Microfilm no. 45
Letters of Baker to his parents and others, 25 January 1931 to December 1932: i) from Madaripur where he writes he is transferred to Hijli as Governor of the Detention Camp for Political Prisoners at Kharagpur; ii) arrives February 1931; conditions in the camp; description of detainees; comments on Gandhi; iii) letter written on 17 September 1931 describing the incident in the camp when two detainees were killed and five wounded; iv) the consequences; v) Tagore’s intervention; vi) the Official Inquiry (Mullick and Drummond); vii) November in Sikkim on leave; viii) result of the Inquiry and consequences; ix) leaves Hijli; x) Congress intrigue; xi) reason for unrest – unemployment of the educated; xii) goes to Alipur (Duar Subdivision) very quiet; xiii) description of place and work; xiv) near another detainees camp; xv) missionaries; xvi) he feels the lack of money for social reform; xvii) tours tea gardens; xviii) at Rajshahi describes Christmas party with Anglo-Indians; xix) description of Busca Detainees Camp.
Pamphlet: ‘Chittagong and Hijli: British “Misrule” in Bengal’, published by J.M. Sen-Gupta. Foreword by Rabindranath Tagore. ‘Being the Report of the non-official Enquiry Committee on Recent Disturbances in Chittagong, and the Government Committee of Enquiry on Hijli Shooting.’
‘Travel Diary Journal’ (possibly amalgamated from diaries):
- Volume I, November 1927 – October 1932.
- Volume II, October 1932 – October 1936
- Volume III, October 1936 – March 1941:
Letters home, 1927 – 1928, 1929 – 1930, 1933: these are a most vivid and interesting ‘fill-in’ to the journal; he writes as a young and inexperienced official of all the details which strike him, and thus gives a vivid picture of the life of the administrator both from the work, the people, the stations and European life there; he goes into great detail and provides most interesting sidelights.
Click here to view this collection on the South Asian Studies website