On May 29, 2023 IIMA Archives and the Gujarat State Archives (GSA) launched an online exhibition, Maritime Trade of Gujarat's Princely States: Nawanagar and Porbandar (https://archives.iima.ac.in/exhibitions/Maritime-Trade-Of-Gujarats-Princely_States.html). The exhibits were drawn from the Jamnagar and Porbandar offices of GSA. GSA has four other offices at Vadodara, Junagadh, Bhavnagar and Rajkot cities of Gujarat, and a head office at the state capital Gandhinagar. Though GSA was formally established only in December 1971, some of its units have a long history. The Vadodara office was established in 1879; the Rajkot office has been in existence since 1857, and the Junagadh unit was set up between 1840-45 during the time of Nawab Hamid Khan Babi II (r. 1840-1858).

The primary objective of GSA is to archive and preserve the public records of the Government of Gujarat. In addition, it preserves the private papers of eminent personalities and other documents of archival value.

As of 2023, GSA had 2,641,584 archival records and 82,102 rare books. The Gandhinagar office deals with the administrative records of the government. The other offices reflect the unique history of Gujarat-records from the hundreds of princely states that went into the formation of present-day Gujarat state. For example, the Vadodara office has a rich collection of records of the Baroda state from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The Rajkot office maintains the records of a number of princely states of Saurashtra, including the administrative reports of key states such as Morbi, Gondal, Nawanagar, Porbandar, Wankaner and Dhrangadhra. The Junagadh has, apart from the records of many princely states, the records of the independent state of Saurashtra (1948 to 1956). The Jamnagar office is focussed on Nawanagar state (present-day Jamnagar), and Porbandar on the adjacent state of Porbandar. The Bhavnagar office maintains the records of many princely states of the region.

In an article in the February 2005 issue of Raj Daftar, Samant V. Vada, an assistant archivist at GSA recalled the work done in collecting records related to the Gujarat earthquake of 2001, and the exhibitions GSA organized during events such as the International Kite Festival in Ahmedabad. In recent years, GSA has embarked on a major effort to digitize its records-about 75 percent of the work has been completed. In addition, significant investments have been made in augmenting storage facilities at some of the offices. GSA plans to make the digitized records public in phases. A pilot project to make available 50,000 files to the public is about to be launched. These efforts are bound to encourage students of history and researchers working on Gujarat.

GSA, Sector-17, Abhilekhagar Bhawan, Gandhinagar

Director: Dr. S.B. Solanki, dir-archi-gnr@gujarat.gov.in

Figure 1: Gazette notification of the Nawanagar State, June 5, 1875