As Delhi furiously upgrades itself for the Commonwealth Games in October, why should this treasure tucked at the Capital’s heart remain rundown and unexplored? As the storeroom of the non-current records of the Indian government, the National Archives of India (NAI), in Janpath, has thousands of rare old books, documents and lithographs piled up on various floors.
Anyone with a passing interest in India’s political and cultural past can produce best-selling history books by hanging out here. While researching here for his book The Last Mughal, author William Dalrymple discovered previously unexamined manuscripts that present the Indian perspective of the 1857 mutiny. “All the Urdu research for the book was done there,” says Dalrymple. “The archive contains the biggest and fullest colonial archive in India.”
Making it cool
You do not have to be an author, scholar or a PhD student to feel at home in NAI. Not many are aware that it also has a library having more than 1,80,000 books on Indian history. The membership is free and all you need to present is an identity proof.
Full report here Hindustan Times
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