Bhaktavatsalam’s take on the destruction of documents relating to anti-Hindi agitation

The destruction of the Tamil Nadu government records, including those connected with the anti-Hindi agitation during the final days of the Congress government in 1967, came to the fore recently with the publication of an article in this newspaper last month. However, what has been overlooked in the public discourse is the version of the then Chief Minister, M. Bhaktavatsalam (1897-1987), at whose behest the documents were destroyed. When the DMK stormed to power for the first time in 1967, the last Chief Minister of the Congress in the State, who held the post from October 1963 to March 1967, lost in Sriperumbudur. Five of his Cabinet colleagues, too, were defeated. As an administrator, he had earned the reputation of being stickler for rules.

Within weeks of the DMK assuming office, the issue of destruction of files cropped up in the Assembly. During the debate, the DMK’s first Chief Minister, C.N. Annadurai, said that “probably”, Bhaktavatsalam  thought he [Annadurai] would feel pained to read about the bad treatment meted out to his colleague, M. Karunanidhi, which the latter himself had not disclosed to him, according to a report of The Hindu on March 30, 1967.

‘Police threatened’

Bhaktavatsalam defended his action. The Hindu report next day quoted him as saying that during the election campaign, he had seen reports of speeches by Karunanidhi (then Public Works Minister) that if he became the Home Minister, he would deal with the police “who were not behaving”. Contending that it was “not proper” for Karunanidhi to threaten the police, he recalled that at the time of Independence, the British government had removed files on Congressmen before handing over the administration.

But Karunanidhi, in his autobiography Nenjukku Needhi (Volume 1), recounted what he had told the media then: he denied he had ever made those observations. Also, it might have been proper for the former Chief Minister to cite the British precedent but, as far as he [Karunanidhi] was concerned, Bhaktavatsalam’s reason was “more erroneous” than his original “mistake”. When many demanded stringent action against Bhaktavatsalam, Annadurai, in tune with “his characteristic of being magnanimous”, did not proceed against him, Karunanidhi recorded.

The Hindu, on March 31, 1967, threw more light on the rationale behind Bhaktavatsalam’s action. “When it became known that there would be a change of government in Madras, Mr. Bhaktavatsalam said he was ‘advised’ (not by the police) that papers relating to certain politicians against whom detention orders had been served need not be kept so that they would not be available to the very people who were likely to take charge of the government.”

Pointing out that “intelligence is the very limb of administration”, Bhaktavatsalam said that those vested with this responsibility should do their work objectively. If the Ministers were to know about those officers who had made reports about them, they would get prejudiced against the officers. “Police officers should not be victimised or should not have the fear that they would be victimised,” he told reporters. If the officers were exposed, they would not discharge their work fearlessly. It was against these circumstances that he acted on the advice.

Advice to police

Terming as “unfortunate” Annadurai’s remarks in the Assembly that the previous government would have had no qualms in destroying files when it “had the heart to shoot down 500 persons”, Bhaktavatsalam  maintained that none of the files destroyed had any reference to the number of those killed. He urged the police to be the “limb” of the new government as it had been to the previous government in intelligence work. In his autobiography Enathu Ninaivugal, published by the Jananayaga Seva Sangam in October 1971, he repeated the essence of his explanation. He also pointed out that Kautilya’s Arthashastra and Thiruvalluvar’s Thirukkural had emphasised on intelligence as an essential activity in government.

Notwithstanding his elaborate reasoning, many leaders criticised his decision to destroy the records. In the Assembly, Annadurai said no files relating to the anti-Hindi imposition agitation had been moved to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. In the Rajya Sabha, the irrepressible Bhupesh Gupta (CPI) raised it twice in two months. Initiating a discussion on March 31, 1967, on the interim budget of Rajasthan, then under President’s rule, Gupta called Bhaktavatsalam’s order “extremely dangerous” and contended that the defeated Chief Minister “may even order that the entire Secretariat be burnt”, according to a report of The Hindu.

Gupta and members of the Praja Socialist Party and the Samyukta  Socialist Party, on June 9, clashed with Home Minister Y.B. Chavan and Union Minister of State for Home V.C. Shukla over the destruction of records in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. As for the Southern State, Chavan reiterated that the Centre did not pass any order on the burning of documents. However, it had requested the State to return certain papers, he said, according to the transcript of the discussion of the Rajya Sabha for the day.

Five years later, Karunanidhi, who became the Chief Minister in 1969, and Bhaktavatsalam were involved in a spat over the issue, as the former had alleged the files, relating to a clash at Tiruvannamalai in 1965, were burnt on the direction of the latter. Bhaktavatsalam reiterated that he had ordered the removal from the file of papers pertaining to confidential police reports on certain politicians, on the basis of which action had been taken. He had himself noted this in the file concerned. “No other file was touched by me,” he was quoted as having said in a report of this newspaper on April 1, 1972. Two years later, in his criticism of the Congress leader, the AIADMK headquarters secretary, H.V. Hande, who became the Health Minister in the MGR Cabinet, referred to the issue and he recalled Annadurai’s statement in the Assembly that 13 files were destroyed.

Time stipulation

The system of destruction of files and other records is still in vogue and the Public Records Act, 1993, prescribes how to handle destruction or disposal of records. A cross-section of senior officials, both serving and retired, says that as in the West, India follows the system of time stipulation for declassification. Under the law, it is ordinarily 25 years. This principle has been incorporated into the Defence Ministry’s policy (2021) on archiving too. As the governments, at the Centre and in States, are increasingly following the system of e-filing, there is a view that guidelines in the digital era have not yet been made comprehensive. Notwithstanding improvements being made in the scheme of things, the idea of the authorities should be to create an open administration at all levels so that issues like the Bhaktavatsalam controversy are studied dispassionately. 

Published – March 06, 2026 05:30 am IST