Bangalore, Part II

I’ve spent over 4 weeks in India now, and am slowly recovering from a bad cold/sinus infection. This normally happens to me after spending a few weeks in-country – my immune system usually gets compromised due to the traveling, pollution, and weather. Getting sick is never fun, but it’s even less fun when you’re on your own, traveling on the road. At any rate, I’m on the path to recovery. It’s been a little while since my last blog entry, and there’s a lot I need to report on.

I arrived in Delhi from Bangalore on Sunday, Feb 3. My first reaction upon landing was the change of weather – a dim sky and cool breeze greeted me when I left the airport. But more about Delhi later. I need to reflect more on my last week in Bangalore, which was fairly eventful.

Indian Institute of Science (IISc)

On Monday, January 28, I had an afternoon meeting with Dr. S. Venkadesan, the director of the Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc) library. The institute is one of the top science universities in the country, and its library is considered to be one of the better ones in India. While he does not work in a public library, we discussed how the state of public libraries in India is fairly poor. Dr. Venkadesan observed that LIS programs in India may not be graduating enough well qualified people, and he remarked that library and information science is not a very highly regarded profession in India. With LIS often a “last resort” for some students, it is not surprising that the quality of LIS graduates in India may be low.

On another note, we had a discussion about the effectiveness of government in India – for a various set of reasons, it appears that centrally-funded initiatives in India (e.g., high level science, technology, etc.) are more efficiently run than state-funded ones. Thus, centrally-funded universities such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and IISc can run fairly smoothly without much detailed government oversight, while state-run projects, from primary education to road building, can face many bureaucratic and logistical tangles. He brought out the example of a request for funding – if someone asks for money to support a cyclotron project, most of the potential funders will not have the requisite knowledge to properly question this request. While funding could be denied, a fascination with the “high-tech” and complex nature of this project (in addition to the ignorance of the potential funders) would make it a project that would get funded and developed without much government interference. However, with the case of a more “mundane” request like the funding of a library, more administrators and funders who think they know what a library is and how it should run (despite the fact that they most likely do not and are not aware of the professional skills needed to run one) will feel more of an urge to micro-manage and control this type of project. Governance issues, particularly at the state level, remain key to the development and revitalization of public libraries in India. Implementation at the state and village levels is so crucial for public libraries in India, but if politics, micro-management, and corruption rear their ugly heads, then all the lofty ideals of public library revitalization may be sadly tarnished.

Rural Library Visit

After my visit with the Karnataka Public Library Director, Dr. Rajendra Kumar, I was put in touch with a district officer for rural libraries, Mr. K.G. Venkatesh. He called me and set up a day to take me on a visit to some rural libraries in Bangalore district. Mr. Venkatesh came to my uncle’s house on the morning of Tuesday, January 29 in an old Karnataka state government jeep. We went south on Kanakpura Rd. in Bangalore, heading out of the city. Since I did not have a lot of time to make visits to areas that were “deep” in the rural hinterland of Karnataka state, we had to settle on visiting a couple of villages that were fairly close to the city of Bangalore, within the limits of Bangalore district. Despite that fact that Bangalore is a city of over 6 million people, bona fide villages with dirt roads are close by.

The first village we reached was named Talaghattapura, about a half hour’s drive from Bangalore. Located on a dirt road directly off Kanakpura Rd., the library I saw in this village is a “model library” built by the state a year ago in cooperation with the village. This library serves about five villages in the surrounding area, and the land has been donated by the panchayat (a type of rural governing organization in India).

What immediately struck me about this building was its bright colors – the library is bathed in neon green, bright yellow, and orange. It is surrounded by a wall, with a garden in its courtyard, and the interior courtyard walls have sayings from various Indian luminaries (in Kannada) about the importance and value of reading and books. The actual library, aside from the large garden courtyard, consists of a reading room and a small side room with books, most in Kannada and with a few in English. On the upper walls of the reading room are framed photos of various great individuals in Indian history. The library appeared to be well-used, with a number of people (mostly men) sitting in the reading room, browsing through newspapers. I saw some women gathered around the building, and met the person in charge of the library, a young man most likely in his late 20’s or early 30’s. For most of these village and rural libraries, the person running the library is usually a part-time volunteer with another job that supports him/her. This particular library is open from 9 – 12 AM, and from 3 – 6 PM.

My appearance also seemed to have been quite anticipated in the village. I saw a photographer show up and take photos of the readers in the library, and thought this was part of some publicity for the library, since it was a new “model” library for the state to show off. However, I soon learned that the extra people at the library and the photographer were there for me, the visitor from America. Apparently the public library director for the state had told all his staff about me, and they were prepared for my arrival. The photo-ops then began in full earnest – photos of me with the library staff, the district officer, kids from the village, random people, etc. While I must have posed for about 10 of these types of photos, it was endearing. It was nice to feel the affection of these people from the village, and the pride they seemed to have in the library was evident. One old man, probably in his 80s, talked to the district officer Mr. Venkatesh and me for several minutes about his time as a headmaster of the school in the village, and how he became the headmaster even with only an education up to the seventh standard. Seeing the warmth and affection of these people really made it come home to me about why I am interested in this work. I feel deep down in my gut that India’s development issues have to be really be dealt with at the rural level, and Mr. Venkatesh also emphasized to me that India’s rural library sector needs to be transformed for real results to be seen. Despite the burgeoning cities, India still has a majority rural population base. Being in this village also reminded me about how just a few generations ago my ancestors were living in villages just like this one, and how rewarding it would be to give back to the rural places that have given my family and culture so much.

Overall, I was happy to see this model library, and was impressed by its beauty and cleanliness, and the pride the people took in it. However, I knew this was an exception to the rule, and the next village library I visited in Somanahally (a few kilometers south of Tallaghattapura) reminded me of this fact. This library was in a rented commerical space, and had one librarian, a Ms. Gundamaddama, in charge of it. I did not see anyone patronizing the library, and both the collection and the building itself looked old and in need of refurbishing. The small crowd that developed later at the library seemed to be more interested in my and the district officer’s visit. As a more “typical” rural library in Bangalore district, it illustrated the great challenges that rural libraries face in being relevant, lively centres of information access for their populations. Is the Talaghattapura library a model for other rural libraries in Karnataka to follow? Perhaps this is a question to animate further work….