THE Government of India is notoriously coy when it comes to bringing information that lies within its domain to public light…. This … is an anachronistic trait for a modern … democracy….

Responding to a Right to Information application regarding the records of correspondence between the then prime minister Indira Gandhi and president Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed regarding the imposition of Emergency in 1975, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has stated that, “despite its best efforts”, these documents can’t be traced. The Central Information Commission … adjudicating on the matter, responded … by stating that while it didn’t find fault with the PMO officials regarding the ‘missing records’, it did find the fact that these important documents could not be traced to be “somewhat surprising”….

The … correspondence may indeed be buried under heaps of files by some … bureaucrat bent on showing his loyalty to the party that imposed the Emergency more than 35 years ago and now heads the government….

This enforced eclipse of historical information is not just confined to the Emergency. The Henderson-Brooks Committee report on the poor performance of the Indian Army in the Sino-Indian War of 1962, the details that led to the Bangladesh War in 1971 and documents related to the Indian peacekeeping force’s foray into Sri Lanka are just a few examples of gaping invisible spots in our country’s historiography.— (Feb 10)