India-China Relations: 1947-2000 - A Documentary Study (5 Volumes)

摘要

Generations of scholars and analysts working on India-China issues will be grateful to Mr. Avtar Singh Bhasin for the extraordinary service he has done to them by bringing into the public domain, in five volumes, important texts on the subject-over 2,500 of them-including many that are still not declassified by the Ministry of External Affairs and transferred for public access to the National Archives of India. He was able to do so because he got ready access to material classified as 'secret' or 'top secret' in the papers lying with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. He wisely tapped the private papers of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. This threw open to him a treasure trove of documents that are still lying locked up in government cellars. The new materials unearthed by Mr. Bhasin include a selection of Prime Minister Nehru's own notes and minutes as well as other notes, correspondence, and noting on internal policy files, and the correspondence and cables exchanged between the Indian Embassy in Beijing and headquarters, including both the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of External Affairs. According to India's 1993 Public Records Act, 'all unclassified public records as are more than thirty years old and are transferred to the National Archives of India.'1 Luckily for Mr. Bhasin and his readers, most of the documents published in his volumes are available from the Nehru papers lying with Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, where access to these papers has been eased for researchers. Although retrieval of documents is more demanding at the National Archives of India, no study of India's diplomatic history is possible without checking out what is available there.