Caring for history

For the past two years, I have been working in various archives in India and the United Kingdom in connection with my dissertation on Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917). Naoroji was a key leader in the early Indian National Congress, and the first Indian elected to the British Parliament (in 1892). In the last few decades of his life he was affectionately known as the 'Grand Old Man of India', an Indian equivalent of the original 'grand old man' – the influential British Prime Minister W E Gladstone. Having conducted research at relatively small institutions such as the Forbes Gujarati Sabha in Mumbai, as well as at massive facilities such as the British Library in London, I have gained perspective on the state of archival institutions in India and how they compare to their peers in a more economically advanced, historically-conscious society.

Indian archives and libraries contain a stunningly vast and diverse collection of written and printed material: rare palm leaf manuscripts at the Saraswathi Mahal Library in Thanjavur, official correspondence related to the Straits Settlements held in the West Bengal State Archives, priceless photographs and maps in government depositories, and – in monasteries, temples, churches, madrassas, and other institutes scattered across the Subcontinent – religious texts and commentaries of importance to all faiths, from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism. These are but a few select examples. Preserving this vast storehouse of information has, historically, been a tremendous challenge. In 1861, for example, drawing on the talents of men such as Allan Octavian Hume, the British Government of India formed a special Record Committee to address the steady disintegration of its own voluminous papers. While the committee suggested the formation of a record office – the precursor of the National Archives of India – members also urged the quick re-publication of the oldest and most damaged material. Some years later, Hume presciently remarked that, "Year by year the records are decaying; and unless some measures be adopted, it will, before very long, be found that, like the defunct Commission, the subjects of their investigations have dissolved themselves."