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This volume should be of particular interest to Indian historians who have faced the Government of India's arbitrary curbs on the National Archives of India. It contains the text of Nehru's Note to his Principal Private Secretary dated August 27, 1957.
"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."
"I do not particularly fancy this hush hush policy about old public documents. I could understand some particular paper being kept secret. If the Director of Archives has any doubt about the desirability of any papers being shown or not, he should send me a list of them and I shall examine them. Normally speaking, the only understanding that is necessary is that nothing will be published without Government's permission."
This was written half a century ago. The matter is now covered by the Right to Information Act, 2005, which overrides all executive rules. Any scholar can invoke the Act.
Nehru's letter to G.B. Pant on October 31, 1957, is also of contemporary interest: "Maulana Sahib spoke to me today about Bahadur Shah's tomb in Rangoon. He told me that Bahadur Shah expressed a wish in his last will, that his remains should be buried in Delhi in Humayun's Maqbara where his ancestors were buried. Maula suggested that it would be desirable to bring these remains to India for this purpose. At present, they are in a very simple and out of the way tomb in Rangoon, which I visited some years ago. I see no particular objection to this, and I suppose the Burma Government will not object. I referred this matter to some of our colleagues in the Cabinet today, and they did not object either. I should like your reactions to this proposal. After that, we can enquire further into it."
Of contemporary relevance are several notes the Prime Minister then wrote; on encounters, for example, he wrote to Punjab's Chief Minister, Partap Singh Kairon, on August 28. A Deputy Superintendent of Police had "shot down some people in cold blood. These people were probably dacoits. Nevertheless, this business of cold-blooded shooting, if true, indicates a mentality that will ruin any State".
Also relevant are Nehru's notes on the Blue Book on the Prime Minister's security; on Delhi's expansion at the cost of peasants' interests; and on unauthorised constructions in Delhi.
There is a long Note of September 24 to the Home Ministry, under which said: "I think, it is of the utmost importance, both from the Delhi point of view as well as from the larger point of view of India, that Urdu should be one of the regional languages of Delhi State. There can be no doubt that at present Urdu is the best known and the most spoken of languages in Delhi State. Most of the leading newspapers here (apart from English ones) are in Urdu. Delhi has been the home of Urdu where Urdu had its origin, took shape and grew. It is the home of Amir Khusru, Ghalib and Khan-I-Khana and so many eminent poets and writers in Urdu. There are seldom arrangements for teaching Urdu in the schools.... In new signboards that are put up in streets, etc., not only is the name not written in Urdu, but sometimes where it was in Urdu this is removed. As a matter of fact, even now most people, like tongarwalas, taxi drivers, etc., know Urdu much more than any other language and they are rather lost when the signboards are not in Urdu. I do not know who is responsible for this unhappy innovation."
Pant, the real architect of the Babri Masjid takeover, would hardly do anything in the matter.
India's oft-criticised reference of the Kashmir question to the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VI, rather than Chapter VII, of the U.N. Charter, was deliberate. Nehru told Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on September 18 that it was "to keep a way open for a friendly settlement".
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