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63rd session of Indian Historical Records Committee begins in Lucknow
Many rare documents related with country’s freedom struggle on display at exhibition held at Uttar Pradesh State Archives’ office in state capital
Two-day 63rd session of the Indian Historical Records Committee (IHRC) organised by the National Archives of India (NAI), New Delhi, got under way at Uttar Pradesh State Archives’ Mahanagar Extension office here on Sunday.
“The IHRC has aided in preserving Indian history and culture and it is one method we can teach to the next generation about the rich past we have,” said minister of state for transport (independent charge) Daya Shankar Singh while inaugurating the event.
“It would not have been possible to know our beginnings if the epics—the Ramayana and the Mahabharata—were not maintained and archived,” he added while requesting all the delegates coming from different states to visit Uttar Pradesh and see how it has changed.
The event will comprise inaugural and business sessions on the first day and academic session on the second and the concluding day. A total of 24 academic papers based on original sources of post 16th century of the Indian history will also be presented by scholars on various aspects of history during the event.
“The two years of Covid necessitated the requirement for everything to go digital. To keep our work going on in that period as well, we launched a portal www.abhilekh-patal.in developed by NAI to make rich treasure of Indian archival records available to one and all at the click of a button,” said director general, NAI, Chandan Sinha.
He further said the number of registered users went up from 11,255 in January 2020 to 16,620 in August 2021. In October 2021, it crossed 20,000-mark. The NIA had digitised as many as 2.33 crore pages till November 2022.
The original chargesheet of the Kakori conspiracy case of 1925 having the name of all convicted accused and another rare file having their signatures is one of the big draws at the month-long exhibition titled “Sage of Freedom: Known and lesser-known struggles” which was opened for history lovers on the occasion. The original copy of the court order awarding death sentence to Chapekar brothers, the revolutionaries involved in assassinating W. C. Rand, the British Plague Commissioner of Pune in 1897, in 1898 is also on display at the exhibition.
“This exhibition is based on the original archival sources from time to time and will be at display here for about a month. The rare documents pertaining to the freedom struggle have been kept here which one cannot find anywhere in the world,” said the exhibition’s curator Devendra Kumar Sharma. “Documents of the Chuar Revolt and the Sambalpur Uprising are also a part of the exhibition,” he added.
