Bihar to acquire documents in private collections linked to Quit India movement

Several documents related to the Quit India movement and the Colonial period in general, which were still held in unknown private collections in the state, will now be acquired by the Bihar State Archives department for preservation as an exclusive segment, officials said.

The Quit India movement was a mass civil disobedience against the British rule, launched on 8 August 1942 by Mahatma Gandhi and the country is celebrating its 79th anniversary this year. Bihar was one of the major centres of the movement which saw seven students leading a protest rally in Patna getting killed in firing ordered by the then city magistrate WC Archer, while they were heading to hoist the tricolour atop the secretariat building.

“There still exists a memorial for those who died in this incident on August 11, 1942. The State Archives also has the original pictures of all the seven students killed in the firing. But that rally must have been attended by many others who participated in the Quit India movement but have remained unknown,” Dr Rashmi Kiran, an official from the State Archives, said.

The department aims to collect information about such unknown participants and document their contributions after acquiring the articles related to the movement, she added.

“Their grandchildren or great grandchildren must be having diaries or letters or even footnotes related to their work. These might prove to be an important source of information about the Colonial rule in the country,” she said.

The department will soon be inviting such people through media to approach the department with their collection related to the Quit India movement. “We are preparing to observe the 75th anniversary of the country’s Independence, the Aazadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, and this plan to create a segment of private collections is a part of this celebration. It’s also an effort to preserve the treasures of information and history of the state and the country,” she said.

Former Patna University history teacher and also the former director of the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Professor Imtiaz Ahmed said it was a good initiative. “It will enrich the State Archives’ collection of documents. There are many families in the state capital whose grandparents or great grandparents participated in the freedom struggle, especially in the Quit India movement. Their collections of personal diaries or letters would definitely yield important information about the nature and composition of the freedom movement in the country,” he said.