The Defence Ministry unveiled a policy recently on framing the official history of wars or military operations. The policy mandates the forming of a committee for the compilation of history books on military operations and future wars. More on it here:

Didn’t India have a policy on declassifying military history?

Not really, even though expert committees have recommended framing such a policy so that one can learn from the mistakes of the past. There is the Public Record Act, 1993, and the Public Record Rules, 1997, which describe the procedures to be followed for the declassification of records and their transfer to the National Archives after 25 years. But most of the records of the Ministry of Defence are not in the archives.

What about an official war history?

In the last 74 years, the only war history declassified by the union government relates to the army’s 1947-48 operations, which was released in the 1980s. Though official histories of the wars in 1962, 1965 and 1971 were prepared on the basis of declassified documents and interviews, none of the titles has been published by the government. In the last decade, when the accounts of the 1965 and 1971 wars were published privately, they carried a caveat of “not reflecting the views of the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces”. So there is still no official history of the wars that India fought even though an unofficial version is available on some websites.

In the past, the ministry’s History Division had published the history of Operation Polo to liberate Hyderabad in 1948, Operation Vijay to liberate Goa, the Indian armed forces in UN Operations in Congo (1960-63) and the Indian Custodian Force in Korea in 1953-4. But all are now out of print. Similarly, there are no official accounts of the Kargil conflict of 1999, major military operations of the 1980s like Op Bluestar on Punjab militancy, raiding of the Golden Temple, and Op Pawan – the first IPKF operation – in Sri Lanka.

So the new policy is a big deal?

For the first time, a structure has been put in place to create an official history of wars and key military operations so that an official account is available for “restricted use” within the government. The Army, Air Force, Navy, Integrated Defence Staff, Assam Rifles and Indian Coast Guard have been asked to transfer the records, including war diaries, letters of proceedings and operational record books to the History Division for proper upkeep, archival and writing the histories.

Who will write the official history?

A panel headed by a joint secretary in the Defence Ministry and comprising representatives of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Foreign Ministry, Home Ministry and other government agencies will have to be formed within two years of a military operation or war so that the compilation of the records can be completed within three years. If required, prominent military historians can be included in the panel. Timely publication of war histories, according to the Defence Ministry, would give people an accurate account of the events, provide authentic material for academic research and counter unfounded rumours.

What are the challenges in writing the official history of military events?

A big shortcoming is the absence of a policy on declassifying military records. A uniform standard is required in classifying, safeguarding and declassifying information related to national security. Having the junior-most person in the hierarchy to declassify documents, as the 1997 rules provide, is a problem. No officer, especially a junior one, would be willing to take the risk of declassifying something really sensitive, even if it is 50 years old, wrote Manoj Joshi, a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, in a recent article. The government needs to develop a system to downgrade the security status of the documents every five years so that the records can be released after certain years. There is no indication that the Centre is working on something similar.

Will such official histories of military events be released to the public?

Unlikely. A Defence Ministry official said: “Compiled history on wars or military operations will be for internal consumption first. Later, the committee may decide to publicly release the whole or parts of it, considering the sensitivity of the subject.”