Policy To Declassify War Histories
Source : Indian Express
GS III : National Security and Challenges

Why in News ?

The Union Defence Minister has approved a policy on archiving, declassification, compilation and publication of war and operations histories by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Key Facts

• It will help set the record straight on India’s military history approved a new policy to declassify war histories and records of other military operations in a time-bound manner.

  

• It give the country an accurate account of events, provide authentic material for research and counter unfounded rumours.
• The policy on archiving, declassification and compilation of war and operations histories mandates the setting up of a committee headed by a joint secretary in the defence ministry and consisting of representatives of the armed forces, external affairs ministry, home ministry and prominent military historians (if required).
• The committee will take a view on earlier wars and operations
• The development is significant as the military has faced uncomfortable questions about several events including the sinking of an Indian warship in the 1971 Indo-Pak war, the 1999 Kargil war and contentious war accounts authored by veterans.

About the Policy

• The policy envisages that each organisation under the Ministry of Defence such as Services, Integrated Defence Staff, Assam Rifles and Indian Coast Guard, will transfer the records, including war diaries, letters of proceedings & operational record books, etc., to the History Division of Ministry of Defence (MoD) for proper upkeep, archival and writing the histories
• The responsibility for declassification of records rests with the respective organisations as specified in the Public Record Act 1993 and Public Record Rules 1997 as amended from time to time.
• Records should ordinarily be declassified in 25 years.
• Records older than 25 years should be appraised by archival experts and transferred to the National Archives of India once the war/operations histories have been compiled.
• History Division will be responsible for coordination with various departments while compiling, seeking approval and publishing of war/operations histories.
• The committee should be formed within two years of completion of war/operations.
• Collection of records and compilation should be completed in three years and disseminated to all concerned.

Need for such Histories

• The requirement of having war histories written with a clear-cut policy on declassification of war records was recommended by the Kargil Review Committee headed by K Subrahmanyam.
• Also the N N Vohra Committee in order to analyse lessons learnt and prevent future mistakes.
• Post Kargil War GoM recommendations on national security also mentioned the desirability of authoritative war history

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