An American in Assam (or the “Thrill of the Hunt”)

How does a historian specializing in the American West find himself in Assam, India? If one finds themselves in such a predicament, do they do archival work the same as the United States? I have thought often of these questions before and after I left the U.S. on August 17, 2019.

Having received the notification from the Fulbright Program that I had been selected to research the history of the British Raj in Assam, panic began to set in. Although I knew my way around different U.S. archives (big/small; general/specialized; near/far, etc.), I had never ventured out of the safe confines of my own country. Actually, this fellowship marks the first time I had ever left North America. I began to wonder if I would be able to “make it” in such a different environment.

One of the many legacies of British colonial rule is their archival systems. The National Library and the National Archives spawned from British efforts to save every scrap of paper and book written about their efforts in India. Officialdom in the Raj preferred only glowing tales while shunting less-wholesome information to the corners of their recordkeeping repositories. The less-flattering books and reports are there, but one has to know what they are to find them. It requires a bit more digging than one might expect, even to this day.

Archival silences are real. Documents or books put under the wrong subject heading or left in a pile not yet cataloged are the simple silences. There are much more nefarious ones which involve document removal to distant lands or outright destruction.

source: Ryan Booth

Another part of this British legacy is the classy surroundings for some of these repositories. The National Library began as the Imperial Library in Calcutta. After independence, it was renamed the National Library and moved to the grounds of residence for the Governor-Generals of the East India Company in Alipore. The Belvedere Estate is magnificent as a large patch of undeveloped land in Kolkata. The large, white building gleaming at its center still evokes wonder.

(Apparently, it is also home to many ghosts, which the locals love to tell stories about as they quiz recent visitors to the estate. No one has ever asked me about ghosts in American archives.)

The experience of requesting books and how one uses them is a little different as well. Getting a card to check out and read books was fairly straight forward. One needs to fill out a form and bring a copy of a passport, the copy of a letter of introduction, and two passport photos. The first day I forgot the passport photos. The next day I had the original copy of the letter of introduction by USIEF. They wouldn’t take the original.

Luckily, I had a copy of a letter from an Associate Dean at WSU. The librarian saw that big, red “COPY” stamp designation on letterhead and snatched it out of my hand and said it would do. He never read the letter. He wrote out my card by hand and glued my photo to it. He handed the final product to me and said it was good for three years—out the door.

source: Ryan Booth

I also needed to leave my backpack at the check-in point. This is pretty standard in India. Most people wear backpacks filled with all the necessities of life, or at least mine is (umbrella, hand sanitizer, emergency toilet wipes, battery backup for my phone, pens, pencils, shorthand pads of paper which I take notes on, etc.). I took my laptop, writing pad, pen, library card, and the ever-present bottle of water with me.

Laptops need special permission to be used to take notes in the library. The first day they let me slide by because they were out of forms. The second day, one of the guards stopped me and escorted me around to the librarian to get the form filled out. The librarian looked contemptuously at the guard but dutifully produced the form, had me fill it out, and then signed and stamped it. He handed it back to me, and the security guard disappeared. 

On another visit, I was really into a book and decided to take digital photos of it. I knew this was against the rules, as there is another form that will enable you to do this. I was busy snapping photos and thought I was being discreet. Two security guard eventually came over my shoulder asked for my permission slip, which I couldn’t produce. They had me pack up all my stuff and follow them—again, back to the librarian.

It was a different one this time, but he didn’t really seem to care about this. He asked me how many photos I’d taken and how many more I expected to take. He was ready to send me on my way, but then he said, “You know we can photocopy one third of the book for you.” One third! We would never be able to do that in the States. It was also dirt cheap to do so.

I said, “I’d love to have this copied.” He produced another form to fill out. Next, I went to another librarian who counted up the number of pages to be copied and made out an order slip. I then went upstairs to the fourth-floor cashier to pay for my copies. The fellow was happily reading his newspaper, and I interrupted his moment of relaxation.

He took my money, filled out three different receipts for me, and stamped them all—although he took change for my copies from his own wallet. I didn’t ask but just took my receipt and headed back to the reading room. The librarian took my receipt and said it would be ready by the afternoon.

I came back at 3 p.m., and they said, “Your copies are ready.” I sat down and waited for a different librarian to find these copies. I filled out another form, signed and dated a few times to state I had received the copies. He gave me a slip of paper indicating all of this and told me to hold on to it.

We walked over to a different librarian who had a stapler. He made sure to put three staples across the top of the special bag for my copies. He asked if I was done for the day. We walked out to the seated security guards at the entrance/exit of the reading room. I was asked for the slip from earlier; I handed it to the guards. They inspected it and let me pass with my specially bagged copies.

As I was grabbing my backpack, the final librarian told me to stop and wait. I silently thought, “What rule have I broken now?!” He said something about the head librarian and scurried off. He returned with this glossy pamphlet which described the various offices at the National Library and a few of the procedures around here. I could have used this information when I got my library card, but ... I had it now. He told me that the head librarian that informed me about the copies in the first place also wanted me to have this pamphlet.

In the end, it took eight people to help me get copies of two chapters of a book. Total cost: seventy cents in U.S. currency. This is just one example of India’s uniqueness. As one of my former high school teachers, who also taught at the American school in Delhi, told me, “India: all the officiousness of the British without any of the efficiency.”

source: Ryan Booth

I have adopted another couple of sayings for myself here: “Not my country, not my rules,” and “Nothing in India works out exactly as you planned it.” My sayings have helped me get over some of the slowness of the officialdom, yet I also have often found it to be so much richer.

On a recent trip to the Assam State Archives, I encountered a different archival experience. The archives in Dispur are much smaller than the National Archives or National Library. The staff greeted me with enthusiasm since they rarely see foreigners interested in their holdings. They got my reader’s pass, gave me a brief tour of the facility, showed me how to use the online library catalog, and how to fill out the slips requesting materials.

Basically, they gave me platinum-level service, which is rare even in the States. Later in the day, one of the staff members quietly came over and said I needed to follow him: “Here we go again ... I’m in trouble,” I thought to myself.

Once we got outside the research room, however, the staffer said the archives director was in a meeting but wanted to meet me. I met him, and he asked more about my project. He had visited Seattle once, too, so we talked about the Emerald City. It was very pleasant to share that bond before I went back to looking at primary sources.

If there’s a bottom line to this whole Fulbright experience, it is that archives are run by people. We come in all shapes, sizes, dispositions, and backgrounds. There are more similarities between us than differences. The best part of all of this is when you find other researchers or an archivist who shares your same passion for the project—and what I like to call the “thrill of the hunt.”

Following the archival breadcrumbs to a document that few have looked at or a book that no one remembered existed ... these are thrilling moments for historians. The best part is when these forgotten items bear fruit by confirming your thesis. Once that is achieved, the inconveniences and slights seem to evaporate, and I’m on to the next place to try it all over again. 

About the author: Ryan W. Booth is a doctoral candidate in the history of the American West working with Dr. Peter Boag. His research focuses on Native Americans and their interactions with the U.S. military, and Booth’s dissertation explores the history of the U.S. Indian Scouts from 1866 to 1947 in the U.S. West and its imperial implications at the turn of the twentieth century. He earned degrees from Loyola University Chicago (BA 2001, cum laude) and Central Washington University (MA 2011). Booth worked previously for the Society of Jesus Oregon Province, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and Heritage University as a history instructor. In 2015, Washington Governor Jay Inslee appointed Booth to the Humanities Washington Board of Trustees for a three-year term. In 2019, he was named a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow for the 2019-2020 academic year to research the similarities between the American West and the British Raj in the late nineteenth century.