How a food crisis in India is feeding America’s library collections

In 1996, Ananya Vajpeyi, a doctoral student, discovered a fictional collection of South Asian books at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library.

“I spent time in some of the leading South Asian libraries in the world, in Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Columbia. Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), told me.

The 132-year-old University of Chicago has more than 800,000 volumes related to South Asia, making it one of the world’s leading collections for regional studies. But how did such a wealth of South Asian literature get there?

The answer lies in a program called PL-480a US initiative launched in 1954 under Public Law 480, also known as Food for Peace, a hallmark of Cold War diplomacy.

Signed into law by President Dwight D Eisenhower, PL-480 allowed countries like India to buy US grain with local currency, easing their foreign exchange burden and reducing US surpluses. India was one of the largest recipients of this food aid, especially during the 1950s and 1960s when it faced severe food shortages.

Local currency funds are provided at minimal cost to participating US universities. These funds were used to purchase local books, periodicals, phonograph records, and “other media” in several Indian languages, enriching the collections of more than two dozen universities. Institutions such as the University of Chicago have become hubs for South Asian studies as a result. (Manuscripts were excluded due to ancient Indian laws.)

“PL-480 has amazing and unexpected consequences for the University of Chicago and for more than 30 other collections in the US,” said James Nye, director of the Digital South Asia library at the University of Chicago, told the BBC.

The process of building an impressive library collection from South Asia is no simple task.

A special group staffed by 60 Indians was established in Delhi in 1959. Initially focused on acquiring government publications, the program was expanded within five years to include books and periodicals. By 1968, 20 US universities had received materials from the growing collection, according to Maureen LP Patterson, a leading bibliographer of South Asian studies.

In a ROLE published in 1969, Patterson recounts that in the early days of PL-480, the Indian team faced the challenge of finding books from a vast, diverse country with an intricate network of languages.

They need the expertise of booksellers who have a reputation for good judgment and efficiency. Because of India’s size and the complexity of its literary landscape, no single dealer could manage the purchase on their own, Patterson, who died in 2012, wrote.

Instead, vendors are selected from different publishing hubs, each focusing on specific languages ​​or groups of languages. This collaboration works seamlessly, with vendors submitting titles they are unsure about for approval. The final choice depends on Delhi OfficePatterson said.

The program is keen to get a comprehensive collection of Indian fiction in all languages. “Policy gets a lot of detective stories and novels of no lasting value,” Patterson wrote.

In 1963, the choice for acquiring books was reduced to “research level material” – and the use of fiction in many languages ​​was halved. By 1966, more than 750,000 books and periodicals had been sent to American universities from India, Nepal and Pakistan, with India contributing more than 633,000 items.

“We sent works like History of India from 1000 to 1770 AD, Handicrafts in India, Hindu Culture and Personality: A Psychoanalytic Study, etc.,” a report at a meeting in a US library program in 1967 said.

Todd Michelson-Ambelang, librarian for South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, wonders if the large collections from the region in the US and other Western libraries have taken away literary resources from the sub-continent. in India.

Founded during Cold War tensions and funded by PL-480, his university’s center in South Asia has grown its library to more than 200,000 titles in the 21st Century.

Mr Michelson-Ambelang told the BBC that removing books from South Asia through programs like PL-480 “creates knowledge gaps”, as researchers from there often have to travel to the West to access these resources.

It is not clear whether all the books that US universities acquired from India at the time are still there. According to Maya Dodd, of India’s FLAME University, many books that are no longer available in India can be found in the University of Chicago’s library collections, all marked with a stamp that says “PL-480” .

“For the most part, the books that came through the PL-480 program are still in South Asia. But preservation is often a challenge because of white ants, pests, and lack of temperature and humidity control. On the contrary , most of the materials in the West remain well preserved thanks to the preservation and conservation efforts of our libraries,” said Mr Michelson-Ambelang.

Another reason why Mr Michelson-Ambelang calls Western libraries colonial archives “is partly because they serve academics, often excluding those outside their institutions.

So, what happened when the PL-480 program ended?

Mr Nye said that ending the program in the 1980s, shifted the financial burden to American libraries. “U.S. libraries must pay for the selection, acquisition, collection, and delivery of resources,” he said. For example, the University of Chicago currently spends more than $100,000 annually to purchase books and periodicals through the Library of Congress. field office in Delhi.

Ms Vajpeyi believes that the deal on books for grain will have a positive outcome. He studied Sanskrit, but his research at the University of Chicago covered Indian and European languages ​​- French, German, Marathi, and Hindi – and touched on linguistics, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and more. “At the Regenstein Library, I never fail to find the books I need or get them right away if they aren’t already there,” he said.

“Books are safe, valued, accessible and used. I have visited libraries, archives and institutions in every part of India and the story of our country around the world is pathetic.”