Author: Our Special Correspondent
Publication: The Hindu
Date: January 5, 2004
URL: http://www.hindu.com/2004/01/05/stories/2004010502891200.htm
The Union Home Ministry has turned
down the request of a history scholar to publish papers culled out of the
``Quarterly Survey of Political and Constitutional Position in British
India from 1937 to 1947'' that could throw light on the penultimate stages
of India's struggle for Independence and the drift towards Partition.
Baren Ray, fellow of Indian Council
for Historical Research in 1997, discovered the papers from a large body
of super secret British documents among the India Office Records in London.
Prof. Ray had even succeeded in getting the consent of the Home Ministry
to get the material published by the Ministry.
He was given a grant of Rs. 20,000
to get the printouts from the microfilm and make them ready for the press
so that it could be made readable and made available to researchers. The
British Government had declassified the material in 1977.
At the end of a painstaking research
and after printouts from microfilms were prepared, Prof. Ray submitted
the copies to the Home Ministry.
But what has come as a shock to
him is that the Ministry has been sitting over the decision to publish
the material and the entire matter appears to have been put in cold storage.
``As a researcher who has persevered
with this matter since 1988, I feel very strongly that while the Ministry
is free not to publish the material on its own auspices, with a Freedom
of Information Act in force in the country, the Government should not stand
in the way of my going ahead with doing the needful with these most important
documents. The Government has not in any way proscribed the material. I
request you to kindly return the entire pile of printouts that I had submitted
to the Ministry so that I may be able to continue my research as well as
take appropriate steps to make their contents known to the concerned scholars
in the country,'' Prof. Ray wrote to the Ministry.
He argued that any scholar with
financial resources could go and obtain another copy of the material in
London or even another set of printouts. ``Why should I be denied possession
of this material for which I have spent so much of my physical and mental
energy over so many long years?'' he said.
In a reply to Prof. Ray on November
4, the Ministry refused to agree to his request on the ground that the
Government had given him the grant on the condition that the material prepared
by him would be the property of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Prof. Ray contended that the ``Quarterly
Survey 1937-47'' papers could unearth the complete history of the freedom
struggle and of all the political process through which the country had
passed then.
He said the material was considered
so sensitive that it was not available even to the Home Minister of the
Interim Government and after the final agreement of June 3, 1947, extreme
care was taken to destroy all copies in India. The only copies that remained
were those in the India Office in London.
However, the Home Ministry has maintained
silence over the matter so far.
