Ancient state archives in danger of extinction

HYDERABAD :The Andhra Pradesh State Archive and Research Institute (APSARI), the only such centre in the State, is in danger of losing some of its most valuable archive- manuscripts, documents and books dating back to 1407 AD. Most of these historical chronicles are not only brittle, but also damaged. “We have been asking the government to release funds to modernise the institute and digitise the archive. But the response has not been encouraging,” Zareena Parveen, APSARI, told Express. The archives are a treasure trove of information not just on the Nizams but also the British rulers, the Mughals and the Delhi Sultans. The chronicles, running into lakhs of manuscripts, documents and thousands of books, are in different languages like Urdu, Arabic, English and Telugu.  “It is better to digitise all of them before they get damaged, because they are the only sources of research for the next generation,” pointed out V Ranga Raj, Deputy Director of APSARI.Osmania University, History department, Prof V Ramakrishan Reddy echoes the same views. “There are thousands of books which must be digitised or they will be damaged forever. For example, the Industrial Census in The Nizam Dominion 1935-45, Agricultural Census and Kesava Iyengar’s Economic Investigations In The Hyderabad State 1939, must be digitised  because they are very important to trace the economic and agriculture history of  the Nizam Government.” The APSARI was reorganized by the National Archives of India in 1960s and collaborated with the National Mission for Manuscripts, New Delhi. But no development programme has been taken up so far,  Ramakrishna Reddy added. The APSARI’s objectives are acquisition of non-current records from all the government departments, educational institutions and preserve valuable books, documents and manuscripts. The same will be made available to research scholars and all those interested.I Sudarshana Rao, a researcher at the University of Hyderabad, who uses the archives, felt the historical data should be digitised and put on the Internet so that scholars across the world can access the information. The APSARI created its website in 2008 and updated the information twice in the same year.