Dharampal Archives
The Dharampal Archival collection deposited at the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai, consists of the archival records collected by Sri Dharampal from various archives in Britain mainly during the period 1966-1982. The material consists of hand-written copies and typescripts meticulously prepared by Sri Dharampal, and in several cases photocopies of the original documents, in all adding to nearly 15,500 pages.
According to a note of Sri Dharampal written in 2005:
“The main constituents of this collection are a variety of British archival documents largely from about AD 1750 to about AD 1900 on India and the changing relationship between India and Britain. …The archival material is mainly of British origin, written by individual British persons since the 17th c. pertaining to India, or is from the records of the British Governmental authorities on their conquest, domination and enslavement of India from about 1750 onwards. The material collected is kept in several archives in Britain; similar British official material created by the British is also kept in Indian archives, called record offices earlier, at Madras, Calcutta, Delhi, Bombay and Lucknow.”
The Archival Collection at CPS mainly consists of material which has been classed under twelve broad areas, and further classified into about 200 topics, by Sri Dharampal and Sri T. M. Mukundan during the early nineties. This material which amounts to nearly 12,000 pages was then stored in about 200 Envelopes. Apart from these envelopes, the archival collection also consists of twelve typed Bound Volumes (running to about 2,400 pages) and thirty-four Typescripts (running to about 700 pages) which are compilations of archival records on specific topics, made by Sri Dharampal, during 1967-69. In addition to these, there are also about 340 pages of photocopied material pertaining to the Cow Protection Movement in north India during 1893-94.
A detailed catalogue of the contents of all the documents in the collection was prepared by Sri T. M. Mukundan in 1998. This catalogue was updated and revised in 2010, when the entire collection was digitally scanned in collaboration with the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. Incidentally, a photocopy of the entire collection at the CPS was also deposited in the Library of Gandhi Seva Sangh, Sevagram, Wardha in 1998.
While uploading the Archival Collection of Sri Dharampal, we have compiled and processed the digitally scanned images of the archival records into about 250 pdf files; thus the entire material in a Bound Volume or a Typescript or an Envelope can be accessed as a single pdf file. These files have also been linked to corresponding broad areas and topics as listed in the detailed Catalogue of the Archival Collection.
