KARACHI, June 10: The Sindh archives department has undertaken a survey pertaining to old record of the province available in India, England, Netherlands, Punjab and elsewhere in the world.

A major chunk of the old record of Sindh as per official policy of the British government was maintained in the India Record Office, London and Delhi.

Under an on-going scheme, the survey of record available in India Record Office, now called the India Office Library, has nearly been completed and a major section of the record has been listed.

Under an agreement with the Pakistan government, the Indian authorities shall be transferring microfilms of such a record on payment. The mode of the shifting of the record is under consideration between the Sindh Archives and the India Office Library.

The archives department is also trying to collect a list of the record pertaining to Sindh in its government photo zincographic office, Poona.

During the survey, it has been noticed that old record that covers whole of the one-unit era and the period from 1936 to 1947 (since the separation of Sindh from Bombay presidency) is not available at the Sindh archives.

According to an official report, around 55,000 files relating to Sindh were taken to Lahore during One-Unit and are kept in the Punjab Archives. Out of these, only 152 files have been returned, so far.

As far as the record of 1936-1947 is concerned, the report stated that once the shelf listing of the commissioner’s record is completed, efforts would be made to trace out the secretariat record of this period.

According to an official, the federal government during army operation in Balochistan in the 70s, had acquired 500 files of the British era relating to strategy about crushing the Hur movement. However, those files were never returned to the Sindh archives.

The entire historic record of the British era was lying for years at the old commissioner’s office in Karachi where a major chunk of the files was reportedly destroyed for having no caretaker. The collection of scattered record was initiated in 1977.

A report says that though most of Sindh Old Commissioners record has been destroyed, the archives department has collected and preserved 32,645 files and 1,433 old maps of the period from 1818 to 1935.

It has also collected and preserved the Sindh High Court record of the 19th century consisting of 17,530 files; sessions court Shikarpur record of the 18th and the 19th century in Persian and English consisting of 100,000 files; microfilm documents of the library of the late G.M. Syed 325,000 pages; microfilms of oriental manuscripts from the Sindhi Adabi Board 199,500 pages; three volumes of the Blue Book of Deputy Commissioner, Jacobabad; one volume of the “who is who” district Larkana; rare books from Shikarpur library, DC Jacobabad record — about 1800 books; DC Hyderabad record; 850 files of District Registrar Office, Karachi.

The report says that the microfilming of 32,000 files of the land settlement record of Hyderabad is in the process. The department has also procured over 16,000 rare books from the libraries of Dr. N. A. Baloch, Syed Zafar Shah, Saeed Siddiqui, Dr. Ibrahim Khalil, Pir Ali Mohammad Rashdi, Khalid Shamsul Hassan and Prof. Jhamandas Bhatia.—PPI