Why were the official records not always helpful to understand the psyche of the people
Answers
Official records were not always helpful to understand the psyche of people because such records reflect the position of the government. ... British government wanted to save the important documents and they made many efforts to save them from getting destroyed.
British recorded all the information for making administration work easier. They considered that writing is important so every plan, policy, decision, agreement, investigation was recorded in a written form. This makes it easier to debate and discuss various issues. This led to the formation of memos, notings and reports which included all the information of the administration system of the British rule.
They also believed in the preservation of the documents and letters. For this purpose, they created record rooms for every administrative institution like village tahsildar’s office, the Collectorate, the commissioner’s office, the provincial secretariats, the law courts. Records were also preserved by the specialised institutions like archives and museums. Notes and reports prepared by the district officials or the instructions and directives sent by the officials at the top to provincial administrators were still available and preserved. As the system of printing evolved all records were printed in multiple numbers and used for the proper functioning of the government department.
Official records were not always helpful to understand the psyche of people because such records reflect the position of the government. Even if some policies were having harmful effect on the people, official records were likely to conceal such harmful effects and instead, claim that the policies were beneficial.