HYDERABAD [INDIA]: The Andhra Pradesh State Archive and Research Institute (APSARI), the only such centre in the State, is in danger of losing some of its most valuable archive – manuscripts, documents and books dating back to 1407 AD. Most of these historical chronicles are not only brittle, but also damaged.
“We have been asking the government to release funds to modernise the institute and digitise the archive. But the response has not been encouraging,” Zareena Parveen, APSARI, told Express. The archives are a treasure trove of information not just on the Nizams but also the British rulers, the Mughals and the Delhi Sultans.
The chronicles, running into lakhs of manuscripts, documents and thousands of books, are in different languages like Urdu, Arabic, English and Telugu. “It is better to digitise all of them before they get damaged, because they are the only sources of research for the next generation,” pointed out V Ranga Raj, Deputy Director of APSARI.
Osmania University, History department, Prof V Ramakrishan Reddy echoes the same views. “There are thousands of books which must be digitised or they will be damaged forever. For example, the Industrial Census in The Nizam Dominion 1935-45, Agricultural Census and Kesava Iyengar’s Economic Investigations In The Hyderabad State 1939, must be digitised because they are very important to trace the economic and agriculture history of the Nizam Government.”
Read the full article in the September 13, 2011 edition of ibnlive.in.com.
