Bihar Archives to soon publish documents, literature banned by British Raj

Rare documents and images, including a graphic depiction of the hanging of Bhagat Singh and his two aides Rajguru and Sukhdev, which were banned during the colonial era, are now being published in three huge volumes.

Titled, 'Teen Shaheed' (three martyrs), the lithographed image published in Calcutta (now Kolkata) also depicts a cell filled with revolutionaries behind them and on the right side shows a ship full of people being transported to 'Kala Pani' (Cellular Jail in Andaman Islands) while Lord Krishna is shown on the top in a halo, showering blessings. It was banned and seized by the British government after the trio were hanged in Lahore in 1931.

This graphic depiction of the hanging of the trio, captioned with the famous couplet "Rang de basanti chola..." was found in the Bihar State Archives (BSA), buried among some of the rare documents that were proscribed across the country during the colonial era.

"The civil disobedience movement in 1930 had raised the national consciousness of the masses. And, the imperial government feared unrest after the hanging of the trio, and hence many literatures they thought could trigger anti-government resentment were impounded. "So, over the last three years, we went through our own records here at the State Archives and collected and collated documents and literatures which were proscribed during the Raj. Though 80-90 per cent of such records pertain to Bihar, there are records linked with others states too like Punjab, Delhi, United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), Bengal and Madras (now Tamil Nadu)," BSA Director Vijoy Kumar said.

He said the work titled 'Proscribed Documents in the Records of the Bihar State Archives – Vol I, Vol II and Vol III', with focus on the period 1915-1947, is currently "in press" and would be out by March end.

Other records pertain to Bihar Congress leader Sri Krishna Singh, who in 1923 was charged with sedition and arrested for writing and acting in his play 'Bharat Durdasha', depicting the economic exploitation of the country, in his hometown Haveli Kharagpur in Munger. Singh later became the first chief minister of the state in Independent India.

The BSA director said literatures distributed by revolutionaries and publication of "incendiary material", especially of "nationalist-themed" pamphlets and leaflets by various language presses and newspapers were confiscated to counter any "anti-British" feeling among the masses. "Several pamphlets published by Hindi publications like 'Janta', 'Yuvak', 'Himalaya', 'Tarun Bharat', 'Hunkar', 'Desh' and 'Yogi', among others were seized. Poet Rambriksh Benipuri was jailed for his writing in the 'Yuvak' in 1929. Other pamphlets included 'Bijay Bharat' (1932), 'Azad Bharat Barsh'" Kumar said.

BSA archivist Bharti Sharma, who was part of the core team for this project said, "Some of the pamphlets even had very funny names like – 'Jail ki Chat (1923)', 'Bhanda Fod (1930)', 'Cawnpore ka Daya', 'Chur Chur ka Murabba' and Kali Prasad's 'Gazal ka Siatara' published by Vijay Press of Muzuffarpur. "While we had to rely on accompanying English translation of many pamphlets as the originals written in Hindi were found missing but among those which had the original publications intact, was a rare one in Bengali titled 'Desher Dak' (call of the country). This was about 30-40 pages and contained some photographs of revolutionaries also. And, we have reproduced the entire work in this around 2300-page book project (in three parts)," Sharma said.

She said most of the documents related to this project were found to be from the 1930s, and they also found many "hand- written" pamphlets dating back to 1942, given it was the Quit India movement time, and the British government wanted to suppress it.

Records were also found related to other provinces like Bengal, Assam, Central Provinces (now Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh), and Bombay state among others, she said. "The image related to hanging of Bhagat Singh was found lying in the files among some records, when we found this during our research work. We however have so far not been able to trace the original publication, which it was a part of. All we know is that it was printed at Shivaji Press on Harrison Road in Kolkata, and is rare nonetheless," she said.

Sharma said there already was the Vernacular Press Act 1878 to suppress local language (non-English) press and the seizure of literature and arrests were also done by the British government under the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931 (XXIII of 1931), Section 63, Emergency Powers Ordinance, and various other sections of the IPC and the CrPC, among others.

When asked on the missing original pamphlets in the records, the BSA director said since Bihar province was created in 1912, some of the records were transferred later from the Bengal Archives to the record room of the provincial government, which was initially kept at the Bihar Secretariat in Patna. "The records were finally moved to the 'Abhilekh Bhawan', BSA's own building on Bailey Road in the late 50s. And, we found many of the original pamphlets missing. It is unfortunate and those original publications in their original languages would have been a great archival treasure," he said.

Chintan Chandra, another archivist at the BSA, and part of the project, claimed, "Not only literature were being seized and suppressed, but counter-literature were also being produced by the Raj." The BSA, meanwhile, recently released publications like 'Bihar Vibhuti - Part 3', 'Abhilekh Bihar 2013', 'Subhash Chandra Bose in the Records of the Bihar State Archives', and reprints of 'Old Zemindari Records of Bihar (Vol1, Vol II)' and 'Unrest Against British Rule in Bihar', both of which were authored by noted scholar KK Datta.