"Disastrous Way Forward": Sena MP Spotlights Missing Records

Shiv Sena leader and Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi in a letter addressed to the Union Minister of Culture and Tourism G. Kishan Reddy sought the preservation of records of documented history and clarification of any anomaly under National Archives of India (NIA).

Ms Chaturvedi mentioned in her letter that there is an absence of records of the wars of 1962, 1965, 1971 and the Green Revolution under NIA. 

Calling on the need to enhance transparency, through her letter she emphasized that there should be an ease of accessibility of records to the general public, academicians and researchers.

In her letter, she said, "There needs to be a declassification of information of historical importance under the Public Records Act, 1993 and liberal application of colonial legislations such as Official Secrets Act, 1923."

Ms Chaturvedi in her letter suggests that the Committee formed for the review and study of such documents should be free from bureaucratic control depending on the sensitivity of the matter. 

She highlighted in her letter that, "If the history is not preserved and made more available to those of us who seek to understand it, the tendency to use an imagined past or to repeat forgotten mistakes will be the only and rather disastrous way forward."

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