Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Forum steps up ‘Save British Library’ campaign

WILL IT STAY? The British Library in the capital.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Save British Library Forum in the city is stepping up its campaign to avert the proposed closure of the library by March this year by the British Council of India.

Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan had taken a personal interest to save the library, visiting the institution the day on which the media reported the council’s decision to close it and gathering directly from the librarian the reasons for the decision.

Subsequently he discussed the issue with a visiting top official of the council and addressed a letter to its chief in New Delhi, Rod Pryde, offering the State government’s support to retain the library here. The reply he got to this letter was reportedly not very encouraging.

Meanwhile, members of the Save Library Forum conducted two well-attended meetings to plan and organise its campaign. One of the points raised at the second meeting was that the administration of the British Library here is actually with the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR). It has been a ‘Foreign Cultural Centre’ right from its inception in 1971.

The members who spoke at the second meeting of the forum were surprised that the ICCR was being kept totally out of the picture in this decision. The library is functioning in a heritage building on lease from the State government to the Young Men’s Christian Association and thence to the ICCR.

The British Council of India had already indicated that its education services (like providing guidance to Kerala students to study in British Universities) will continue in Thiruvananthapuram.

Does it mean that the ICCR-administered ‘Foreign Cultural Centre’ would henceforth house only the council’s front office for its education services, was the question some of the library members asked at the meeting of their forum.

It was also revealed at the forum’s meeting that the council had not taken a similar closure decision in the case of the libraries it was directly administering in the metro cities in India. The closure decision applied only in the case of the ICCR-administered British Libraries in the country.

The forum has submitted petitions to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi, Union Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed, local MP Pannian Ravindran and Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary T.K.A. Nair seeking their help in averting the closure of the library.

It has further sent a request to the ICCR under the Right to Information Act for the full details of the ICCR’s role in operating the library here.

The forum has received funding offers from several resourceful individuals for maintaining and strengthening the library, should the British Council of India reject all the appeals, including the one from the Chief Minister.

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