Historical background

As a country, India is staggeringly large and diverse. The nation is home to over a billion people spread out over an area of 1.3 million square miles, which makes the provision of library service especially challenging. To put this in perspective, the standards of the International Federation of Library Associations recommend a library for every 3,000 people situated within a mile of the population that it serves. To meet the first requirement, India would need approximately 343,000 public library locations (it currently has 60,000). To meet the second requirement, India would have to address the needs of its approximately 568,000 inhabited villages (Ghosh, 2004). Providing proper library service under these circumstances with an economy that is still developing is clearly quite challenging, and while India has accomplished more than some countries might have under similar circumstances, there is still much progress to be made.

Libraries in India were established as long ago as the sixth century AD. Various ancient universities in India maintained their own libraries, but access was generally restricted to scholars and academics. Beginning around the thirteenth century, the Mughal emperors greatly expanded the country’s libraries. These institutions, while not truly public libraries as they were not open to the general public, represented a long tradition of scholasticism and culture in India. While it can be said that the British brought true ‘public’ libraries to India, they came at a cost of cultural upheaval and were more of a Western product imported to a colonized society, rather than an Indian institution imbued with a British improvement or two (Wani, 2008).

Subscription libraries were among the Western ideas that arrived in India with the British in the nineteenth century. Like their Western counterparts, they were not truly ‘public’ libraries as they were not free to all. The first three truly public libraries in India were established in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai, and were financed largely by wealthy foreigners. The public library in Kolkata would eventually become the National Library of India in 1906 (Wani, 2008).

The first third of the twentieth century was a period of rapid but uneven development for public libraries in India.

The first national public library act, the Imperial Library Act, was passed in 1902 and the country began to host nationwide library conferences in 1914. Certain areas also began to rapidly expand their public library systems. For example, the ruler of the Princely State of Baroda went so far as to import an American librarian from Massachusetts to develop a public library system in his state after being impressed with that of the United States. Unfortunately, Baroda was a unique case and the rest of the nation did not see such progress. This kind of patchy growth would unfortunately become a theme in the development of India’s public library system (Wani, 2008).

A major advocate for the adoption of a universal public library system in India (and a titan of library advocacy and philosophy in general) was S.R. Ranganathan. Ranganathan studied the public library system of the United Kingdom and was deeply impressed by their accessibility and their potential to educate the lower class, becoming a ‘force for democracy’. When he returned to India in 1925, he began his life’s work of promoting a system of public libraries, which he believed were an important part of building India as a nation, culturally and politically. As a leader in the Madras Library Association (MALA), Ranganathan worked to build a network of libraries with the idea of outreach towards the nation’s millions of poor, rural residents. He also recognized, like the Indian National Congress, the potential in public libraries to be the focal points of intellectual dissent from British colonial rule, as well as resistance to Marxist ideas that threatened Congress’s vision of democracy. Ranganathan was also convinced that the government must play a role in the development of library services (Roe, 2010). It was mainly due to Ranganathan’s efforts that the nation’s first state-level public library bill was passed in Chennai in 1948 (Jambhekar, 1995).

One of the first major post-independence public library initiatives undertaken by the Indian government was the appointment in 1958 of a nine-member committee to determine the future course of public libraries in India. Headed by Shri K.P. Sinha (and commonly referred to as the Sinha Committee), the committee made plain its low opinion of the current public library system in India, referring to it as a ‘stagnant pool of books’. Library users, the report noted, were not trusted and were required to put down monetary deposits that the lower classes could simply not afford. True public library service, the committee asserted, was a rarity. It recommended the complete overhaul of public libraries based on a hierarchical system of state library networks and uniform library legislation (Ghosh, 2004). It also recommended an overhaul of the curriculum used to educate library professionals (Joshi, 2010).

In response to the state of inequality among Indian public libraries, the national government created the Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF) in 1972. The RRRLF is a multi-faceted organization that works in many ways for the advancement of Indian public libraries. For example, the RRRLF funds 28 state libraries and acts as a resource and training clearinghouse for the creation of public libraries all over India (Ghosh, 2004). It provides matching book donation grants, construction funds, and automation assistance directly to individual public libraries. The RRRLF also conducts regular site visits to public libraries through its four Zonal Offices, which are tasked with assessing the state of their zone’s public library system and reporting back to the central authority. In the area of advocacy, the RRRLF pushes for further legislation and a national public library policy, as well as the establishment of a public library network. While the RRRLF has been a lifesaver for many libraries, it has had the unfortunate side effect of making small libraries dependent on its grants as opposed to local funds (Reddy, 2008).

Current framework

The library consortia and networks in India are illustrative of the irregular growth of libraries in India. While academic and special libraries have developed these types of collaborations, public libraries have not. For example, the national government established the Indian National Digital Library in Science and Technology (INDEST) Consortium, which funds subscriptions to electronic resources to 38 of India’s science and technology research institutions. There is also the University Grants Commission of India, which provides high speed Internet access to 150 research institutions (Moghaddam and Talawar, 2008). Currently, there is no such network or group for public libraries operating at the national level. The benefits of potential public library consortia are clear: reduction of costs due to collective purchasing, enhanced access to shared resources, and lower administrative costs (Ghosh et al., 2006).

Across India, public libraries can generally be divided into four basic types: state, central and regional libraries; city library systems; district library systems; and other miscellaneous libraries such as village and slum libraries. The quality of these libraries across the country is extremely inconsistent, with some areas doing much better than others. Rural states, in general, are extremely underserved by public libraries in India while urban areas like Delhi and Mumbai have reasonably good libraries. States in the southern portion of India also tend to have better library service than their counterparts in the north. One thing almost all libraries in India have in common is a lack of technology and automation (Pyati, 2009a).

Public libraries in India are struggling to define themselves. In the absence of any national-level body to provide guidance, public libraries seem unsure of their mission. Many are simply storerooms of books, often in non-native languages such as English. The National Policy on Library and Information System (NAPLIS) in 1986 called for libraries to move away from this model to that of an information center, incorporating services like adult education and public health, but very little progress was made toward this goal due to bureaucratic and political inertia. Some libraries have undertaken efforts, if not to provide actual community information, then to at least provide access to it by becoming a center for technology and connectivity. These libraries have experienced a ‘fair deal’ of success, providing access to information such as crop prices and weather predictions (Pyati, 2009a).

Legislation and legal structure

The provision of public library service officially became the responsibility of each of India’s 28 states and six union territories when India enacted its Constitution in 1950. To date, however, only 11 of these states have passed public library acts, and only four allow for the collection of taxes to support library service (Wani, 2008; Ghosh, 2004). Similarly, Internet connectivity initiatives have been left up to governments at the state level. The level of progress from state to state is highly variable. Some states have announced e-government projects, some have launched technology literacy initiatives, and some have done nothing (Nikam, 2004).

While there is no overarching national public library policy in India to guide their growth, public libraries have been mentioned in the national government’s Five Year Plans, which have been issued since 1950. The real effect of these plans on public libraries is questionable, however. In the current Five Year Plan, a document that is over 1,000 pages long, public libraries receive this attention:

If the national government of India is taking provisions for the planning of public library service, it is not apparent from the Five Year Plans. The plans do note, though, that the public libraries of India received 7.1 percent less funding than was called for by the previous Five Year Plan. This plan had called for the modernization of India’s public libraries and the creation of schemes to add book stock.

In 2007, the national government created the National Knowledge Commission (NKC). The goal of the NKC was to suggest ways to improve access to information for the nation’s rural population and those in poverty. Libraries were specifically addressed by the NKC, and ten specific recommendations for the improvement of library service were issued. Some of the improvements are basic, such as ‘re-assess staffing’ and ‘revamp library and information science education [and] training’. Others are much more ambitious, such as the development of a National Commission on Libraries, which would help create something resembling a set of national library standards (for all libraries, not just public) in India. Another goal is to conduct a national census of all libraries in India, with the goal of at least mapping the inequalities that persist in the Indian public library system. As the NKC notes, no one can claim to know exactly how many libraries are operating in India, and current statistics ‘seem to be based on the basis of broad ideas and guesswork’. To help libraries achieve clarity of mission, the NKC recommends that all libraries adopt and display a library charter that enumerates the library’s objectives (in other words, to develop a very basic mission statement and strategic plan) (Gupta, 2007).

Conclusion

India, the world’s largest democracy, is certainly coming into its own on the world stage. Its 300 million strong middle class put it on par with many Western nations in terms of purchasing power. However, the fact that most of India’s wealth and education is centered around only a small portion of its population, while the majority struggle in illiterate poverty, is certainly a limiting factor on its growth. While the statements of the NKC and the work of groups like the RRRLF provide hopeful signs that India is beginning to make progress towards providing a universal network of public libraries, much work is yet to be done to extend library service into India’s vast rural regions. So far, India’s post-independence governments have a poor track record of extending basic social services to the legions of rural poor. It is hard to imagine public libraries spreading out to all corners of the country without the national government taking a strong policy stance (Pyati, 2009b).

Leaving public library service up to each state has the benefit of allowing each state to craft a unique solution to its own unique conditions, but it also allows for less endowed states (or less motivated ones) to fall behind. Like in other countries that leave such policy mandates completely to local authorities, India’s library system contains haves and have-nots. The foundation of public library cooperatives and/or consortia, as well as increased attention from the national government to the plight of public libraries especially in the rural areas, would go a long way toward evening out the levels of service across the country. That being said however, India has made monumental progress in providing library service to its people in the short time since its independence, especially considering the conditions it has had to struggle against. The number of public library locations has roughly tripled in the last 50 years, and in the same period the universal literacy rate has risen from 18 percent to 61 percent (Jambhekar, 1995). Hopefully, the coming years will see India continue to make progress that is evenly distributed throughout the country.

Useful websites

National Knowledge Commission’s report on libraries in India: http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/focus/libraries.asp

Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation (English version): http://rrrlf.nic.in/rrlf1.htm

References