Almost two decades ago, when researching the Sino-Indian border dispute, I spoke to a senior official from India’s Ministry of External Affairs about the document declassification process. Some items that I sought were over 25 years old, which meant that they should have been declassified, but I couldn’t find them. When I reminded the official, he smiled and said, “Yes, there is the 25-year rule; we apply it selectively.” My hopes of accessing materials that were crucial for my work simply evaporated.
Seven decades after independence, India still relies on the colonial-era Official Secrets Act of 1923 to keep information it deems sensitive from the public. This legislation grants the government sweeping power to limit access to classified information—which is seems to have used quite liberally.
