HVK Archives: Rs 1.71 cr spent on incomplete ICHR project
Rs 1.71 cr spent on incomplete ICHR project - The Asian Age
Ashish Kumar Sen
()
August 10, 1998
Title: Rs 1.71 cr spent on incomplete ICHR project
Author: Ashish Kumar Sen
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: August 10, 1998
One of the historians assigned a research volume in the prominent
Towards Freedom project, undertaken by the Indian Council of
Historical Research, has left his study mid-way. Professor Gyan
Pande's disassociation with the project has provided one in a
flurry of blows to the research which has dragged its feet for
the last two decades. Prof. Pande was to collate facts pertaining
to the freedom struggle in the year 1941.
The Towards Freedom project was conceived with the central idea
of the documenting the last decades of the Indian freedom
struggle. However, several years into the project it is still
nowhere near completion. The project has changed several hands
since it was started in the early 1970s. A whopping sum of Rs
1.71 crores has already been spent by the ICHR on the Towards
Freedom project since 1973.
Interestingly, the recently-released edition, compiled by Prof.
Partha Sarthy Gupta dealing with the year 1943-44, has failed to
give due credit to the ICHR. A council document states the
nfortunately the volume relating the 1943-44 compiled by Prof.
P.S. Gupta does not say a word about the ICHR in the introduction
by the general editor and the editor, or in the acknowledgments -
nowhere.
Beside what is printed on the spine, all that is available in the
book to show that the ICHR has something to do with it is that
the expanded form of ICHR is wrongly printed as Indian Council
for Historical Research on the Title page.
Apart from other discrepancies in the printing and index is
conspicuous by its absence in what is meant to be a historical
reference book. However, besides being denied due credit for the
publication the ICHR has not felt the pinch on its pocket in the
publishing of the volume, priced at Rs 7,500. The publishing cost
is being footed by the Oxford University Press.
Initially, a team of scholars under Prof. S. Gopal were assigned
the task of documenting this period of history. A decade later,
no substantial work as table as proof of any progress in the
project. Under the chairmanship of Prof. Lokesh Chandra, Prof. P.
N. Chopra was appointed head of a team which went on to bring out
a volume dealing with the year 1937 and another volume on 1938
was sent to press. When Prof. Irfan Habib took over as chairman
of the council. Prof. Chopra was removed and Prof. Gopal was
reinstated as head of the Towards Freedom project. Scholars were
meant to be given Rs. 2,5000 as honorarium at the time of
submitting their research work. However, during the course of the
project dearness and travel allowance was to be provided to the
historians and their team of researchers. Of the 10 volumes
scheduled by the ICHR, only two have seen the light of day. While
one edition by Basudev Chatterjee has been sent to Oxford
University Press, twoothers compiled by K. N. Panikkar and Summit
Sarkar are in the pipeline, according to Prof. S. Settar,
chairman of the ICHR.
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