Angamaly: Finding one’s way

By Jonathan Varghese

 

Just off the Salem-Kochi Highway is the St. Mary’s Jacobite Syrian Church (declared as a Soonoro Cathedral as recently as 2009 and so alternatively identified as St. Mary’s Soonoro Cathedral). However, as a researcher of old Syrian Christian churches these titles wouldn’t have helped me. I needed to speak the language of the Syrian Christian Malayali [1] and ask for directions to the Angamaly Valiyapally.  Even this wasn’t precise enough since Angamaly had two “Valiyapalli’s” (translated as Big Churches) — the St. Mary’s Jacobite Church and the St. George Syro-Malabar Basilica. I needed to be specific and so I asked for the Yakobapalli, and then, without much delay, I found myself in the South-side entrance of the St. Mary’s Jacobite Church.

This is something that stands out when one seeks out research materials on the Syriac traditions of Kerala – the seeming difficulty with gaining access to your material. One shouldn’t misunderstand this. The Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam is a vast reservoir of information – of theological debates, of the many divisions of the original Syriac traditions, and much litigation around church history- but the information that I sought was very different. I was interested in those aspects of the church that are unavailable in documents, aspects that survive in the oral songs of Marghamkalli, visible and material manifestations of a form of syncretism that I saw as the essence of the Syriac traditions that evolved in the Malabar region.

On this trip, I wanted to study the narratives that are manifest within the walls of the church. When I set out to learn about the Nazrani traditions of Kerala, it wasn’t long before I realised that to study syncretism, I needed to study the church, its structure; that the very being of the church is my library.

I couldn’t enter my ‘library’ without the consent of the ‘librarian’ and I was yet to discover whether, here in Angamaly, that person was the vicar, the acolyte or a trustee of the church. I was told the vicar would take a while, that the trustees were absent and that the acolyte would meet me in a while. Today, my librarian is the acolyte.

Standing at the southern entrance of the church, I decided to busy myself studying its layout.

Kal Kurisu

I walked to the western entrance to encounter the familiar sight of the “kalkurisu” (stone-cross) facing a portico, which looked a little out of place in front of the facade [2] surmounting the western entrance. Nothing remarkable there.

So I moved towards the northern entrance to find it locked but adjacent to the door is the tomb of the former Metropolitan MorKurillos Geevarghese (of Ambattu family).

As I stood, facing the tomb, my eyes caught the script of a strange language inscribed on the wall. It was Syriac, a language that shares a peculiar relationship with the Nazrani tradition.

Syriac script mounted on the wall

 

It is at once hailed as a part of their liturgy; as the historical language that carried their faith across the oceans, but alternately, and rather ironically, is also distanced as a symptom of something alien, as a distasteful metaphor, an unhappy reminder of the very source of the split between the Jacobites and the Orthodox factions.

 

Procedures for entry

When I walked back to the Southern gate, the acolyte greeted me with a skeptical expression. I explained my intentions: to document and eventually digitize the murals of the church, and his apparent concerns were allayed. However just before I stepped in through the door, he asked me ‘who’ I was. A seemingly redundant question, considering I had just explained myself, but I gave myself a few seconds to decipher his real question: was I from the Orthodox faction? [3] I smiled and assured him that I was from the Syro Malabar (Catholic) faction. He seemed satisfied and urged me on.

When you enter the St. Mary’s Jacobite Syrian Church from the southern gate, your eyes are met by the grand image of the Last Judgement.

Last Judgement above the northern entrance

 

The five-tiered structure of the painting is peopled by the easily discernable figures of the Christ of the Second Coming, the Archangels, the Bishops and the last layer, closest to the bottom, of sinners.

The structure of the church is its very own narrative. The church is designed to complement the many legends of Christian mythography.

As is characteristic of the Nazrani churches, the floor of the church was divided into two halves, the northern side and the southern side by a red carpet no wider than 3 feet that stretched from the Madbaha (Sanctuary) in the East to the main entrance in the West. During the course of the liturgy (Qurbana), the laity is not allowed to step on this stretch of the church floor – as it is believed that the ancestors of the parish assemble on that stretch during the course of the Qurbana.

For instance, the practice of women standing on the southern side and the men on the northern side was devised keeping in mind the veil (Madbahaviri) that curtained the Madbaha. During the course of the Qurbana, the Madbaha is always unveiled from the left to the right, such that it was women who witnessed the sanctuary before the men– a seeming reiteration of the episode of Christ’s resurrection and his first appearance to women. It is an aspect of the Christian myth that is revisited on every occasion of the Qurbana.

However, what caught my attention is the “thookuvilakku” (hanging lamp) suspended on a brass chain from the ceiling and hanging 3 feet from the floor of the church. It disrupted the continuity of the church’s interior narrative. It was a non-synchronous presence, an aspect borrowed from the Hindus (Nairs), a valuable material evidence of the syncretism that shaped the rituals of the Nazrani community. The Pazhaya Suriani Palli in Chengannur, the St. Thomas Orthodox Church, Karthikapally and the St. Mary’s Church  in Thiruvithamcode, to quote a few, are visible manifestations of this aspect of the Nazrani imagination. They direct our attention to an alternate narrative of social formations in the Malabar region.

The thooku vilaku in the centre of the church

 

The narrative continues. With my back to the Last Judgement surmounting the northern entrance, just above the southern entrance is a fantastic mural depicting Hell. Unlike the distinctly tiered structure of the previous mural, this one epitomizes the chaos that is Hell.

Hell is peopled by sinners, naked human bodies subject to torture in the hands of green scaly demons. Lucifer overlooks the chaos and at his feet is Judas Iscariot identifiable by the bag of silver coins. The bounds of hell are framed by the mouth of an inverted snake, whose eyes flank the southern entrance of the church. With the Last Judgement to my back and Hell in front of me, I turned to my left towards the sanctuary, the holy Madbaha.

Hell above the southern entrance

 

The Uninitiated

So far, I occupied the nave of the church, often referred to as the hykala. A step higher than the hykala is the kestroma, separating the nave and the altar. I stepped into the kestroma. The acolyte was uneasy and he called out to tell me I shouldn’t step into the Madbaha, that the kestroma was as far as I could go. I assured him that I knew this and that I would wait for the vicar to unveil the Madbaha.

To my left was a mural of what appeared to be an indigenized version of Christ’s debates with the Pharisees. On the right, I found two distinct murals– one with the resurrected Christ visiting his disciple Thomas and another depicting the first appearance of Christ after the crucifixion. The narrative seemed incomplete here. I needed to see the Madbaha to know the full shape of the narrative.

After about an hour of the acolyte’s caution, the vicar appeared. He listened to me and without much delay unveiled the Madbaha. We seemed to agree on the significance of documenting these fading murals. The acolyte was satisfied. The Madbahaviri slowly unveiled, from the left to the right, the shape of the sanctuary.

The Madbaha was rectangular in shape and at the far end was the Masthaba (high altar) supporting a huge wooden cross flanked by several candles. The Masthaba was framed by a highly ornate woodwork painted in red and gold. The wood carvings revealed the familiar floral patterns and suggested the presence of rich mural work behind it. I could not step in, and so photography was impossible from the kestroma. The vicar stepped in and he took the shots of the murals on the three walls surrounding the masthaba.

On the eastern wall of the church (in the Madbaha) behind the Masthaba was the narrative that depicted the life of Mary. The scenes included indigenized versions of Mary visited by Gabriel, the birth of Christ, the Virgin and the Child– a narrative topography that seemed to revisit Mary’s predominant role in Christian mythography. To the left, on the northern wall of the Madbaha is a mural of Adam and Eve’s original sin (Lucifer is a scaly demon emerging from the mouth of what appears to be a hybrid of a snake and a dragon.) On the southern wall of the Madbaha is a mural of the Binding of Isaac – the moment of the sacrifice is frozen and Abraham is on the verge of murdering his son.

Adjacent to this, and separated by a window, is a triptych of Christ crucified, his Resurrection and the portrait of Mar Thoma I.

The only surviving portrait of Mar Thoma I

 

This is particularly remarkable. That the Mar Thoma I/Valliya Mar Thoma who was the first native Metropolitan of the Nazrani community should be present in the mural reveals a crucial aspect of the Nazrani imagination – the very procedures of indigenization. Though remarkable, it is not exceptional. On the other hand it is a narrative symptom that can be seen in many of the ancient churches of the Nazrani community – the co-existence of the native and the alien. Even here in this church, owls, peacocks and angels coexist in harmony. Floral motifs, very similar to temple architectures flank the Madbaha.

I step down from the kestroma to the hykala. The walls of the church are empty except for the grand murals on the northern and southern walls. On the insides of the western wall are two huge floral motifs and on the ceiling, the familiar image of the Holy Spirit transfigured into a dove.

There are no saints in the Nazrani tradition. No wall mounted portraits of disciples but once in a while, on the wall is a portrait of a native Bishop or Archdeacon whose tomb is housed by the respective church.

On every occasion of the Qurbana, as the laity assemble here at St. Mary’s, the legends of Mar Thom I are revisited and a window opens to the native imagination. Ironically the church/library is open to the public but access (to the church) is quite another matter. The church as a place of worship is visited but as a site of history is never quite accessed.

Having thanked the vicar and the acolyte I asked, as parting words, for some books/manuals on the history of the church. They were sorry they said; there was nothing.

All photographs and text are by Jonathan Varghese, and cannot be reproduced elsewhere. (jonathan.varghese@gmail.com)

Jonathan Varghese is affiliated with the English Department, Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. This is a part of a larger research project on the murals, structure and oral sources for the history of the Nazranis.

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1. Henceforth I will refer to them as the Nasranis/Nazranis. This is in view of the age-long quarrel between the Jacobite faction and the Orthodox faction of the Syriac traditions that manifested in Kerala. The Jacobite faction (referred to as the Yakoba) claim allegiance to the Syriac Orthodox Church in Antioch while the Orthodox faction wanted to fashion themselves into an autonomous entity in Kerala.
2. This is a characteristic architectural feature of these churches. The façade is often attributed to Portuguese influence and along with the mud-tiled sloping roofs represented the hybrid aesthetics that is intrinsic to Nazrani churches.
3. The Malankara church officially split in 1912 on the question of affiliation. The Jacobite Syrian faction wished to be affiliated to Antioch and the Malankara Orthodox faction wished to establish a native Metropolitan for the church. On 3rd July 2017, after many years of litigation and quarrel on these grounds, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Malankara Orthodox Church. Tensions between the factions have risen since the ruling.

Strikes and Inheritance Disputes – Karnataka State Archives

By Janaki Nair

 

From ‘A Handbook to the Ports on the Coast of India between Calcutta and Bombay, including the Island of Ceylon.’, Herbert Samuel Brown, Mangalore, 1897, British Library on Flickr

The tryst with dust begins with the dog-eared catalogues, in an untidy row on a rack near the few sets of tables reserved for scholars. The ambient noise and frequent and anxious queries about whether her last meal has been taken (“oota ayitha?”) combine to slowly inure the scholar visiting the Karnataka State Archives to assaults on the senses. KSA has never believed that research must take place in a sequestered environment; the true test of the committed researcher is to remain undistracted and absorbed with the yellowing crumbling pages before her despite the constant shuffle and loud talk around.

The business of settling down to work by the archival staff – opening and closing metal drawers, to the accompaniment of loud comments on the bus ride to work (now happily shifted to the travails of the metro), children’s illnesses, the state of the State – is best ignored by the scholar easing into the normal working of archives. By about 11.30 am, after having sat fidgeting in their cabins, or at their desks, depending on their place in the hierarchy, as staff start drifting away for their morning cup there is a respite when the huge cavernous archives fall briefly silent. Then, vigorous discussion is resumed, within the earshot of scholars, of the price of sites, houses in this fast-growing metropolis. Yet the stacks of files exert their own charm and fascination. And their own set of distractions.

The Kolar Gold Fields – attaching the past to the present

Looking back on my career, I wonder how often that sidetracking from the determined search for paper trails, the tracking of a chronological sequence, has been rewarding. Sometime in 1989, while in the Karnataka State Archives, I came across a reference to a strike in Kolar Gold Fields on April 6, 1930, the very day when Gandhi broke the salt laws. Requisitioning the file transported me immediately to another part of Mysore, to the dark tunnels two kilometres underground where three generations of gold miners had worked. That file, an accidental find, then led me to KGF, to “reattach the past to the present” (as Arlette Farge has put it). I developed a warm association with and a deep understanding of its inhabitants, their sense of the place as both liberating and exploitative.

An inheritance denied

Many such engagements are suddenly enabled when the bundles of files are brought out: disappointment at a trail running dry, elation when, not one, but fifteen fat files related to the debts of the Maharaja of Mysore tell a fascinating tale of women, widowed, driven to insanity, hopeful, being denied their rightful inheritance. We may not have gone looking for these women, but they spring, from the enigmatic shadows of petitions written by those adept at the law, they turn, as if in despair, to the possible new airing that the mere historian may give to their faded, papery presence.

Sensory pleasures of the paper file

Imagine the surprise when, on my recent visit to the Karnataka State Archives, I was warmly welcomed to a completely new way of doing research, since all the files had been digitized. No more that tactility, that direct connection with the past as you turn the yellowing pages, that perpetual acquaintance with dust. Natalie Davis, similarly, laments what we have lost in the process of new technologies of access, which are so much more convenient, and yet deprive us of the file as a sensory object. The petty joys of easier access, of going home with entire bundles of files in your small thumb drive, cannot replace the rewards of that meandering, that slow absorption that marked our own pasts as researchers. In that unexpected, chance encounter with the cantankerous bureaucrat, the frightened peasant, the pious but unhinged woman, that eloquent worker and his “anonymous” note, that which may never become an article or a book, or even a footnote, but yet has enthralled the reader for many hours at the small cramped desk, that encounter will never be the same again.

..and of distractions that lead nowhere

I still remember the call I once received from a student who had visited the National Library in Calcutta, where she had found some strikingly relevant materials with which to take her research forward. Her enthusiasm matched that of one who discovered a new vein of gold in the dark, spent, underground. Others may report how their eyes glaze over when they see the long rows of spidery figures, meticulously maintained, on what has been spent on say, education, or on the construction of a building. But it is those who report that they have been distracted by the trial of witches when they were searching for the agricultural labourer, or by the long disquisition on the infirmities of caste when they only wanted access to the education of the artisan or those captivated by the richly embroidered handwriting in the private papers of a businessman, these trails that might lead nowhere, that make the defiantly dull environs of the archives an absorbing and enticing place.

From ‘A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar’, Francis Hamilton, 1807, British Library on Flickr

 

Janaki Nair is Professor of Modern History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her publications include The Promise of the Metropolis: Bangalore’s Twentieth Century, OUP, 2007; Women and Law in Colonial India: A Social History, Kali for Women in collaboration with the National Law School of India University, 1996; Mysore Modern: Rethinking the Region Under Princely Rule, University of Minnesota Press, 2011; and Miners and Millhands: Work, Culture and Politics in Princely Mysore, Sage Publications, 1998.

Various Archives of Interest – Gujarat

By Samira Sheikh

 

From Vanderbilt University website

Starting to write this blog post gave me a startling realization. Although I have been carrying out historical research on Gujarat, in one way or another, since 1994, I can’t think of an archive or library that I can claim to know really well. I am not the kind of historian who has spent months in a dusty regional archive, mastering its cataloguing system and getting friendly, over regular cups of oversweet chai, with the curator. I have visited a number of libraries and archives but never for longer than a few weeks (usually a few days). Nevertheless, there are some archives that are particular favourites.

 

The Baroda record room

One is the large branch of the Gujarat State Archives in Baroda (Vadodara), which Nandini Bhattacharya wrote about in a recent post. For anything to do with the wealthy and powerful Gaekwad state of Baroda, this archive, formerly known as the Baroda Record Room, is a wonderful resource. Over the winter of 2013 and 2014 I spent a few weeks here to examine records that explained how the Gaekwads came to control, in the early 1800s, the famed Krishna temple complex of Dwarka. I was curious about why the Gaekwads decided to make a bid for Dwarka and the distant Okhamandal peninsula in the westernmost part of Gujarat, which was not even contiguous with the rest of Baroda state. The results of my investigations can be found here.

I only worked on the English documents in this archive, the catalogues of which are in handwritten registers. The archive also contains a substantial collection of land records from the erstwhile Baroda State. While leafing through files of correspondence on the Gaekwads’ bickering with Jamnagar State over pilgrim revenues in Dwarka, I would overhear fascinating snippets of conversation between the then archivist, C.B. Solanki, and petitioners from remote villages who had come to ask for copies of colonial period records. One day a group of Third Gender individuals came in to explain that a well on their property was being disputed by their neighbours. They knew that the well had been granted to them a century ago. Surely the archives would have a record of the grant. Mr. Solanki listened patiently to them, as he did to each petitioner, summoning a peon to fetch the relevant document. Later, when I asked if I could see indexes of the land deeds, he laughed and refused. “You will not understand them,” he said. “They are in here,” tapping his head.

 

Persian records

The Baroda archives apparently contain a small collection of Persian documents. A catalogue of these manuscripts was published in 1945. In 2014 I was told that none of the manuscripts were in a condition to be examined. I was never able to find out more about them. It is unfortunate if the manuscripts have disintegrated or been otherwise lost as the catalogue lists a number of land deeds and letters containing rich materials for a social history of Baroda. The earliest manuscript, from 1607, is a sanad granting Maulana Bhikhaji Khatib a small allowance for lamp oil. It carries the seal of the chief judge, qazi, of Baroda, Muhammad Ahmad. A number of documents are land or house deeds that show women owning, buying, gifting, and selling property. One from 1625 (serial number 7) records the grant of 40 bighas of land to Bibi Amtul Aziz, wife of Sayyid Shukrallah. Another from 1663 (serial number 22) grants the revenues of Hanspur (Savad village) to the wife of Sada Khan. In 1696, Fatima Bibi sold a house to Sher Khan Taj Khan for Rs. 81 (serial number 31) and in 1702, Bibibu sold a house to Sayyid Pir, son of Vali, for Rs. 150 (serial number 35).

Most names in the Persian catalogue appear to be those of Muslims. But there are a number of exceptions. A deed from 1674 (serial number 24) records that Vania Kuwarji Keshav of Bahadarpur sold a house to Vania Vallabh Sangji for Rs. 51. In 1729, a liquor merchant named Ramsingh Prema secured a document granting him security. In 1768, Madhaji Ganesh bought a house in Baroda for Rs. 125 (serial number 80). In 1771, the subedar of Gujarat bought white paper worth Rs. 201 from Kriparam, a paper merchant of Ahmedabad (serial number 81). A number of documents are letters of invitations to weddings or circumcision ceremonies. A handful are letters between men of affairs of the day.

Of the early documents, relatively few pertain to the Gaekwads. Interestingly, it is only after Lord William Bentinck abolished Persian as the language of official correspondence in 1833 that we see Persian letters exchanged between the Gaekwads and the British. There is a series of letters dating from 1834 to 1844 between Sayajirao II, the Maharaja of Baroda, and British officials including Governors-General Auckland and Ellenborough. In 1842, the Maharaja made a point of congratulating Lord Ellenborough on his recovery of the sandalwood doors of Somnath from Afghanistan. It is a significant loss that all this correspondence is no longer accessible.

There are more collections of Persian records and correspondence from Gujarat in the National Archives of India, in New Delhi. Some of these were explored by Farhat Hasan in 2004. There must be many more in private and public collections throughout Gujarat. There must, equally, be surviving letters in Gujarati and Braj Bhasha. It is interesting, however, that members of the Gujarati Hindu elite valued the art of Persian letterwriting well into the nineteenth century. A number of volumes of elegant correspondence (insha’) and form letters survive that throw light on writing conventions and etiquette. One, by the well-known Ahmedabad writer Bholanath Sarabhai (d. 1886), is titled Ma‘dan al-insha’ (Mine of Elegant Style) and may be found in another of my favourite libraries – the Bhogilal Jesang Institute in Ahmedabad – which will be the subject of another post.

 

From “[Pictorial tour round India; with remarks on India past and present, alleged and true causes of Indian poverty, supposed or real, twelve means available for promoting the wealth of the country, etc.]”, John Murdoch LL.D, 1890, British Library on Flickr

 

A neglected area

Letters and epistolography are a neglected area in the history of Gujarat. Hardly anyone has catalogued and worked on such documents. This is in spite of the fact that some of the earliest “form letters” in South Asia are from Gujarat. The celebrated Lekhapaddhati, a collection of Sanskrit letter templates, was compiled in Gujarat in the fourteenth century (and was translated by Pushpa Prasad in 2007). It gives us a splendid picture of epistolary conventions in the centuries prior, and along the way, also of social and political life. It is a great pity to ignore more recent letters, as also documents such as deeds of ownership, sale, gift and so on. Such documents illuminate social history, certainly, but may turn out to have implications for other kinds of stories as well – of gender history, urban configurations, and even exclusivist literary narratives.

This has turned out to be a post about documents I did not see at an archive I only worked at briefly. Perhaps it will interest more dogged researchers to ferret out records before they fall to pieces. They certainly exist, in archives public and private. Oversweet chai may or may not be on offer.

 

Samira Sheikh teaches history at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, USA. She is writing a book on Gujarat in the eighteenth century.

Gujarat State Archives – Northern Division

By Maitree Sabnis

 

From The Illustrated Universal Gazzetteer, William Francis Ainsworth, 1860, British Library on Flickr

 

Organisation

The state of Gujarat was formed on the 1st of May, 1960. Earlier, before 1947, it was the Northern Division of the Bombay Presidency. Administratively, it was divided into three main units: British Gujarat, Political Agencies (Palanpur, Mahikantha, Rewakantha, Kathiawad and the State of Kutch) and the Baroda State. After independence, its boundaries were interspersed with the bordering Bombay State, which later was formed into the state of Maharashtra in the same year as Gujarat. The government of Gujarat took decision in June 1964 to set up a separate State Archives within the state which was concretised in December, 1971, when a separate Department of Archives was set up. The documents mainly focused on the records of the erstwhile Princely States of Gujarat and the records of British Gujarat, located in the District offices of the present Gujarat State. The Government of Gujarat has formed two circle offices with a record repository in the cities of Vadodara and Rajkot. Five District Offices with Records centers reside in Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Porbandar, Junagadh and Mehasana. The head office for this is at Gandhinagar.

Princely states and secretariat records

The records found in the Archives in Gujarat are broadly divided into two distinct series, viz., the records of the former princely states and the secretariat records. The records of princely states comprises of manuscripts, books, volumes and proceedings etc. from 1820 to 1947. These records contain information regarding the administrative set up of these states; their relations with the British Government and many other issues related to both. Scholars both from India and abroad can visit the archives for academic research purposes. Foreign Scholars are required to produce a letter of introduction from their respective embassies, or High Commissions, and also from Universities and other institutions. And the permission should also be taken from the Government of India & the State of Gujarat. All applications for permission to consult the records are to be addressed to the Director of Archives and the concerned Head of the Offices of each respective record.

The Archives located in the city of Vadodara is known by different names, such as the Baroda Record Office, the Gujarat State Archives, the Northern Division or the Baroda State Archives. It is located in the heart of the city, in the Kothi complex. The Kothi Complex today houses the Collectorate and just opposite to the Collectorate is a building which contains the Records. The Archive office is located next to the record building. There is no separate room which is maintained for the researcher, and thus often the researcher has to share the big room with other officers with a wooden partition. The researcher should not mind the chatter of these officers during working hours, for often one could listen in to important lessons of life and gain from it. The staff are very cooperative and expect to be given a copy of the published work, which then might be proudly displayed and talked about with fresh researchers. The working hours at the Archives are from 11:00 am to 5:30 pm, only during week days.

 

Indexes

The researcher will find four types of indexes there, which will lead them to the areas of their research. They are:

1. Baroda Library Registers (Register nos. 1 to 10)
2. Records of Commissioner Kachehri Office (Register nos. 11 to 13)
3. Records of Huzur Political Office (total 973 daftars/potala (bundles) containing a total of 9,904 files from 1875 to 1948; it is divided into ~346 sections)
4. List of Baroda Residency Records (169 potala containing a total of 842 files from 1770 to 1897)

 

Types of records

 

Land revenue administration

The researcher has access to a multitude of records. For instance, if the researcher wants to work in the field of land revenue administration, they can find records in Marathi, Gujarat and English. They are both published and unpublished. The regional state of Baroda was divided into four divisions or prants, namely Baroda, Navsari, Kadi and Amreli. These records cover all of these regions. In case of research in the field of land revenue, the unpublished documents can be divided broadly into three categories: Sarsuba Office Records, which is further subdivided into Kirkol Branch and Jamabandi Branch; Suba Office Records; and Village Records.

Various issues which these documents cover are correspondence about revenue matters; applications received from people about their grievances; Government orders passed on the Revenue Department; Jamabandi Statements about land Revenue; Taqqavi remissions etc; Annual reports of the Revenue Departments; orders passed by the Sarsuba; government notifications; and statements of rates of land revenue.

 

Village records

There are a number of published records, which were prepared as a part of the scheme of the erstwhile Baroda government to keep a record of government policies and their implementation. The ‘Village Records’ especially come in handy when one wants to know about the khatedars or the account holders (land holders). The Khatavahi contains records, for instance, of the total number of khatedars in an area; the size and value of their land holding and the amount of revenue paid, etc. Detailed information of the alienated or rent-free lands can also be discerned from these records.

 

Jambandi Settlement Reports

The Jambandi Settlement Reports, written in English, are annual reports which threw light on land revenue settlements in various divisions and subdivisions of the Baroda state. These reports are published and contain miscellaneous information regarding the day to day affairs, as well as throwing an important light on land revenue practices. Besides land revenue, these documents also uncover matters related to opium and other custom duties, alongside sea customs and salt matters.

Maitree Sabnis is Assistant Professor of Modern History, MSU Baroda. Her publications include ‘Mulukgiri System in the Princely State of Baroda: Context and Concept’,  ‘Women And Business: The Politics Of Sahukari Pedhis in Nineteenth Century Western India’,  ‘The Structure of Law Enforcement in the Princely State of Baroda’,  and  ‘Protesting Colonial Rule: Movements in Nineteenth Century Gujarat’

An Archive with a Facebook page – doing research in the Botswana National Archives – Unaludo Sechele

 

The Botswana National Archives and Records Services (BNARS) is the first port of call for any researcher who seeks to examine Botswana’s contemporary history. Located within the Government Enclave in the heart of Gaborone city, the BNARS holds a range of primary collections concerning personal materials from key historic actors, private companies’ records, newspapers, as well as all the currently declassified Botswanan governmental records.

A range of people utilise the BNARS for a variety of purposes, and when I was working there I met not just academics, but people researching a range of themes including the primary school leaving examinations from the 1980s, or those seeking specific newspaper editions. I even met people who had come to do research in support of their role in the film industry, and others who came to seek answers for legal battles. The BNARS is truly one of the most important places in Botswana.

Unfortunately there are plenty people in Botswana who still do not know what an archive is, what it is used for, or how it might be important to them. I include my family and friends in this category as they have little idea of what archives are meant for, why they are so important, and why researching historians like myself want to utilise them. The reason for this ‘silence’ in Botswanan society could be that the archive is not advertised, nor do people think about the purpose and power that the archive has in contemporary society.

I first visited the BNARS for my Master’s thesis in 2014, and subsequently for my current PhD research, which is an international relations study, titled “Botswana-South African Economic Relations: A History, 1966-2014”. This short blog is focused on my experiences during my PhD research so far. Conducting archival research at the BNARS was both a pleasure, but also a challenge. However, having accessed the British National Archives at Kew prior to my return visit to Botswana and the BNARS, I could not help but compare the very different archival experiences. As a result, I felt I had a better experience in the British Archives, because of the better facilities available such as the ability to order files in advance online, and to have them ready during the days I visited, aided by easily searchable catalogues, and good customer service; there was always someone to assist and see that your query had been addressed. To me these made my experiences researching in London far easier and pleasurable. But nonetheless, this blog is about my experiences using a Southern African archive. I will focus on the access to the archives, the availability of the materials and collections for my research, the challenges I encountered, and how I dealt with them.

ACCESSING THE BNARS

Access to BNARS is easy and free of charge; the general public are welcome during the operation hours which is 0730hrs to 1630hrs, Monday to Friday and 0900hrs to 1200hrs on Saturday, and it is open throughout lunch. To access the reading room, where I worked from every day for three months, you need to sign in with the security personnel at the entrance, and then obtain a key for the locker to leave your personal belongings. To access the archives one is not required to produce any form of identification document, and importantly registration cannot be done in advance – you sign in and sign out on the days you want to visit. The only items allowed in the reading room are the archival reading materials requested, and your electronic devices or gadgets such as the laptop, camera, or portable scanner (there are electric sockets for charging). Importantly, in order to use a camera or scanner you must get consent from the archivist. In some cases they will ask you to produce a letter of introduction from your university or institution, and they will request details of what the material will be used for such as thesis writing, university assignment, or academic publication. For every 4 files requested, you need to fill out the request from, where you write the name of the title of your study, the files you want, personal contact details, age range, and signature.

The archive does not have a café or canteen, which means the researcher has to bring lunch or walk to the mall which is about 5 minutes’ walk away to buy food. The other down side is that there is no eating place indoors; you can only eat outside on the resting chairs, which on a bad weather days it is impossible to have lunch at the archive itself.

AVAILABILITY OF MATERIAL

The archives still use a manual catalogue, which makes it difficult to identify which files one could be looking for in advance through online searches, and means that it is advisable to seek the assistance of the archivists. However, some archivists were not always that keen to assist in the identification process, which I thought was a poor experience. For a researcher who wants to visit the archives, or make an inquiry from abroad, they can either get in touch with them through their Facebook page in which they usually respond to enquiries quickly, or through the archive email address for direct communication.

During my research trip, I realised that the BNARS cataloguing system was being reworked; the down side of this development was that I was not informed from the beginning of my research. There was poor communication from the archive, because there were no signs or warnings to caution researchers. After spending days going through the catalogue to identify the files I needed, and making requests for documents, I ended up receiving only one or two of the files, and was told that many of the other files could not be found. A week later another archivist I had worked with during my MA research (who no longer worked from the reading room reception), told me the cataloguing system was being changed, hence the challenge in locating some of the files. The reason was that most of these files on the Botswana National Bibliography (BNB) which is the manual catalogue, were being given new library call numbers which I understand is in preparation for the future digitalisation of the catalogue. However, this was a huge challenge for my research as most of these files held crucial information for my project.

COLLECTIONS

The BNB holds the general collection of the archives which are mostly declassified publications, unpublished reports, and unpublished dissertations on different aspects of Botswana history. After being unsuccessful with BNB, I was directed to another collection The Office of the President (OP) by one of the senior archivist, which proved useful for my research. The OP collections formed the basis for the rest of my research as it covered Botswana’s external affairs which addressed key elements of my research on Botswana and South Africa relations. The OP collection comprised correspondences between Heads of State and Foreign Affairs Ministers, minutes of meetings, press releases from Botswana and South Africa, declassified reports, publications, speeches, and trade agreements. For instance, the destabilisation by South Africa in Botswana during the 1980s was captured insightfully in some of these documents, while others provided information of the customs agreements, Bank of Botswana, DeBeers memorandums, and civil service working papers. The documents also covered the period of study from the 1960s to 1989; I have not come across anything that goes much beyond 1990 because of the on-going process of declassification.

A major challenge that I encountered was that some of the material in the files was so faded that in some instances I couldn’t read them, which was mainly because of the kind of paper used; I am hoping to supplement the information through the files held in the South African Archives, such as the Historical Papers Archive at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Furthermore, some letters were hand-written in cursive style which was not easy to read, and in such cases I would ask colleagues to help me figure out what is written, but some were so poorly written that it was a lost cause. Another key challenge was that some letters were missing in the files, and I assume they have been lost or not declassified. For instance, I would be following a thread on communications between the Foreign Ministers and they would quote the date of the letter they are responding to, but it would not be there in the files. One of the interesting communications which I found very informative was the correspondences between Botswana’s Minister of External Affairs Dr Gaositwe Chiepe and apartheid South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Pik Botha in 1984/85, whose discussion was mostly about South Africa’s destabilisation of the Southern African region.

Besides the OP files, I consulted newspaper collectionss, such as The Botswana Daily News, Mmegi, The Mid Week Sun, Sunday Standard, The Botswana Gazette and The Botswana Guardian. Parliamentary debates (Hansards) also made a huge difference to my study, although some of the Hansards were missing in the BNARS, but there was an immediate solution because they could be located through the Parliamentary library which is only a few meters from the archives.

CONCLUSION

After time, patience, and perseverance my research at the BNARS was fruitful, and I found a lot of useful and insightful materials. You just have to know how to ask the right academic questions, who to ask for advice from in the archive, and not to give up easily. The BNARS is crucial in writing the history of Botswana and one that is a must visit for any research concerning the country.

Una Sechele is currently a PhD candidate within the International Studies Group, at the University of the Free State, researching the relationships between Botswana and South Africa.

Interview by Frederick Noronha: Ines G. Županov on Catholic Orientalism and the state of archives in Goa

The Baroda Record Room

Everything you needed to know about the Record Room in Baroda

by Nandini Bhattacharya

The old Kothi, which housed the record room, since replaced by a resplendent building in 1922

The city of Baroda like all of small-town India has changed so much in the past two decades, that it is unrecognizable from the charming, slow-paced erstwhile princely capital that it was, formerly. Before they were swamped by the expanding concrete high rise buildings and the ubiquitous glass- and -chrome shopping malls and multiplexes, the prominent and visible architecture of Baroda included palaces, college buildings, hospital and marketplace erected in the Indo-Saracenic style during the reign of Maharajah Sir Sayajirao III (r. 1873-1939).

The archives or the Record Room of the former Baroda State is in one such princely building, the Kothi-which was the Secretariat of the Baroda Durbar until 1948. The Kothi still functions as the collectorate office of the district of Baroda (renamed Vadodara) today. The Kothi was built in 1922, inspired, it is said, by the royal Balmoral castle in Scotland, and replaced an older building, serving as the Secretariat from the late nineteenth century  on, at the same site.

The archives and records of the erstwhile Baroda State represent the reinvented and modernized state itself during Sayajirao’s reign; like similar princely states (most prominently Travancore and Mysore), the content of this modernity was ambivalent and fragmentary. Nonetheless, Sayajirao’s reign oversaw the reformulation of the Baroda State’s infrastructure in certain fundamental ways. The most significant of these was the streamlining of revenues, which included tributes from scores of smaller princely states in Gujarat and Saurashtra, and the organization of alternative sources of revenue from the traditional agrarian surplus such as the imposition of control, licensing and taxation on opium, salt, and alcohol. The new institutions of the state included the establishment of the famed Baroda College referenced on the western university model followed by the Bombay Presidency; investment in an extensive railway line across and beyond the State, and the rudiments of public education and health systems. The capital city itself was rebuilt to display the amenities of a modern civic culture: these included public gardens and libraries and a museum and art gallery that teemed with paintings and artifacts imported from Europe.

Marooned in a crowded bazaar

The Kothi is now marooned in the crowded bazaar, court house and offices of the old city that surround it. The Record Room itself, housed in a separate one-storey block, looks abandoned and quiet in contrast, much like many other provincial archives in India. The difference, however, is that here the records are generally maintained in excellent condition and are in order, a rare exception for a regional archive. There are bahis in both English and in Gujarati (the Bodiya script). The day-to-day administration of the Baroda Durbar was recorded in Gujarati, and therefore the bulk of the documents are in the Gujarati Bodhiya script. Both the records begin from around the 1770s and continue until the 1930-40s.

Huzur English and Huzur Political

The substantial numbers of archival documents in English are from two principal offices of the Baroda administration: the Huzur Political and the Huzur English. Both are comprehensively indexed. The indexes are available in the form of hand-written registers. I have had the occasion to use them the occasion to use them several times over the past ten years and although these are now in tatters, they are still serviceable. There was talk of extensive digitization in the archive around four to five years ago, but steps in that direction are now not visible.

The Huzur Political series is an eclectic one and contains correspondence related to almost every department; revenue including abkari, audit, general administration reports, education, health, government orders and notifications, roads, railways and municipal governance, to name the most substantial ones.

The Huzur English series contains correspondence between the Court, the Dewan’s office, and the Residency. Given that the Residency interested itself in every branch of administration from the royal palace intrigues to the revenues, the Huzur English series is fairly comprehensive as well. It is not a coincidence that the Baroda Durbar has engaged the attention of scholars exploring a range of historical problematics related to the princely states from high politics and diplomacy to courtly culture; agrarian land systems to the princely states’ indigenous modern cultural and material entanglements. The sheer ease and access to the documents of the Baroda State and by extension, its tributary states in the south, central, and north Gujarat and Kathiawad offer great opportunities to researchers of western India. Research students from the M. S. University of Baroda use the archive extensively for their postgraduate and doctoral theses.

The room

There is a large shared desk in the sitting area for research scholars, and although there is no air conditioning, it is a pleasant working space. The deputy archivist has his desk in the same space and is present to help the scholars if necessary and to keep an eye on them. Until very recently this position was occupied by Mr. Solanki, who was very knowledgeable about the archive and represented, in fact, the sum of institutional memory in that place. He displayed several visiting cards of research scholars from India and abroad under the glass on top of his desk. I remember seeing Barbara Ramusack’s, for instance. It is clear that officials at this archive are proud of their collections and of their ability to assist research scholars. The archivist himself sits in a separate office and in my experience, found it best to direct all queries to his deputy.

Working hours and bring a letter with you 

The working hours are from 11 to 4, Mondays to Fridays. Requisitions for files and bahis are accepted all day until 3. One minor inconvenience of accessing the archive is that the Baroda Record Room insists on a letter of introduction from a member of the faculty, the department of history at the M.S.University of Baroda, regardless of any other credentials the outstation research scholar may produce. While this may provide opportunities for enjoyable socializing over tea at the history department to many, it is not always suitable for strangers who arrive there on short visits.

Kopra kachoris

There are government offices across the road from the record room; along with the collectorate itself, these contribute bustle and urgency to what would otherwise be a very quiet corner in the Kothi complex. Researchers at the archive use the canteen at the office across the road which serves tea and snacks, including delicious kopra kachoris.

Dr. Nandini Bhattacharya is Director, Scottish Centre for Global History, School of Humanities (History), University of Dundee, UK, and author of Contagion and Enclaves: Tropical Medicine in Colonial India, Postcolonial Studies series, Liverpool University Press, 2012.  Contagion and Enclaves examines the social history of medicine in two intersecting enclaves ; the hill station of Darjeeling ; and the adjacent tea plantations of North Bengal.

Archives in South Africa: an overview

Isabel Hofmeyr is Professor of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and Global Distinguished Professor at the University of New York.

Among her publications are: Popularising History: The Case of Gustav Preller, African Studies Institute, 1987, The Portable Bunyan: A Transnational History of “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, Princeton University Press, 2004, Gandhi’s Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading, Harvard University Press, 2013, and Ten Books That Shaped the British Empire: Creating an Imperial Commons, Duke University Press, 2014. 

South Africa hosts a rich range of archival repositories. this article provides a rough guide to the major collections and outlines some of the debates emerging around the politics of archives in post-apartheid south Africa.

STATE REPOSITORIES ACROSS 140 KILOMETRES

States repositories (comprising some 140km of shelf space filled with material in a variety of media) dominate the archive landscape. The organisation of these state archives follows colonial and apartheid provincial divisions. Currently, the major repositories are located in Pietermaritzburg (Kwa-Zulu Natal), Bloemfontein (Free State), Cape Town (Western Cape) and Pretoria (Gauteng).

The best place to start exploring each of these is the website of the National Archives and Record Services http://www.national.archives.gov.za/. The website provides an overview of the major holdings of each of these repositories. (Click on National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System and then on Source Codes which lists the various depots. Click on any one of these to get a list of the departments and institutions whose papers are held.) There is a facility to search file titles by keyword, which allows one to drill down and get a sense of what is available.

Some of the more famous holdings

Some of the more famous holdings across these repositories include the Dutch East India Company papers in the Western Cape Provincial Archives (for details see Dutch East India Company papers in the Western Cape Provincial Archives (for details see http://www.tanap.net/content/archives/archives.cfm?ArticleID=203). These have been used to produce major studies on slavery at the Cape.

The National Archives Repository in Pretoria contains the Secretary of Native Affairs papers, a major source for much South African social history from below, outlining forms of protest and resistance against colonial and apartheid rule, a major source for much South African social history from below, outlining forms of protest and resistance against colonial and apartheid rule.

The Censorship Board papers in Cape Town have been explored to good effect to understand the shaping of (or constraints on) South African literary production under apartheid. In the Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository, the Indian Immigration papers have formed the basis for several studies on the histories of Indian diasporic communities in Natal.

These various repositories also contain rich photographic holdings and there is the National Film, Video and Sound Archives in Pretoria.

 Access

Currently, access for everyone (South African and non-South African) is easy: one arrives with some form of ID, signs in, orders material and on a good day, within half-an-hour, the boxes will arrive and one can be working away. The rules as to the number of boxes you can order and whether you can take photographs vary from depot to depot, so best phone in advance (the website is not up to date on these details). Some repositories have lunch and coffee options nearby but some not, so BYO is the best rule to follow, at least on the first day.

State of the Archives

At present, these archives depots function reasonably well although there has been growing concern about the general health of the state archive system as a whole. The system has been increasingly poorly funded and has been drawn into the maw of political infighting and factionalism, which dominate the ruling African National Congress regime. A 2014 study State of the Archives…

http://www.archivalplatform.org/images/resources/State_of_the_Archive_FOR_WEB.pdf

…outlines severe structural problems with the archive system: underfunding, lack of a coherent policy framework, absence of digitisation strategies, little public outreach, destruction of documents without due process, and “cultures of secrecy [that] revivified that old apartheid oppressive tool – the classified document” (this latter strategy bolstered by 2011 legislation limiting access to state information).

The state archives have also failed to live up to the ambitious post-apartheid policies enacted in the National Archives of South Africa Act of 1996 which sought to increase access and public outreach; promote archives as a source of information in support of programmes of redress like land claims; and boost the presence of marginal voices in the archival holding. This failure is perhaps best captured in the controversy around ‘sensitive’ parts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission records, some of which virtually disappeared were it not for the tenaciousness of an NGO, the South African Historical Archive which through litigation prised some (but not all) of these disputed records out of a reluctant Department of Justice, National Intelligence Agency and the National Archive Services itself (for an account see http://foip.saha.org.za/uploads/images/PW_Chap2.pdf).

At present, these problems do not directly affect users except for growing instances of lost and misfiled documents, a product of understaffing and underfunding. However, the wear and tear on the system is likely to make matters worse while the increasing paranoia of the current South African regime may, further down the line, lead to much more vetting and bureaucracy for non-South Africans wanting to use the archives depots. So, if you’re thinking of coming on an archival trip, come sooner rather than later.

Beyond the state archive

Beyond the state archive there are rich holdings in universities, museums, libraries, and private collections. There is an excellent list of these at http://www.archivalplatform.org/registry/ which reflect the diversity of material available including large holdings on Christian missions in southern Africa. This list has been compiled by an effective archival activist group called Archival Platformestablished under the auspices of the Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative at the University of Cape Town (http://www.apc.uct.ac.za/) and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. The Archives and Public Culture Research Initiative is a vibrant transdisciplinary centre for debate and research on the intersection of the archive and public life. The Initiative is under the leadership of Carolyn Hamilton, a leading scholar of archival theory and practice (see her co-edited collection Refiguring the Archivehttps://www.amazon.com/Refiguring-Archive-Carolyn-Hamilton/dp/1402007434).

With regard to the non-state archives, several of these carry major collections on anti-apartheid struggles. Highlights include the University of the Western Cape Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archive (https://repository.uwc.ac.za/handle/10566/29); the Liberation Archives at the University of Fort Hare(http://www.ufh.ac.za/ufh101/liberation-archives/); and Historical Papers at the University of the Witwatersrand (http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/). There are also oral history archives taking shape inter alia at the District Six Museum which commemorates the cosmopolitan inner community area in Cape Town forcibly removed under apartheid (http://www.districtsix.co.za/index.php). Another innovative post-apartheid archive has been GALA, Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action(http://www.gala.co.za/).

Some keen digitizers

While state archives have undertaken little, if any digitisation, some non-state archives have begun making resources available online. Examples include the Bleek and Lloyd archive at the University of Cape Town, a collection of material generated by the linguist Wilhelm Bleek and his sister-in-law Lucy Lloyd who interviewed ‘Bushman’ informants between 1870 and 1884. Parts of this collection can be seen at http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/. The Historical Papers at the University of the Witwatersrand is another keen digitizer as is the Killie Campbell Africana Library in Durban (http://campbell.ukzn.ac.za/?q=node/42) which has a rich cache of photographs online. The Gandhi-Luthuli Archive in Durban (http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/) contains rich holdings on South African Indian history, many of which are online. The South African History Online (http://www.sahistory.org.za/) is a vibrant site with a range of resources.

Tanuja Kothiyal on the Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner

Tanuja Kothiyal teaches history at Ambedkar University, Delhi. She is the author of  Nomadic Narratives – A History of Mobility and Identity in the Great Indian Desert, which examines the processes of settlement in Western Rajasthan.

On first entering the archive

I first visited the Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner for the first time as an MPhil Research Scholar in 1995.  After I gingerly filled a requisition slip for the index register, the in-charge of the research room placed a thick bahi in front of me, to browse, while they found the index. I struggled with an unfamiliar script, which after a while seemed like a string of old nagari letters without a break. This was a sort of test, I realized much later. Once the in-charge realized I intended to stick it out, help came from several unexpected quarters, from, someone who would help me read the script, someone who would know the exact bahi which contained references to the routes I was looking for, someone who would let me in to the cavernous stacks to hunt for the exact basta that could not be found.

Research in an Indian archive is never a fully impersonal, professional exercise. A researcher’s journey through the archive is full of personal vignettes, reminders of each stage where the research appeared futile or took a definitive turn. The old research room at the Archives in Bikaner was like that. Attendants would point to the chairs where Satish Chandra and later Dilbagh Singh sat. The monotony of poring through records would be broken by the 4 o’ clock call to the pigeons which would signal the beginning of the end of the day for employees of the archive and yet another struggle for the researchers who wanted to stay on till 6:30.

Over the years…

Over the years the research section has shifted to a new state of the art air conditioned room, with computers to examine the digitized copies of old records. Few records are now ferried from the old stack rooms, which seem far better organized than before. Yet, it is a place where old and new, coalesce and clash, with each record containing within itself histories, sometimes contentious, of acquisition.

The idea of an archive of records and manuscripts was itself located in reimagining of princely states as both, subjects of historical research as well as modern bureaucratic enterprises. The early decades of the twentieth century witnessed a rise in interest in fashioning of a ‘self’ by the princely states, leading to collection and organization of manuscripts and records pertaining to royal families. However, most of these records and manuscripts continued to be lodged within different princely states, until a reorganization of the state of Rajasthan was achieved in 1952, and a modern archive for research into history of the new state conceptualized.

The building

The brown and red Rajasthan State archive building is itself a part of the modernizing project of Maharaja Ganga Singh, a vision so visible in the Junagarh fort museum, with the World War I DH-9DE Haviland war plane acquired as a war souvenir in 1920 as a pièce-de-résistance. When it was built in 1934, the building was expected to accommodate the Government Press. However, a part of it was converted in to the Rajasthan State Archives in 1955, to store and make available for research, records of older princely states and the former Chief Commissioner’s province of Ajmer-Merwara that were amalgamated into the state of Rajasthan.

And the records

These records, ranging from a period of mid seventeenth century to 1952, are in various Rajasthani dialects, Persian, Urdu, Hindi and English. These records pertain to state orders, accounts of taxes levied, of purchases and expenses, correspondence between officials, as well as appeals made by common people. While the earlier state records are in form of bahis written in various forms of mahajani and modhi scripts, the nineteenth century records are in form of files, and organized according to departments like Railways, Salt, PWD etc. It is difficult not to be impressed by the neat rows of red bundles in the stacks of the Rajasthan State Archives in Bikaner. These bundles humble a researcher by reminding her of the vast bureaucracy that stored away little facts from the seventeenth century onwards, to be ferreted and made sense of later. However, a number of old princely state manuscripts and records are still retained by the old princely families and are accessible only through contacts with the families.

A large number of manuscripts are also located in the libraries and institutions like the Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute and Rajasthani Shodh Sansthan in Jodhpur, Anup Sanskrit Library in Bikaner, Pratap Shodh Sansthan in Udaipur etc, as well as in some private collections.

The state archive however, does house a Tessitori gallery dedicated to the Italian Indologist and grammarian L P Tessitori, who was employed by Bikaner, and collected a vast range of manuscripts and wrote copiously about them. The archive has acquired some correspondence between Tessitori and the Bikaner state, though most of Tessitori’s research notes and correspondence was transferred to his heirs and is located in the municipal library at Udine.

The Rajasthan State Archives also has an Oral History Division which contains interviews of several freedom fighters. The library attached to the Archives houses a collection of reports from the mid nineteenth century onwards, like Annual Administration Reports, Survey Reports, Census Reports, Reports of Famine Commissions, as well as gazetteers and travelogues. It is also a rich repository of historical books and vernacular journals published in Rajasthan.

As I pointed out earlier, research in the Rajasthan State Archives is never a mere professional experience. The mere fact of visiting the research room itself creates a camaraderie, based on ability to access the archive. The town itself has little to offer beyond the tourist attractions, and the researchers tend to spend most of their time in the archive itself. A few years back it used to offer a dormitory for male researchers, but the facility has been withdrawn for sometime now. Female researchers are however expected to find private accommodation, though guest houses, hostels and hotels. Food remains a concern for people not used to spicy and oily cuisine.

With increasing digitization it is now possible to view indexes, as well as some records online, but without visiting the archive, and poring over records in the old fashioned way, it is difficult to imagine writing a history through those records. I say this not merely out of nostalgia for the archive and archival research, but from the experience that archive, its assembly, arrangements, rules of access, hierarchies, all have their own histories that have to be experienced and incorporated into the histories that we write.

Ned Bertz on various archives in Gujarat

Ned Bertz teaches in the Department of History, University of Hawaii and his areas of interest are South Asia, Africa, Indian Ocean, World History. Bertz says that the uncategorised archives produce surprising finds: ‘An 1884 history of Gujarat will be next to the cinema rules of Bombay in 1953. Law court decisions will be next to a pamphlet on Kathiawad’s population problem.’

After Bombay State was bifurcated into Maharashtra and Gujarat, the latter found itself without a state archives, while the former inherited the Bombay State Archives (later the Maharashtra State Archives). Most of the records relating to Gujarat remained in Bombay, but Gandhinagar saw the need to create its own state archives to collect records scattered across the state as well as centralize other records held in the National Archives of India. The Department of Archives for Gujarat was formally founded in 1971. In the later 1970s and 1980s, the Gujarat State Archives (GSA) expanded to include several branches, varying dramatically in their size and organization. I have been working in several different branches of the GSA since 2009. My overall sense is that the archives are underused, although this is understandable given the uneven nature of its organization.

The headquarters of the GSA is in Gandhinagar, where a library exists but a full records office does not. At least for foreign scholars, permission must be taken here for access to any of the branch archives. The GSA is under the control of a state minister who is also in charge of a range of portfolios including Youth, Sports, Education, and Cultural Activities. All foreigner applications for research have to be cleared by the central state secretariat, as facilitated by the Director of the Archives, which can be an unpredictable process. Each permit is valid for one year. In-person visits and follow-up visits seem essential for clearance. Indian researchers I believe can gain access through a much simpler process.

The largest branches of the GSA are the Southern Circle Record Office in Baroda and the Western Circle Record Office in Rajkot. In working in Rajkot (I have not visited the Baroda office), I found a friendly staff and fair working conditions. There was an ongoing digitization process as of several years ago, and a fairly new building. There is no centralized index to the GSA, but Rajkot has an accession list of holdings in no apparent order. It was clear that not all items held at Rajkot were on that list. For example, a worker there located passport registers for me when I described what I might be interested in. The material held consists mostly of official records and reports dating from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, with a random assortment of books, some of them of historical value.

District Record Offices also exist in Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Junagadh, and Porbandar, all of which I have visited except for Bhavnagar. Jamnagar and Junagadh, like Rajkot, have accession lists. The latter is housed in the gorgeous old Ayana Mahal, which unfortunately has leakage issues leading to ruined records each monsoon, despite the layers of plastic tarp the dutiful staff deploy every season. Porbandar does not have an accession list, but from a few days working there appears to have a tremendous store of unindexed files, bundled up in a godown away from the main office. Staff in each location are very friendly, although not always trained to assist researchers. Local researchers were present in Rajkot when I worked there, and I assume Baroda as well, but the other branches seem largely unvisited. The District Records Office in Kutch, I have been told, is under the charge of the district and not in the domain of the GSA.

The holdings in the GSA appear to be varied, and are largely in English and Gujarati. Official files from British India are present, as is ample material from the princely states. Jamnagar, Junagadh, Porbandar, and Rajkot have mostly holdings related to Kathiawad. These include administrative reports, law court decisions, legal notices, gazetteers, and statistical accounts. Some files from post-independence are also available. A range of printed books, pamphlets, documents, and other records are in the collection, although I have not seen any newspaper holdings.

No full survey of the GSA exists, to my knowledge. There is a publication called Gujarat State Archives at a Glance (1982), which I first found at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi. It is also in the archives’ library at Gandhinagar. In 1998, a short piece on the GSA was published in Indian Archives.