Book a place
The HRD minister thinks aloud about neighbourhood libraries. That’s a great idea
Throughout history, social modernisers have looked to the public library as a crucial tool in their arsenal. Through the nineteenth century, public benefactors and philanthropists set up public libraries; men who strived to be model employers gave their millhands reading rooms with modern newspapers. And the state got in the act, too; the Boston Public Library declares across its frontage, in giant letters, that the Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty. India has been slow to pick up on this, though, even as our literacy levels have started reaching the point where libraries and reading rooms can start making a perceptible difference.
Thats why the recent statement by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, at a conference where a draft of a National Book Promotion Policy was under discussion, that neighbourhood reading rooms should be made a priority, just as neighbourhood schools are, is particularly welcome. Reading rooms with basic books, a set of newspapers, and an internet connection that everyone can use, can serve as the nucleus for community life, for continuing re-education and skill upgradation. It isnt as if people dont reach towards these things anyway. You cant pass a Kolkata street corner that doesnt have people looking up at a (usually partisan) newspaper tacked up on an old bamboo board.
Sibal referred to Tamil Nadus policy on reading rooms. That famously progressive state was indeed the first to push public libraries as state policy. Theres a lot more that can be done, though. If nothing else, the presence of a proper local reading room means a place thats secure, well-policed, and yet publicly accessible of which there are all too few in our towns.