While President Draupadi Murmu is all set to launch the Festival of Libraries tomorrow, August 5, in New Delhi, the students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) are protesting at the university’s Centre of Historical Studies (CHS) library to resist its alleged closure.
The resistance started on August 2, when the students of the CHS department in JNU witnessed books being moved out of the library. Later, a board for the Special Centre for Tamil Studies was put up outside the CHS library.
However, denying the allegations of a ‘closure’, the JNU Vice-Chancellor Prof Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit told EdexLive that the library is only being relocated.
Speaking to EdexLive, the VC said, “No one is closing down anything. It is just a relocation. All buildings belong to the university and this is a unanimous decision of the Executive Council. It is a prudent use of space for all centres. Many spaces are unused so these marginal Indian languages like Tamil, Odia, Assamese and Kannada are contributing to diversity, difference and democracy. It is enriching for JNU and few centres cannot occupy larger spaces while others have none. This is also for students.”
Students resist displacement
The students of the CHS department and the JNU Student's Union (JNUSU) have been protesting against the closure or relocation of the library stating that the library houses several rare and important books and holds academic as well as historical importance.
Today, August 4, the CHS Student Community wrote a letter to the VC demanding to stop the process of relocation.
“This issue is not an isolated incident but part of a recurring pattern where libraries and reading rooms are being closed within the JNU campus by the JNU administration. The Library in the School of Languages has been locked out since 2019, and an attempt to close the reading room in the School of International Studies has also been made in the past. We will not let this happen to the CHS library,” the letter read.
The students also highlighted that the process to relocate the library was started by the JNU administration without any prior intimation to the students.
A delegation from the JNUSU will also be meeting the VC to discuss the issue.
Anagha Pradeep, JNUSU Councillor, said “There is already a space crunch in the libraries. They are saying that the CHS library might be merged with the EXIM Bank library which is for the students of the Economics department. The Economics department alone has 500-600 students. We will meet the university administration to put forward the students’ concerns.”
Students are not the only ones protesting against the closure of the library. The Indian History Congress, an academic body and association of professional historians, also shared a statement condemning the closure of the CHS library.
“The Indian History Congress takes it as another attempt to harm a study of our past, which has been happening since the last few years. Any attempt to restrict the accessibility or the availability of books, including sources, for the study of the past, is nothing but another step towards furthering myths in place of history,” said Professor Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, Secretary of the Indian History Congress.
Funds from the Tamil Nadu government
In December 2022, the university had received a Rs 5 crore corpus from the Tamil Nadu government to set up the Centre for Tamil Studies.
The students are now questioning where this allocated fund is being used if no dedicated building is being constructed for the department.
“We welcome the idea of opening new institutions and special centres, however, it should not be at the cost of the existing ones. We also urge you to utilise the funding [of about 5 crores] received from the Tamil Nadu Govt. for building the new centre,” the letter written to the VC said.
Importance of CHS library
Yesterday, on August 3, a group of students from the CHS department occupied the library area to prevent it from being merged with the EXIM Bank library.
The students have stressed that the collection at the CHS library is of extreme importance. The library has over 18,000 books, hundreds of PhD theses, and rare-bound volumed journals in its collection. Further, it also has properly catalogued pamphlets and photographs, that are available for research and reference purposes. Books as old as 150 years have been preserved in the library and are an asset to future generations of scholars.
Saib Bilaval, PhD scholar from JNU’s History department, told EdexLive, “The library has to be preserved in its present form as it has personal collection of legendary scholars like Satish Chandra and DD Kosambi. We have physical copies of proceedings of the Indian History Congress, we have rare journal issues which can no longer be accessed anywhere else. We have books which have not been in print for 30-40 years. There are PhD theses of former JNU scholars. If it is all going to be displaced to different libraries, it hinders the availability of this collection for the students.”
The students added that there is a risk of extremely important documents being discarded or lost in the process of relocation.
(With inputs from Mrittika Banerjee)
