Relics of history are fading away

By Prashant Pandey

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. They are the first records in black and white -- nay, black and yellow -- of events that shaped the country's destiny one way or the other. Written in chaste police Urdu jargon, these are First Information Reports now lying in various stages of wear and tear in the record rooms of police stations across Delhi.

One such FIR, lying at the Parliament Street police station, relates to the case in which Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw a bomb inside the Delhi Assembly and fired twice in the air before courting arrest in 1929.

The typesetting of the document is such that it is difficult to distinguish between the handwritten and typed letters. A total of seven columns -- a format that continues to this day -- bear details of the incident, the penal sections against the ``apraadhi'', the trial, and also the verdict which was perhaps added later on.

But these relics of history are fast fading now. An incomplete Hindi translation is pasted on the opening page of the booklet containing this FIR. The clarity of the page -- both in terms of language and legibility -- is also fading for lack of conservation. ``Even this translation will fade in course of time if not conserved properly,'' says a police officer. According to him, the translation was prepared by an inspector who happened to know Urdu fairly well. But for an authentic translation an expert interpreter is required.

The FIR of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination on January 30, 1948 -- lying at the Tughlak Road police station -- is in a better condition as it was laminated last year thanks to the then SHO of Tughlak Road who also got the FIR of Indira Gandhi's assassination in 1984 laminated.

A framed, translated copy of the Gandhi FIR has been prepared to provide photocopies to those interested in it.

These efforts, though well-meaning, are amateurish and piecemeal at best. While both the police and the National Archives seem willing to conserve these documents, they are stuck on a technicality. According to one school of thought, an FIR is part of police records and has to remain with them. Others believe nothing stops the National Archives from acquiring the original FIRs.

Archives officials cite the rule that after a period of 25 years such documents can be acquired by them. However, they do not say whether any initiative has been taken by them to acquire these FIRs.

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Section  : Other States
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