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Private Papers of eminent personalities
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- Context (IE): Prime Ministers’ Museum & Library (PMML) has decided that it will not permit future donors of Private Papers of eminent personalities to impose indefinite conditions on declassification.
Prime Ministers’ Museum & Library (PMML)
- Originally established as Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) in memory of India’s first PM.
- It is a museum under the Ministry of Culture.
Recent decision
- Under normal circumstances, it has decided to permit only a five-year embargo from the date of receipt of any new papers, rarely for up to 10 years.
- PMML has also decided to allow access to several sets of private papers that have been lying in its custody for decades, including those of the first Speaker of Lok Sabha, G D Mavalankar, and Nehru’s niece, Nayantara Sahgal.
Collection of private papers
- The Jawaharlal Nehru Papers were the first Private Papers obtained by PMML.
- Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund (JNMF) facilitated the transfer on behalf of Indira Gandhi.
- PMML collection has the papers of Mahatma Gandhi, B R Ambedkar, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Bhikaji Cama, Chaudhary Charan Singh, and others.
- Recent acquisitions are the papers of former Himachal Pradesh CM Shanta Kumar, which include letters written by him to the PM on One Nation, One Election, the abrogation of Article 370, etc.
- Papers of the environmentalist Sundarlal Bahuguna were donated to PMML by his wife, Vimla Bahuguna.
Are Private Papers the same as personal papers?
- Private correspondences with other personalities are different than the personal papers.
- However, correspondence and documents held in a personal capacity are excluded from this set.
- Official Records constitute set of papers held by various government departments and ministries.
National Archives of India
- The National Archives of India, operating under the Culture Ministry, also acquires only those papers the donors agree to declassify.
- National Archives has papers of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Dadabhai Naoroji, Purushottam Das Tandon, Maulana Azad, Minoo Masani, Sardar Patel and Keshav Dev Malviya, among others.
Declassification
- Public Records Rules, 1997, covers declassification of all kinds of records and correspondence in India.
- The Rules say that the respective organisations are responsible for declassifying official records. Records should ordinarily be declassified every 25 years.
- The definition of Public Records encompasses any records related to the central government and any ministry, department, or office of the government, including the PMO and the President’s Office.
- However, the 1997 Rules don’t lay down sweeping powers for papers owned by private individuals and families, access to which is voluntary.
- Declassification in US
- The Library of Congress Manuscript Division holds Personal Papers and significant organisational records in American history.
- National Archives and Records Administration is the official depository for US government records, like the National Archives of India.