New Delhi: The Ministry of Defence (MoD) in a landmark move approved a policy on archiving, declassification and compilation/publication of war/operations histories. The Ministry of Defence has come out with a new policy which stipulates that events must be officially recorded within five years.
The policy envisages that each organisation under the Ministry of Defence such as Services, Integrated Defence Staff, Assam Rifles and Indian Coast Guard, will transfer the records, including war diaries, letters of proceedings & operational record books, etc., to the History Division of Ministry of Defence (MoD) for proper upkeep, archival and writing the histories.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved the policy on archiving, declassification and compilation/publication of war/operations histories by the Ministry of Defence.
The History Division will be responsible for coordination with various departments while compiling, seeking approval and publishing of war/operations histories.
“The requirement of having war histories written with a clear-cut policy on declassification of war records was recommended by the Kargil Review Committee headed by K Subrahmanyam as well as the N N Vohra Committee in order to analyse lessons learnt and prevent future mistakes. Post Kargil War, GoM recommendations on national security also mentioned the desirability of authoritative war history,” the Ministry said.
According to the policy, records should ordinarily be declassified in 25 years. Records older than 25 years should be appraised by archival experts and transferred to the National Archives of India once the war/ operations histories have been compiled.
The policy mandates constitution of a committee headed by Joint Secretary, MoD and comprising of representatives of the Services, MEA, MHA and other organisations and prominent military historians (if required), for compilation of War/ Operations Histories.
The policy also set clear timelines with regard to compilation and publication of War/ Operations Histories. The above mentioned Committee should be formed within two years of completion of war / operations. The War / Operations histories will be compiled within 5 years.
