The Hindu : Karnataka News : Historians told to create archives

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 06, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Historians told to create archives

By Our Special Correspondent

SHIMOGA, NOV. 5. The Vice-Chancellor of Sri Shankaracharya Sanskrit University at Kaladi in Kerala, K.N. Panikkar, said on Friday that historians should develop archives for research on their own instead of depending on those maintained by the Government.

Inaugurating a three-day seminar on "Archival sources on Karnataka history'' organised by the Department of History and Archaeology of Kuvempu University at Jnana Sahyadri here, he said it was time that historians looked for some alternatives as the archives maintained by the Government did not meet their requirements. ``Many of the records in government archives are not made available on the plea of confidentiality,'' he said. The colonial archives should be deconstructed if they were to be of any use. "Such a departure in our attitude towards them is necessary," he added.

Stating that what was available in the colonial archives only pertained to the administrative history of the British, he, however, said they were meticulous because of the nature in which the transactions were made. The colonial archives could be classified into the domination of alien rule and the resistance offered to it.

Prof. Panikkar said unless the historians knew the colonial characters, they could not use the colonial archives properly.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka