West Bengal Government Declassifies Pre-1947 Cabinet Files

Kolkata: The West Bengal government today declassified 401 Cabinet files from the pre-independence era.

Announcing the declassification of the files which date from 1938 to Independence, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the files throw light on various decisions by the then British government including about the Quit India Movement.

"From 1938 to 1947, it is a very important period of Indian history and these files provide a lot of information about the Cabinet decisions taken at the period including historic events like the Quit India Movement," said Ms Banerjee at the state secretariat.

Both hard and soft copies of 401 Cabinet meetings between 1938-1947 will be kept at the state archive at the secretariat library and the Kolkata Information Centre.

"There are total 401 documents about the Cabinet meetings that took place. In 1938, 52 Cabinet meetings took place, in 1939, 39 meetings, in 1940, 66 meetings, in 1941, 26 meetings, in 1942, 51 meetings, in 1943, 47 meetings, in 1944, 46 meetings, in 1945, 13 meetings, in 1946, 31 and in 1947, 30 such meetings took place," she said.

Ms Banerjee also took a jibe at the Narendra Modi government's "Digital India" initiative and said all the state government files post-independence will be digitized in a phased manner.

"Just by clamouring about digital India will not suffice, you need to show that in deeds. You need to maintain transparency by making documents public which we are doing.

"It's the need of the people to be aware about the history and we are doing that by making public all these documents. In a phased manner we will digitize all the files and people, researchers and students will get to know about the history which they have a right to know," said Ms Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress supremo.

Besides sending copies of the digitized files to both Lok Sabha speaker as well as Rajya Sabha vice chairman, Ms Banerjee, who is embarking on a trip to Delhi, will personally hand over a copy to President Pranab Mukherjee tomorrow.

Ms Banerjee would also be meeting Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday.

"I will personally hand over a copy of the files to the president on Tuesday. Day after tomorrow, Kejriwal had invited me for a seminar, which I will attend," she said.

The Banerjee government on September 18 made public 64 classified files on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Ms Banerjee also reiterated the demand for the central government to declassify 134 secret documents on Netaji.

"This is not my demand along, but the whole country wants to know what happened to Netaji. So the centre must declassify the files on Netaji," she said.