We have been told. Again and again.
By Phule. By Ambedkar. By Ranganathan. By committees the government itself appointed. The plans exist; the will does not. Here is the historical case for free public libraries in India — the words, the dates, and the people who said them first.
1915. Columbia University. A letter to Bombay.
In 1915, writing from Columbia, a young Ambedkar urged the Bombay government to build a library in honour of Sir Pherozshah Mehta — not a statue. The statue went up. A century on, India is still building statues, expressways named after donors, and vanity projects. Not libraries.
+ The longer story
Ambedkar was reading for his Master's in Economics and Political Science at Columbia in 1915. The Bombay government had proposed a statue to commemorate Sir Pherozshah Mehta, the Parsi reformer and Congress leader, who had just died. Ambedkar wrote back: build a library in his name. Not a statue. The statue went up. A century on, the same logic governs every public-spending priority.
Source: Narake, Kasare, Kamble & Godghate (Eds.) (2014), Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17(III), p. 162. Govt. of Maharashtra. Cited via Round Table India.
Built by movements, refused by the State.
From Phule to Chattopadhyay, the long arc gave hope in pieces — anti-caste reformers and people's movements built reading rooms, village libraries, science circles. The State drafted plans, then shelved them. Scrub the timeline:
Our people have been saying this for two centuries.
Illustration borrowed and recoloured from sadancanada.org.
Sources, data & citations
- Ambedkar's 1915 letter on Sir Pherozshah MehtaNarake, H., Kasare, M. L., Kamble, N. G., & Godghate, A. (Eds.) (2014), Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 17(III), p. 162. Government of Maharashtra.
- Chattopadhyay Committee, 1986Report of the Committee on National Policy on Library and Information System, Department of Culture, Government of India, May 1986.
- National Mission on Libraries, 2014; 2016 recategorisation; 2019–20 sunsetMinistry of Culture; PIB (3 Aug 2016); Rajya Sabha replies Q.277 (12.03.2020), Q.310 (Feb 2022).
- Phule's writingsMahatma Phule, Gulamgiri (1873), Shetkaryancha Asud (1881).
- Ranganathan, S. R.The Five Laws of Library Science (1931). Madras Library Association.
- PeriyarPeriyar E. V. Ramasamy, Kudi Arasu (1925-onwards).
- Birsa MundaK. S. Singh, Birsa Munda and His Movement, 1874-1901 (1983). Oxford University Press.
- Savitribai PhuleM. G. Mali (Ed.), Savitribai Phule's Collected Works (1988).
- Library law & policy framingPeople's National Library Policy 2024 (Free Libraries Network, fln.org.in).