The West Bengal government made public the cabinet papers for ten years from 1938 to 1947 on Monday, after declassifying 64 files on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose earlier this month.
Today we are doing something that has never been done in the history of Independent India. We are putting cabinet papers in the public domain. While doing this, we kept in mind various laws and rules. This ten-year-period in pre-Independent India is very important because many important issues were recorded and many important cabinet decisions taken.
— Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister, West Bengal
Banerjee also released a CD containing information about papers of 401 cabinet meetings during that period. The papers are from cabinets that had witnessed among other events, the Quit India Movement, the Great Bengal Famine and the Partition of Bengal.
The Chief Minister said the papers would be available at the state archive, state information centre and state central library for researchers, historians, students and the public. The work on digitisation of the files started in 2013, she said, adding that currently work was on to digitise cabinet papers of the ten years after 1947.
Stating that the truth should come out, she said there was no reason to keep all documents confined and that people have the right to know. She said that other governments ought to follow suit.
Why did Netaji’s daughter have to request that her father’s files be made public? Why does Lal Bahadur Shastri’s son say that there was no post-mortem of his father’s body? The truth should come out. We will declassify all papers from cabinet meetings in phases.
— Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister, West Bengal
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