600-yr-old manuscripts lie in shambles due to fund crunch

Many Persian and Arabic scholars,both Indian and foreign,base their research on the library’s collection of these and other ancient texts.

Professor Mohaiyuddin G Bombaywala,director of the Hazrat Pirmohammed Shah Library and Research Centre,said: “These manuscripts contain the history of the state. It is my job to preserve them for the future generation. But how do I do it?”

The library receives a grant-in-aid of Rs 30,000 per annum from the state government,apart from an annual grant of Rs 1 lakh from the National Archives,New Delhi.

The Pirmohammed Shah library,which is run by a trust,finds itself constantly short of money as it also assists Muslim children financially by providing tuition fees and money to buy books for their formal education.

The grants are distributed internally; half is set-aside to pay for the maintenance and development of the collection (including buying of national and internationally published journals),while the other half is disbursed as salary for the staff.

Professor Bombaywala says it is ridiculous to maintain a staff for an entire year with a sum of Rs 15,000. “I can’t even hire an errand boy with that amount,” he says.

The library also cannot afford equipment to catalogue and preserve the manuscripts,although certain chemicals are provided by the National Archives.

Cataloguing the tattered ancient manuscripts requires experts in Persian and Arabic. Fortunately,three scholars are at present volunteering for the task.

“We work here for free. Some of the manuscripts are intact,but most of them are in bad shape. There is no money to preserve them,” says one of the volunteers,Professor Jamaluddin Sheikh,who teaches Persian at Lal Dharwaja City Girls College.

Despite the difficulties,the team has come out with nine catalogues. They intend to finish the process with 12 catalogues,but are unsure when they will be able to bring out the last three.

According to Bakulesh Bhuta,state Librarian at the Central Library,Vadodara,the Sports,Youth and Culture Department of the Gujarat government gives grant-in-aids to 4,534 libraries ranging from city libraries to village libraries across the state.

The department allots equal amounts to each library of the various categories. But the Gujarat Public Library Act,2001,is yet to be fully implemented.

“The rules are yet to be framed. The government has taken a long time,” says P C Shah,president of the Gujarat Granthalaya — Seva Sangh and former member of the Gujarat Library Board.