Archives in India- History and Assets (An Old and Rare Book)

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The author of this book, the late Shri S. Ghose who had spent more than three decades of his life in the National Archives of India, died suddenly on the 5th January 1963 of a heart attack. It is a pity that he could not live to see the book in its present form on which he had worked hard for the last ten years. This work leading to its publication was made possible by a generous grant from the Ministry of Education, Government of India.

The book aims at giving an outline of the origin and development of archival institutions in India. In the Introductory chapter Shri Ghose has attempted to trace the origin and growth of archival institutions in India from the earliest times. For this purpose he has relied mainly on sources like the Jatakas, Arthashastra and Sukraniti supplementing them by the accounts of foreign travellers who visited India from time to time. The value of Sukraniti as a source material is rather doubtful but the information gleaned from other sources throws new light on the growth of archives in this country. The author has also referred to the records-management practices adopted by the Mughal Emperors, the Marathas, and the rulers of Vijayanagar and Mysore, and the way these records were disintegrated after the revolt of 1857. The book devotes two lengthy chapters to the creation and organisation of archives in modern India.

In Part II of the book, Shri Ghose has described at some length the archival assets of the Union and State Governments. The value of the book has been enhanced by a small bibliography and a list of Selections from Records. The author has also appended a list of select literature on archives-science and record-management which might be useful to a person who would like to go deeper into the subject.

I hope the book will be well received both by the professional archivist and the general reader.

This book is not the outcome of any suggestion from outside. Rather, it was as a result of an inner urge, which in turn developed from what I had seen and heard during my professional life in various archival organisations in the country, that I started investigations on "The Origin, Growth and Development of Archives in India." It has taken much longer than originally contemplated to complete the task, firstly because, as an employee of the Government of India, I had to carry on the research in my individual capacity and outside normal duty hours, and secondly because I had to face a series of obstacles and embarrassments, with resultant delays, which are perhaps inevitably associated with a venture of this kind. Nevertheless, with persistent and prolonged efforts, I have succeeded in completing my task. As for the volume itself, it does not claim any scholarly treatment of the subject which is expected of a specialist; but it does embody the experience of a life-time and the only satisfaction of the author lies in the fact that there has been no other attempt of this kind in the past in the field of archival literature in this country.

This volume is in no way exhaustive as its scope had necessarily to be limited to the modern period, partly because of the dearth of information about the earlier times and partly because of the vastness of the subject. In many places therefore the scope of discussions has been narrowed down. Broader issues, for instance the growth of the Secretariat, filling systems, changing modes of correspondence, the referrence system, the manner of storage and measures of preservation of records etc.. had to be left out of the scope of the present work.

The entire work has been divided into four parts. In the first part, the 'Introduction' gives an outline of ancient and mediaeval systems of archives administration in India.