Official Records


How When and Where II - Concepts
Class - 8th Foundation NTSE Subjects
 
 
Concept Explanation
 

Official Records

Government documents: British officials were very particular about keeping proper records of all official transactions. Government orders, act and other important decisions of the government had to be meticulously recorded. Hence, historians have a rich fund of official British documents, official letters and correspondence, survey maps, district gazettes and census records to refer to. 

Disadvantage of official records: From the vast corpus of records we can get to know a lot, but we must remember that these are official records. They tell us what the officials thought, what they were interested in, and what they wished to preserve for posterity. These records do not always help us understand what other people in the country felt, and what lay behind their actions.

We have diaries of people, accounts of pilgrims and travelers, autobiographies of important personalities, and popular booklets that were sold in the local bazaars. As printing spread, newspapers were published and issues were debated in public. Leaders and reformers wrote to spread their ideas, poets and novelists wrote to express their feelings.

All these sources, however, were produced by those who were literate. From these we will not be able to understand how history was experienced and lived by the tribal and the peasants, the workers in the mines or the poor on the streets. Getting to know their lives is a more difficult task.

 
 
 


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