications, as when lawyers move their practices to new locations. 

The pledge also appears to be the first one required of all lawyers by the Justice Ministry. Previously, lawyers had to swear oaths before individual lawyers’ associations, which have close ties to the party and rarely represent the interests of lawyers. Liu Xiaoyuan, another rights lawyer, said that starting in 2000, the Beijing Lawyers Association required an oath of all lawyers practicing in Beijing. Mr. Liu said he had to take that oath when he moved his business to Beijing in 2005. 

“It simply said, ‘I swear to protect the sanctity of the law and the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, follow lawyers’ professional ethics, and protect my clients’ rights by law,’ ” he said. 

Mr. Liu was detained without charge for five days in April 2011 because of his friendship with Mr. Ai, the artist, and his firm still has not had its license renewed. “It’s a shame that the lawyers’ oath shows such little understanding of the rule of law,” he said. 

Among the oath’s critics is Li Zhuang, a defense lawyer who recently served an 18-month prison term after being hired by a man who was being prosecuted in the so-called crackdown on crime that took place in Chongqing under the watch of Bo Xilai, the municipality’s recently deposed party chief. Mr. Li was convicted of urging his client to falsify evidence, but many liberal Chinese believe Mr. Li was framed by Chongqing officials. Mr. Bo was a polarizing figure whose downfall is the biggest political scandal to unfold in China in years. 

“Lawyers should only have the law in their sights, not parties or politics,” he said in an interview on Thursday. “What if the party’s interests come into conflict with the law? Lawyers should certainly protect the law.” 

Mr. Li said that many people were wrongly convicted under Mr. Bo’s “strike black” campaign, as it was called, and that they would be looking for lawyers to represent them in clearing their names and punishing Chongqing officials now that Mr. Bo has fallen from grace. 

“Once they all try to seek justice with the help of lawyers, the stability of the country is seriously under threat,” he said. “The ministry must feel it has to rein in the lawyers in advance.” 

Mia Li contributed research.

@ The New York Times