Winds of change blow through the dusty shrines of history
At the helm of the National Archives, leading the greatest repository of archival material in the island into the AI age, Dr. Nadeera Rupesinghe, has made ‘accessibility’ the keyword in a domain once shrouded in secrecy.
Today, with material of 24 linear kilometres under her care, Nadeera strives to change the traditional mindset that archives are dusty shrines to be buttressed.
Dr. Nadeera Rupesinghe. Pic by Nilan Maligaspe
Young Nadeera first attended the Joyce Goonesekere Montessori and also doodled in her mother’s art classes (Gothami Seneviratne, known for portraits and landscapes in oils and watercolour). Her father, Gamini Seneviratne, was an engineer and General Manager of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation.
At school, CMS Ladies’ College, she says her only laurels were being the president of the Nature Club and a member of the Scrabble team. It was at Colombo University, coming under the aureole of Prof. Nirmal Dewasiri, that she learned that history is also about “analysing processes, and understanding who we are today by looking at the past”. Specializing in history was a struggle as she was an English special intake student, but one she managed with her quiet determination.
By the time she had finished her BA, however, a nostalgic urge to study inscriptions and those classical civilizations of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa had seized her. However, Profs. Gananath and Ranjini Obeysekere were to point out to her that while the pre-colonial period was pretty much dealt with, the Dutch era was still a veritable sea of archives, mostly untouched here in Colombo.
They suggested Leiden University with its historic cobbled streets and canals, as the ideal place for her PhD.
Nadeera threw herself energetically into learning the old version of the language and the Dutch government generously supported students from former VOC territories. There were many historians who knew all about Ceylon, once a gem on their imperial crown.
It was the law in the time of the Dutch and its impact on day-to-day life in coastal Ceylon that intrigued Nadeera, particularly family law. Most of the cases in the landraad or the lower district level courts, were to do with land issues and there were no divorce cases.
It was interesting to find out that the Dutch had never actually practised their Roman-Dutch law of divorce on Sri Lankans. “But when the British came they, in the mistaken belief that the Dutch must have used that law, started using the Roman Dutch law of divorce and we are still stuck with it and a lot of people even defend it and would oppose changing it whereas it has long gone from the Netherlands also…”
Marriage registration under the Dutch was something that fascinated Nadeera. Except for a few who were classed as ‘heathens’ (i.e. Buddhists), from the hoi polloi to the gentry all were nominally at least Christian and had to baptised for their nuptials to be recorded in the thombu (the Dutch records; which could be quite detailed).
Tying the knot under the Dutch required two steps; putting up the banns and the ceremony at the church. However it was very hard to convince people that holy matrimony was imperative because they only put up the banns.
Says Nadeera, “There’s an ordinance – what we call circulars these days, which was put up in the ambalamas in Sinhala and Tamil where people are warned that if you get late for the marriage ceremony you’re going to be fined. The fine depending on how late you were.”
She adds, “You grow up thinking that certain ways in which society expects you to live your life are ingrained in your own culture whereas if you looked into the 18th century you see how some of the practices you have now normalized were entirely new to our people.”
What she had envisaged ahead of her was a pleasant academic life studying family law. However, that vista was to transform.
In 2017 she was appointed to the Open University’s Faculty of Engineering as a lecturer, the first time a historian had held such a position triggering some opposition.
In the very same week however, the previous Director General of Archives Saroja Wettasinghe having retired, Dr. Siran Deraniyagala had recommended Nadeera to the position. She was given a permanent appointment though she was essentially an outsider to the department.
From the onset Nadeera brought in firm changes, the first being emphasising accessibility, hitherto a taboo word. She did away with the tradition that all foreigners seeking to browse the archives had to be vetted by the Director-General, and also allowed photographs to be taken in the search room, triggering mutiny from the ‘old guard’. She would emphasize that archivists are custodians on behalf of the public and exist to give the public easy access to records.
Archivists are expected to be active in collecting, going out and advocating for collecting records. They have to develop inventories using their imagination as to the ‘many different ways the information would be required by different people’.
Among recent initiatives, novel even internationally, is having a camera crew that goes out to communities and videos specific incidents, situations and practices. A digital repository is on its way.
Amidst the immediate tasks is to have a computerized inventory up to international standards and include it in an online database. The Dutch archives, for instance, has 5 million scans of their own VOC records freely accessible to anyone in the world. They have also handwriting recognition so keyword search is possible.
They can also now ask questions so the computer will go through the 5 million scans and give you an answer. “That,” says Nadeera “is where we ideally want to go,” acknowledging also the help given by the Dutch government especially with Dutch archives.
“So there is a lot to do,” she says, concluding the interview with a shrug and a smile.
| It’s for you the public | |
| “The National Archives is open to the public,” says Dr. Nadeera Rupesinghe, “and you don’t need any appointment. You are welcome to the research room after getting a reader pass from the Public Relations Division (good for one year). In the research room you can go through the index cards (the internet database does not have all the material). In the photography collection however, the library of the old Times Group has been digitised.All documents are arranged as per the creating agency, for example, the Department of Archaeology. Once you have identified the archival material you want to peruse, three volumes at a time will be brought to you. You can also get all types of gazettes, acts of parliament, election registers, land registers or land documents from the British times, and copies certified with the Archives seal would be considered as good as the original. Also, one can visit the Archives to register your printing press or newspaper. |
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