Congress General Secretary in charge of Communications Jairam Ramesh on Thursday highlighted a new digital archival facility introduced by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund to access documents related to the freedom struggle and early years of Independent India.
The Congress leader shared information on X and said, “The Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund has just launched a smartphone-friendly http://nehruarchive.in.” “This is an easily searchable and freely downloadable digital archive initially built around the 100 published volumes of the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru covering the period 1903-1964.
There are over 75,000 pages and over 3,000 illustrations to begin with,” said Ramesh. “The archive will keep getting expanded to cover more text, photographs, audio, and films. Archives across the world containing letters to and from Nehru are being contacted to expand the archive.
Books by and on Nehru during his lifetime will be included,” wrote Ramesh. Earlier, the JNMF said in a statement, “The website The Nehru Archive is available on nehruarchive.in. The entire set of 100 volumes has been digitised; they may be searched and freely downloaded, and they may be used with equal ease on the mobile as on the laptop.
The facsimiles of the original print version are also available alongside the digital text.” “This online version would be of immense benefit to anybody who wishes to study any aspect of Indian history from the 1920s to the 1960s, the years when Nehru was a major leader of the movement for Independence and thereafter was Prime Minister of the country,” said JNMF Secretary Professor Madhavan Palat in the statement.
It contains some 35,000 documents and about 3000 illustrations. From volume 44 onward, that is, from September 1958, his speeches in the original Hindi and in English translation are also available. The documents consist of his correspondence, speeches, interviews, administrative notes on files, diary entries, and even doodles. However, this is only a beginning, it said.
"Hereafter, new items will be added in stages. These are photographs, audios, videos, books by Nehru, books and other publications on Nehru that appeared in his lifetime, any other documentation available in the public domain, the Hindi original of his speeches which had not been published in the Selected Works, and other similar items,” said the JNMF.