LAHORE: The Punjab Archives Department which has been indirectly denied land for a purpose-built building having the capacity to safely keep its treasure trove of records of the past several centuries, has now been allowed to have at least digitalised history with an estimated Rs100 million.

The digitalisation of the records will be the task of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and the chief minister has approved the project, sources say. The PITB will recruit technical staff and purchase equipment to digitalise the entire record in two years.

The project includes making scanned copies of the original records and cataloguing, allowing online access to it, especially to students and researchers.

Apprehensions stay with ‘denial’ of purpose-built building

And sources say the digitalisation is still not the answer to the question of how to keep the original records in safe custody. There still is a need to have a purpose-built place for the protection of the records otherwise they will vanish sooner or later.

The story of the struggle for getting such building has a history of at least four decades. And it appears to be having its conclusion now.

Sources say there has always been a need to keep the record at a single place because it is a link to the past of Punjab. The hope re-emerged when Archives Department’s library was declared dangerous after it developed cracks some years ago. It was housed in the formerly stables of Ranjeet Singh’s French General Ventura whose residence is now the Chief Secretary Block.

The issue of constructing a building for the archives department lingered on endlessly till it was promised some alternate land. And as soon as it agreed to forego its claim over its library land against the plot at the rear of the Tollinton Market on The Mall, the authorities started raising a building there for their use.

The six-storey white building was constructed in less than a year with millions of rupees which were hard to come by for the archives. The beautiful white-painted building’s stated purpose was to house provincial departments functioning outside the secretariat everywhere in the city. Matching the colonial architecture of the secretariat, it now stands vacant for want of selection of the provincial departments.

The archives department managed to have a building plan made by the provincial chief architect. But after it was finalised the chief architect reportedly noted that the building should not be built at the site as it would leave a negative impact on Tollinton Market and its museum of heritage ahead. He also reportedly mentioned the restriction of constructing only up to 70ft buildings on The Mall.

This happened last year following which the then chief secretary reportedly asked the Lahore administration to find an alternate place for the department which still awaits a reply.

The Punjab archives contain one of the biggest collections of historical documents in the subcontinent. This collection, housed partially in Anarkali’s Tomb in the Punjab Civil Secretariat, is estimated to contain 80,000 books and several million documents besides a fine collection of lithographs, miniature paintings, seals and coins.

The books are now stored in a rented building in the adjacent Court Street. Documents from the rear portion of the chief secretary’s block are stored in boxes in the upper portion of the Secretariat’s H Block after they were removed to turn their original storing place into the chief secretary’s conference hall and offices for his staff.

The archive was established in 1923 by Lt Col H L O Garret. The record storing in the archives began officially with the establishment of the Ludhiana and Ambala Agencies in the early 19th century. However a large number of documents which predate this are also available, the oldest of which date back to the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan’s rule in the 17th century. Extensive records from the Sikh and British rules in Punjab, as well as from other parts of the subcontinent are found in the archives.

The English record includes a great bulk of documents from the government departments constituted under the Board of Administration which was established in Punjab after the province was annexed by the British in 1849. This collection also includes official documentation, gazetteers and correspondence not just from Punjab but also from other areas of the subcontinent.

Records from the Delhi Residence and Agency were transferred to Punjab in 1857. Apart from this, records from Ludhiana, Ambala, Karnal and what was then the North-West Frontier as well as records from the Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan divisions and the Tribal Agencies prior to the erection of a separate administrative unit for that region are also found in this collection. Also included are records from Sindh after it was annexed by Charles Napier up to the time the province became a part of the Bombay Presidency, as well as records from the occupation of the tribal areas of Balochistan.

The collection includes reports on among other topics annual administration, budgets, topography, archaeology, medical and sanitary service, agriculture, forestry, census, revenue, surveys, settlement industries and railways, submitted by various central and provincial commissions, committees and conferences.

“Yes the books and the record are safe because ours is a reference facility consulted only by students or researchers from home and abroad, and due to our overall lack of interest in reading,” was the answer when asked about the safety of the past links to Punjab.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2016