Is India opening up? Some good signs

My article Is India opening up? Some good signs appeared in The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle

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The media has often mentioned the report prepared by Lt. Gen. Henderson-Brooks on the October-November 1962 debacle.

Is India changing? Political pundits will probably have diametrically opposite views on the subject.
It is a fact that India is rapidly emerging as an important economic pole; the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos and the hosting of the 10 Asean Heads of State or government  for Republic Day are symbols of this new emergence.
India has reached some maturity in certain fields but not in all. One can cite the poor ranking of Indian universities on the global stage and the lack of serious R&D in the defence sector among areas that are lacking. But the fact that the government continues to confiscate the history of modern India is not only immature, but also shows lack of self-confidence.
The media has often mentioned the report prepared by Lt. Gen. Henderson-Brooks on the October-November 1962 debacle. Fifty-five years after it was presented to the Government of India, the report is still kept in a locked almirah in the defence secretary’s office with only a few having had the privilege to go through the pages written by the Anglo-Indian general. The babus running the largest bureaucracy in the world seem keen to keep history under wraps. Will their mindset ever change?
I personally believe the study of the history of the subcontinent could be one of the keys to disentangle difficult problems such as the Kashmir issue and the border row with China. Unfortunately, it is difficult to access this information.
One has to admit that things have changed in the past few months, and it is certainly a positive sign. Take the National Archives of India (NAI), for example.
I have been visiting its research room for years, and it has been nothing less than an ordeal. First, I had to re-register every two years and “prove” that I was “still” a scholar. Whenever I asked why I could not be a “scholar for life”, I was invariably told: “Sir, it is not like that in India”. This statement itself shows the mindset of those supposed to be assisting the researcher.
Then, while going through the catalogues, it took ages to search for a keyword as the software was extremely slow. That was not all: thousands of spelling mistakes were made at the time of entering the data. I remember a specific instance — the day I was searching for a file on Maj. S.L. Chhiber, who served as the Indian consul general in Lhasa (Tibet) at the end of the 1950s. I could get nothing on “Chhiber”. Fortunately, probably by the grace of the “archive” god, I chanced on a Maj. Children. It was the file!
When I wanted to photocopy some documents for my research, I was told that only 25 per cent of the document could be copied. I once had a document of nine pages, my request to copy three pages was rejected and I was allowed to have two pages only.
On another occasion, I visited the archives six weeks after my previous trip and I was told that the rule was clear; I could not take photocopies again. A delay of several months had to take place between two requests: “In any case, why do you need the photocopies so often?” When I tried to explain that I was trying to write a book based on Indian archival material, it made the person even more suspicious. This has serious implications — and scholars find it easier to write on India using foreign archives.
As the NAI was doing me a favour in letting me consult “their” material, no discussion was possible!
Many things have changed in the past one year or so.
A new web portal Abhilekh Patal was recently launched with advanced (and quick) search facilities (a new version 2.0 is even online since January 12). It has a powerful search engine, real-time filters on search results and even digitisation “on demand”. Scholars need only to login using their registered email ID and a password. This is a great achievement. And if you find a misspelling, you can even suggest changes to the webmaster.
But perhaps more than the technological “smart” aspects of the portal, it is the change in the attitude of the staff posted in the research room — they are now ready to “facilitate” your research. During my recent visit, it was a pleasant surprise to find professional staff willing to help and not just protect “their” archival material. Each scholar has a personal monitor enabling him/ her easy access to all the catalogues.
Similarly, great progress has been made in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) where the famous JN Collection (also known as the Nehru Papers) has been opened to study for researchers. Though not indexed, it is an extraordinary mine for the study of the history of post-Independence India. At both the places, the number of scholars has increased manifold. An encouraging sign indeed!
Unfortunately, while some progress is taking place at the NAI and NMML, not much is happening on the declassification front; both the ministries of external and home affairs are hard nuts to crack. Bureaucrats make sure that you don’t access the dusty files: India’s security and integrity will be endangered if these precious documents are opened to the public, they say.
Is there really a question of India’s national security interests? In fact, the opening of some archives (after a due professional declassification process is undertaken and documents are “sanitised” if necessary), would greatly enhance India’s position in most cases; but in most cases the babus themselves have not read the files — they have no time.
Two other factors come into play. First, bureaucrats always prefer to “block” everything instead of making an effort of going through the proper process; and second, the MEA and other ministries do not have knowledgeable staff to do the job.
For this, I admire the United States of America: Official documents are scrupulously made available to the public. A couple of years ago, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the US official organ, posted some 320,000 declassified cables online. The most impressive aspect is that the text of declassified diplomatic cables, superbly indexed, is retrievable from the NARA website. Even the secretive CIA has posted lakhs of documents on its electronic reading room.
Some may argue the United States or France is a “developed” nation that can “afford” the cost of sifting through historical documents and the process of declassification, but it is the  wrong argument.
While bureaucrats do not see any good reason to open up the “old” files, Indian politicians see their own interests in the continued closure of the archives. Opening them up could make them accountable.
But if India wants to become a great power, why should Indians and all others not be allowed to know about its recent past? Is that not the hallmark of a mature nation?

The Netaji files show up India's secrecy rules

My article The Netaji files show up India's secrecy rules appeared in Mail Today.

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Millions in India awaited with anticipation the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose on January 23, hoping that the Prime Minister’s promise to declassified 100 ‘top secret’ files would throw some new light on Bose’s death and why not a major revelation.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, there was no scoop. The 17,000 pages contained in the 100 files released by the Prime Minister, were later posted on the website of the National Archives of India (NAI) where one can access them; this included 36 files from the PMO, 18 files from Home Ministry and 46 files from MEA, covering the period between 1956 and 2013.
A note dated 1995, confirmed that Netaji was killed in an air crash in Taiwan: “There seems to be no scope for doubt that he died in the air crash of 18th August 1945 at Taihoku. Government of India has already accepted this position. There is no evidence whatsoever to the contrary,” wrote the then home secretary K Padmanabaiah on February 6, 1995; the bureaucrat added: “If a few individuals/organizations have a different view, they seem to be more guided by sentimentality rather than by any rational consideration.”
The real ‘revelation’, which passed unnoticed to the news channels, was that the ‘top secret’ files, so jealously kept in the vault of South or North Blocks, contained nothing new which could endanger the ‘security of India’; nothing to jeopardize India’s foreign relations; nothing which could have forced Russia or Japan to break their diplomatic relations with Delhi.
This was however the pretext given for decades to not disclose the content of the ‘secret files’ to the general public. What a joke, a sad one!
Despite the fact that in 2005, the Right to Information Act was passed with fanfare by the Indian Parliament, the politicians and babus (let us call them ‘P&B’) have systematically refused to declassify archival material concerning India’s post-independence history.
It is true that some loopholes in the law help those who do not want India’s history to be known: Article 8 (1) (a) says: “There shall be no obligation to give any citizen, information, disclosure of which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offence.”
This paragraph, interpreted by the P&B, who have confiscated India’s history, is enough to makes all the files of the Ministries of External Affairs, Defence or Home inaccessible to the public.
P&B hide behind another law, The Public Record Rules, 1997, according to which all documents older than 25 years need to be declassified; records that are 25 years or more must be preserved in the NAI and no records can be destroyed without being recorded or reviewed. Legally, it's mandatory for each department to prepare a half-yearly report on reviewing and weeding of records and submit it to the NAI. The rules also stipulate that no public records which are more than 25 years old can be destroyed by any agency unless it is appraised. This is valid for all the ministries, including Ministry of External Affairs.
The P&B are however a clever lot, they know how to circumvent the law (they have drafted it after all); every 6 months, they give a ‘bulk exemption’ for lakhs of files at a time and that’s it.
One of the most glaring (and foolish) examples of this outdated policy is the Henderson Brooks Report.
A few weeks after the debacle of October-November 1962, General J.N. Chaudhuri, the Chief of Army Staff, constituted a committee to study the causes of the 'Himalayan Blunder’. An Anglo-Indian general named Henderson Brooks (along with Brigadier P.S. Bhagat) was requested to go through the official records and prepare a report on the war. Sometime in 1963, the general presented his findings to Nehru. The report was immediately classified as 'Top Secret.'
One can understand that at the time the Prime Minister did not want the report to be made public, as he might have had to take responsibility for the unpreparedness of the army, but the tragedy is that this report, classified ‘Top Secret’ in 1963, continues to remain so today …though it is available on the Net.
P&Bs like to speak about India’s security and jeopardizing ‘national interest’, but how long can this pretext be used to block the declassification process?
According to The Times of India, Sudershan Rao, the chairperson of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) recently suggested having a band of 'barefoot historians' to educate ordinary folk on the country's history; Rao wants that common historical knowledge reaches the doorstep of every citizen and ‘breaks out of the matrix of western and Marxist historians’. This is fine, but ‘booted’ historians should also be allowed to access ‘Indian’ records; today, they have to run to London, Moscow or Washington to learn about to know the history of Modern India as the Indian archives are classified.
It is time for a proper declassification policy to be announced; the work should not be done in an ad hoc way, but in a professional manner by trained personnel in a defined time-frame.
The present string of antiquated rules and regulations, red-tapism, as well as obscurantist mind-sets, do not help projecting the image of India as a modern nation and a world leader.
India needs to become smart in the domain of historical research too; the declassification of Bose’s files has shown that it is possible.

Why does the state keep secrets?

My article Why does the state keep secrets? appeared in The Asian Age/Deccan Chronicle.

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Now that defence minister Manohar Parrikar has complained that a murder story is getting more coverage than the 50th anniversary of the 1965 “victory” against Pakistan, in the coming weeks, the Indian press may carry more analyses about what happened during the war over Kashmir.
One issue is bound to come out again. What happened in Tashkent to Lal Bahadur Shastri, the Indian Prime Minister? Was he poisoned as many suspected? Why does the Prime Minister’s Office stubbornly refuse to declassify the files in its possession?
But like it often happens in India, the “celebrations” will pass and Shastri will be buried once again. This has happened many times to Subhash Chandra Bose despite politicians’ promises.
It, however, raises a larger issue: the principle of declassification of historical documents, and I am not just speaking of “famous” cases. Lakhs of “classified” files are lying in the record rooms of the ministry of external affairs or home affairs and no scholar, researcher or history lover can access them. This is a tragedy for India.
The Modi sarkar had come with great hopes; many thought that the old policy of blind “classification” would change and India would not remain a “banana republic” as far as historical research is concerned.
Disillusionment was not long in coming. Soon after taking over as the new defence minister, Arun Jaitley informed the Rajya Sabha: “The Henderson Brooks Report on 1962 Indo-China war is a ‘top-secret document’ and disclosure of any information about it would not be in the national interest.” The same Mr Jaitley had been vociferous, when in the Opposition, in favour of the “declassification” of this very document.
Incidentally, very few politicians and babus noticed that the famous report written by the Anglo-Indian general had in fact already been “released” by the old Australian journalist Neville Maxwell and was online since March 2014.
When he was in the Opposition, Mr Jaitley had blogged that it was not in the larger public interest to keep documents “top-secret” indefinitely: “Any society is entitled to learn from the past mistakes and take remedial action. With the wisdom of hindsight, I am of the opinion that the report’s content could have been made public some decades ago.”
It is important for a nation to know its past. Simply because, as Mr Jaitley said, a society is entitled to learn from its past mistakes. For this however, history has to be based on the nation’s own archival sources. The Henderson-Brooks report, the death of Shastri or Bose’s disappearance, are unfortunately only the tip of a huge iceberg.
To give an example in which I have been personally involved: the history of modern Tibet. You can find plenty of books based on American documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which ensures public access to all US government records. The FOIA legally carries a presumption of disclosure; the burden is on the government — not the public — to substantiate why information should not be released.
After receiving a written demand, any US agency is required to disclose the requested records, unless they can be lawfully withheld from disclosure under one of nine specific exemptions in the FOIA. If not satisfied, an appellant is entitled to appeal to a federal court.
One can also visit the India Office Records near London. The British have meticulously kept the records of the Raj, which are open to the general public for consultation and research. The Chinese version of this period is also available through the memoirs of several of the main actors who served in Lhasa and some selected foreigners have been given access to the Communist Party’s archives.
The tragedy is that we don’t have an Indian version of the same historical facts because relevant files remain sealed in the almirahs of the ministries of external and home affairs. As a result, one gets a version of history of Indo-Tibet relations only from the Western and the Chinese points of view, and not India’s. Isn’t that shocking?
It is not that there is no rule, but the babus and politicians often show no interest in implementing the law of the land.
The Public Records Rules, 1997, state that records that are 25 years or more must be preserved in the National Archives of India and that no records can be destroyed without being recorded or reviewed. Legally, it’s mandatory for each department to prepare a half-yearly report on reviewing and weeding of records and submit it to the NAI. The rules also stipulate that no public records, which are more than 25-years-old, can be destroyed by any agency unless it is appraised.
While the personnel declassifying historical documents (fully or partially) should make sure that it does not jeopardise the security of the country, at the same time this should not be a pretext to block the due process of declassification.
The Prime Minister can speak of good governance, transparency and accountability, but the fact remains, and it is quite appalling, there is no proper professional declassification policy in India. One genuine problem is the lack of “professionals” to do the job.
But there may be hope. India has an intelligent foreign secretary who recently introduced the concept of “lateral entry” into the ministry; under this scheme or a similar one, it should not be difficult to find and train young talent.
But is there the will to come out of the prevalent lethargy?

Reforms in academic research, scholarship

Nehru visiting the Library in Yatung, Tibet (1958)

My article Reforms in academic research, scholarship appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer today.


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The opening of the Nehru Papers would be the greatest homage to Nehru and an exceptional opportunity for scores of young scholars to see what went right (and also what went wrong) in Modern India

As India prepares to celebrate the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, the incumbent Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi, announced that he will head the national committee to commemorate the occasion. A Prime Minister’s Office release said the first meeting of the committee will be held “soon after Deepawali”.
The media was surprised as no one from the Nehru-Gandhi family was included in the committee which has six Cabinet Ministers; however senior congress leaders such as Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, Mr Mallikarjun Kharge and Mr Karan Singh have been called upon to participate.
A host of other eminent academics, scholars, retired bureaucrats and Army officers will take part in the deliberations of the committee, which will also have the Director General  of National Archives of India as a member.
It is an interesting inclusion, though the fact that there is no permanent DG since professor Mushirul Hassan left in May 2013, shows the lack of interest of the previous Government for scholarly work and research. Hopefully, this will change under the new dispensation.
The Nehru celebrations would be the ideal occasion to open up to research, what is known as the Nehru Papers (also referred to as the JN Collection) kept in Teen Murti Bhavan, and this without any restriction.
It has been one of the greatest enigmas of ‘modern’ India: How come the correspondence, notes, speeches of the first Prime Minister of India are considered ‘private’ and why should it be kept under the custody of one ‘private’ person (Ms Sonia Gandhi)? The state’s papers should never be privatised.
Apparently, Nehru had willed all his papers to an organisation to be created after his death (the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund). However, Nehru did not specify that thereafter, special permission of the custodian would be required to access any file/document.
Apparently, his daughter, Indira Gandhi, added this odd rule that they should remain in the custody of her family.
The end result is that the Nehru Papers do not come under the Public Record Rules, 1997, which states that records that are 25 years or more must be preserved in the NAI (and that no records can be destroyed without being recorded or reviewed).
While legally, it is mandatory for each Government’s department to prepare a half-yearly report on reviewing and weeding of records and submit it to the NAI, the Nehru Papers are exempted. It would be fine to keep the Papers as a ‘collection’, if they were openly available to the general public. The Nehru Papers are an invaluable collection dealing with all topics under the Indian sky, looked after by the Prime Minister (Nehru was also Foreign Minister from 1947 till his death in 1964).
One can argue that the JN Collection is not completely closed; if one is ready to follow the cumbersome process and write to the 'custodian', one has technically a chance to have a darshan of the said file/letter. But why to always complicate the researcher's life?
I have always wondered if those who have practically closed the Nehru Papers to the public of India, have ever read what Nehru wrote about the secrecy? On August 27, 1957, in a note to his Principal Private Secretary, he commented about some persons having been refused access to the National Archives of India: “I am not at all satisfied with the noting on this file by Intelligence or by the Director of Archives. The papers required are very old, probably over thirty years old. No question of secrecy should apply to such papers, unless there is some very extraordinary reason in regard to a particular document. In fact, they should be considered, more or less, public papers. …Also the fact that a Communist wants to see them is irrelevant. I do not particularly fancy this hush hush policy about old public documents. Nor do I understand how our relations with the British Government might be affected.”
One can hope that the committee for the 125th anniversary of Nehru will put this issue first on its agenda and as an offering to the memoirs of the first Prime Minister, will make his fabulous collection of historic documents available to each and every one in India (and abroad), wanting to study Nehru’s works.
It can be argued that the Nehru Papers have been partially declassified through the publications of more than 55 volumes of the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-1960), but for a researcher, this selection cannot replace the ‘real thing’. Further, though the policy has been changed for the most recent volumes, the editor used to resume with a few words the letter/event/note which had triggered the Prime Minister’s answer; to read Nehru's interlocutor full questions/queries helps to better understand Nehru’s answer. The newly-appointed committee would do India a great favour in opening the entire collection to the public.
Recently speaking at the 42nd annual convocation of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences , the Prime Minister said, “While Indian doctors have made a name for themselves across the world, the country needs to step up medical research, to keep pace with fast-changing world. We should focus on research, particularly on case history. This can be a big contribution to humankind.”
It is not only in the medical field that research should be supported, but in the historical one too. Young (and older) Indians should be encouraged to research and dig in the past (the glories as well as the goof-ups) in order to better face today's reality.
Let me tell you my personal experience in the National Archives of India which I have been frequenting for the past 15 to 20 years. Every two years, I have to re-apply from scratch and prove again that I am still a ‘scholar’. Being born in France, I have to bring a certificate from the French authorities ‘proving’ that I’m still a ‘researcher’. Though the French Embassy has always readily obliged, why can’t I be a ‘scholar’ for life? When I ask the NAI staff, I am invariably told: “No sir, this is the rule in India’ you can be a scholar for two years only.’ What a nonsense!
If the Prime Minister wants to build a nation of researchers, there are many rules to drop and many vaults to open. Today, a string of antiquated rules and regulations, red-tapism and an obscurantist mind-set not worthy of a dynamic country like India, remains in place. As a result, Indian history continues to be buried. Is it the hallmark of a mature nation?
The opening of the Nehru Papers would be the greatest homage to Nehru and an exceptional opportunity for scores of young scholars to see what went right (and what went wrong) in Modern India.
Please, Mr Prime Minister, encourage historical research too.