A digital archive of former PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s writings and historical records has attracted more than one million unique visitors and recorded over four million page views in its first year, with the Congress on Saturday announcing plans to expand the repository to include rare letters, photographs, films, audio recordings and documents from India and abroad.Marking the first anniversary of nehruarchive.in, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the online repository, containing 100 volumes of the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, had drawn considerable interest from students, researchers, historians, journalists and the general public. The collection covers the period from 1903 to 1964 and comprises nearly 77,000 pages, more than 34,000 text documents and over 3,000 images, offering an extensive record of Nehru’s personal, political and public life.Ramesh said the archive had been designed to make historical documents accessible to a wider audience, particularly younger readers. The platform is smartphone-friendly and allows users to search, download and translate material free of cost. He said the repository had also attracted Nehru’s admirers, sceptics and critics, providing primary historical material for research and public discussion.Announcing the next phase, Ramesh said the second edition, nehruarchive@2, would move beyond the Selected Works and bring together a much larger collection of Nehru-related material from sources across India and overseas. The proposed expansion will include correspondence, photographs, documents, books, films, audio recordings and political cartoons published during Nehru’s lifetime.The archive is an initiative of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, established after Nehru’s death in 1964. Its trust deed was signed on December 21, 1964, by then Vice-President Zakir Husain, PM Lal Bahadur Shastri and 30 other prominent personalities. Ramesh also recalled the appeal issued by then President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan in support of the fund.Taking aim at the BJP and PM Narendra Modi, the Congress leader accused Nehru’s political critics of attempting to distort his historical legacy. Ramesh said the digital archive would serve as a “kavach” (shield) to preserve, protect and promote Nehru’s contribution to modern India.