OPENING A LIBRARY IN EVERY VILLAGE IS THE NEED OF THE HOUR

 

Libraries play a very healthy and impactful role in our lives. Books show us many worlds. And a house of books is like wandering the world without travelling. To-day, the biggest need of the whole of India is to build a library in every village, locality, town and city. Building a library in every village will definitely impact India's literacy rate in a positive way. The inadequate infrastructure and quality of faculty, is creating an imbalance in the skills and talents of the newer generation. Thus, the gap can be filled with books. The intention of opening a library in every village is the need of hour. Even half of it done would be an achievement in itself. 

Library status in India

In India, there is one rural library for every 11,500 people and one urban library for more than 80,000 people, according to the 2011 census — the first time the number of libraries was officially tallied. “However, there is no precise information on the functionality and level of service capabilities of these libraries,” says Preedip Balaji, a researcher and library consultant at the Indian Institute for Human Settlement (IIHS), Bengaluru. “The rural libraries could be a room with a few books, while others could be running through the support of private donors or NGOs.” 

If a person wants to do better and evolve in life, he/she will need the guidance of books. In India, our villages and small towns need libraries because there is lot of talent that can be guided rightly. Also, they have limited resources there. People are unable to buy books and for them the library is the only way through which they can acquire knowledge. For the full development of the personality of the youth, there is a special need for courses and competitive books.

Library in each Gram Panchayat

Not only the government but the gram panchayat of every village should build a library in every village at its level. Short story writer Alok Chopra also believes that there is a need to organize book fairs and exhibitions in villages and towns to reduce the growing distance between readers and books. Today, there is a need to develop the habit of reading more and more books in children. This will increase literacy in our country and people's interest towards education will also increase. Books play a great role in honing the personality of a person. 

In order to fuel the desire for knowledge, along with education, some state governments are taking steps towards opening libraries in villages. In Uttar Pradesh, libraries are being planned to be operated at the Gram Panchayat level through Lok Shiksha Kendra, following which the Basic Education Department will run an awareness campaign to create awareness around them. The good news is that work is already in progress in some villages.

Purnea has been among the least literate districts in Bihar for the past two censuses, in 2001 and 2011. But the district administration is trying to change that, and to end that, they are also setting up public libraries to cover its 230 gram panchayats and seven urban local bodies (ULBs). The drive, called ‘Abhiyaan Kitab-Daan’, began on 25 January 2020. People were invited to donate books from across the country to facilitate the setting up of public libraries in the district, and a total of 1.26 lakh books were collected through this initiative.

Purnea is not the only district to focus on expansion of literacy through panchayat libraries. Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have also implemented such initiatives in the past. In 2006, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government in power in Tamil Nadu at the time announced a landmark scheme called the ‘Anaithu Grama Anna Marumalarchi Thittam’, under which a library was supposed to be set up in every village panchayat. In Odisha, the Sambalpur district administration had also begun work on setting up libraries in its 138 gram panchayats.

The grim scenario

However, a 2013 report, by The New Indian Express, it was pointed out that a large number of these libraries are no longer functioning. In India, there are 19 states which have passed the public library act and remaining ten states are under the passing process. But if we compare these, the state having the public library law and those without public library act do not show major difference. After passing the act, many states put the act in cold bag.

The former President Pranab Mukherjee had said in an event held in Kolkata, "We often boast about India's demographic dividend. But the question that arises is what we do with this if we cannot skill them, if we cannot educate them and cannot enhance their employability."

Library: Gateways to knowledge and culture

The library has been in vogue in our country since ancient times, the biggest example of which is the library of Nalanda University, which was destroyed by foreign invaders but now it has been restored.

In 1925, Rabindranath Tagore started the Chalantika Library, chalantika being Bengali for ‘library on the move.’ While the official location for this library was Sriniketan, the revolutionary idea of a mobile library took books to different villages by different means: they walked, used bicycles, and even used bullock-drawn carts. These also became sites for “lantern lectures,” or lectures held by the light of lanterns in villages on topics of health, economic, and social development. 

The importance of a public library in life is no less than a public park or a playground. If we want to inculcate the hobby of reading and writing among the literate people for the growth of knowledge, then it will be necessary for us to pay attention to public libraries. The importance of libraries has also increased from the point of view that due to the ever-increasing prices of good books, it is not as easy for the common man to buy and read them as before.

Volunteers’ role in running local libraries

In order to run libraries in villages, locals should come forward and opt this mission voluntarily. Volunteers have a brilliant role to play in boosting capacity and outreach. Your local library does many things and libraries benefit greatly from volunteer support. Hundreds of UK libraries are still open – but only because voluntarily people have stepped in. On the 3^rd October, 2015, the Saiden village, located near Nongpoh (headquarter of Ri Bhoi district of Meghalaya) opened its own public library.

In November 2019, when Aizawl Lalhruatluanga Chawngte created a bookshelf attached to the roadside compound wall of his home, he was nervous. Now, these little free libraries are a hit among children all over Mizoram. Twenty-nine-year-old Patlolla, a farmer-poet-activist of Hyderabad, started a local library with his pocket money last year. Vijesh, a school teacher, along with a bunch of locals in Perumkulam, a village five km from Kottarakkara, Kerala, are spearheading the Pusthaka Koodu (book nest) initiative that involves placing small boxes containing books in various parts of their village.

Library at village level: Need of the Hour

India is relatively young as a nation with around 28 million youth population being added every year. More than 50 per cent of its population is below the age of 25 and more than 65 per cent are aged below 35. In 2020, the average age of an Indian was supposed to be 29 years, while it was 37 for China and 48 for Japan. Keeping this in view, India should take up the issue of opening libraries at village level very seriously. Similarly, Indian government should value volunteers for their additional services.

In many developed nations, e.g. USA, public libraries have become a place where the homeless come to read during the day time before returning to the streets or their shelters at night. There is much hope for similar libraries in India, but it would be a shame if the hope were to disintegrate into a lot of fissiparous projects. Bold thinking and action is called for – and then India may well have libraries that can lead the world. The opening of a library in each and every village as well as Panchayat is the pressing demand of public which can provide a very important social service. Again, people who reside in areas that have no electricity can still enjoy the services of a library – you don’t need electricity to be able to read a book, a candle light will do. A library provides knowledge to everyone irrespective of which class they belong to and what area they reside in.

 

 

Need a strong will and a highly devoted effort

Though, it is true that the setting up of the library in villages of India is not an easy task as we think; but if there is a strong will and highly devoted effort of the government, then everything is possible. The sufficient funds, creation of top-level authority, power of an autonomous body, awareness of common people, promotion by library professionals, help of NGOs and other things are required for change. So, in this context government of India as well as state government should take a serious action for the development and transformation of library and its activity for the betterment of society in the future.

 

In few states as we have described in the above paragraphs, that an initiative taken by an individual voluntarily for opening libraries in villages, town and kasba has proved to be valuable effort for the social development. The government should encourage such individuals who come forward for this noble cause. Library transformation in India is the need of the hour as several reports confirm. This is also necessary because in India, there is no uniform, country-wide system of administration for public libraries. The Rural Library Foundation is doing excellent work in this regard. We should help either by spending some time as a volunteer or by donating money to this upright cause. Thus, we, the people, can bring about a significant change in the lives of future generations who will help build a better nation and a better world!

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