Opinion In Mumbai, a corner for the life of the mind
The Asiatic Society’s neglect by the city is evident in the inattention to staff complaints of delayed dues and to disrepair
The chairs have broken arms. The bathrooms are barely usable. But there is a rare freedom within these walls: A freedom to pursue any line of thought, any idea. To let one’s mind wander wherever it seeks to go and to immerse itself as deeply as it must 
As recent media reports suggest, a battle for control is underway at the venerable Asiatic Society of Mumbai. Its outcome is yet to be seen. But this brief moment offers a rare opportunity to consider the significance of this 221-year-old institution.
James Mackintosh, a Scottish jurist and historian, founded it as a literary society at the beginning of the 1800s, imitating William Jones’s Asiatic Society of Bengal. Jones, a Sanskrit scholar and philologist, is considered to be the father of Oriental studies. Mumbai’s Asiatic Society similarly aimed at promoting useful knowledge, particularly connected with India.
Bringing the collections of the Medical and Literary Library, the Geographical and Anthropological societies of Bombay under its ambit and merging with the Royal Society of Great Britain and Ireland as its Bombay Branch in 1826, the Society emerged as a potent force in the city. Indians were admitted as members by 1841. Membership in the early years, as the Asiatic Society website claims, consisted of “administrators, jurists, educationists,” many of whom were also scholars, important contributors to the Indian renaissance, active and influential in public life and “engaging with issues of social reform and nationalism.”
There is an intriguing continuity between these aspects of the history of the Asiatic Society and tendencies in contemporary politics. The studies of colonial orientalists find an echo in the BJP’s revivalist narrative, and the suggestion of elitism, reformist inclinations and anti-colonialism among members of its bête noire, the Congress. The legacies of colonialism are multiple and diverse. The Asiatic Society is one of them. Urban expansion and decentralisation have robbed the historic downtown precinct of its status as the city’s main socio-cultural hub.
There are other reasons for the Society’s marginalisation. The reimagining of Mumbai as a city of Bollywood and finance towards the end of the last century caused a widespread dumbing down, or what Aroon Tikekar, former President of the Asiatic Society, decried as Mumbai’s “de-intellectualisation.”
The Society’s neglect by the city is evident in the inattention to staff complaints of delayed dues and to disrepair — a recent newspaper article talked about damaged pillars and rainwater seepage. Increasingly, the relationship many Mumbaikars have with the Asiatic Society is as a stop on heritage tours or a suitably dramatic backdrop for selfies, film shootings and the occasional music concert. But past the iconic flight of steps and Doric columns, past the silent users of the State Central Library, runs a rich vein, pulsing with life. I do not refer here to the Society’s treasures but to a more quotidian aspect. A way of life persists in defiance of current norms, the tyranny of commerce, the reduction of knowledge to soundbites and relentless specialisation.
Staffers ceaselessly roam the corridors housing a hundred thousand books to search for requisitioned titles by members. Conversations take place on sagging sofas, overlooked by marble statues of British and Indian statesmen. The notice board announces new research into India’s maritime history and economic policy, among other things. In the imposing Durban Hall, a public audience, sometimes sparse, sometimes ample, listens to scholars present their work. Communities form over shared interests. The chairs have broken arms. The bathrooms are barely usable. But there is a rare freedom within these walls: A freedom to pursue any line of thought, any idea. To let one’s mind wander wherever it seeks to go and immerse itself as deeply as it must. To seek knowledge for its own sake. This, too, is wealth.
New York has the New York Public Library. London has the British Library.
Great cities make room for a life of the mind. Mumbai needs to do more to cherish its asset.
Shah is a writer, journalist and independent scholar
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