Column | Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta: library as a catalyst of change

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Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta serves as Development Commissioner, Karnataka.

Imagine a library with green walls. Or yellow. With murals of award-winning writers or a local queen who took on the British. There's a well-stocked children's section with picture books that you'll often see seniors reading. A copy of the Constitution. A dictionary, a rug, maybe colourful curtains, potted plants or child-sized tables or sofas.

Someone has also donated a globe. And a water filter. There's definitely a computer. And Alexa. A volleyball and a cricket bat. Carrom and chess. The library may have a garden, with a pergola where seniors hang out for some Vitamin D. Or a well-lit terrace where teenagers can study after closing hours.

Now place the library in rural Karnataka and run by the State. There's no better description of Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta's work these past five years than the pithy one she provides: a "library card as a portal" to another world.

Of the many things she's done as an IAS officer for 33 years, the dramatic makeover of forgotten rural libraries into vibrant community spaces fills a "large part" of her heart. "One of the children told me, 'I like Alexa because if I ask my teacher the same question 3-4 times, the teacher might scold me, but Alexa never does that'," says Mahadevan Dasgupta, 58, the development commissioner of Karnataka, who has a postgraduate degree in English literature.

Nearly five years after she began, 50 lakh children are enrolled in the rural libraries of the State. Library timings have increased from four hours to eight hours a day, including on the weekends. It's a cause for much consternation in the village if the librarian doesn't show up for work. By the end of the year, thanks to government assistance, Karnataka will have 12,500 rural libraries, likely the largest number in any State. "I really think that these libraries can change trajectories for this generation," says Mahadevan Dasgupta.

Encouraging a sense of play

Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the State's 5,623 rural libraries were transferred to the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, where Mahadevan Dasgupta was, until recently, additional chief secretary. Her idea to use libraries to help children stay connected with reading was simple: introduce a children's section in all libraries, offer all children free membership, encourage gram panchayats to revive the libraries, find someone to donate computers (Dell Technologies stepped in) and avoid using government funds. Rather, try to build a people's movement.

Public servants by definition have the power to impact the lives of many but how many can take credit for spreading joy? How many are granted the privilege of watching a small idea bloom into an exuberant community-led movement with the potential to change lives?

A collection campaign yielded a million books. Private companies and NGOs pitched in. Panchayats took charge enthusiastically. Some even painted stars on the ceiling. A university trained 4,000 librarians. "The most important learning for me has been that service delivery has improved dramatically when the rural local bodies run the library," says Mahadevan Dasgupta.

When astronaut Sunita Williams returned from space, a librarian on their Telegram group shared a photo of a woman reading a newspaper account.

Now, seniors or self-help groups often meet here in the mornings. ASHAs and Anganwadi workers visit to write their registers. The Rotary Club organises YouTube live sessions. When astronaut Sunita Williams returned from space, a librarian on their Telegram group (yes, there's a feel-good group of librarians somewhere) shared a photo of a woman reading a newspaper account. "I've seen a 90-year-old man sitting in a small library in Karwar trying to solve the Rubik's cube," says Mahadevan Dasgupta.

The Nature Conservation Foundation introduces children to birding and, indirectly, to climate change; the Indian Institute of Astrophysics used Oreo cookies in a month-long session to explain the lunar eclipse and the phases of the moon. Bengaluru's Science Gallery also partners with these libraries and the National Gallery of Modern Art will soon be on board.

A woman who tailors steps in to look up new designs for sari blouses. A farmer wants the librarian to research the pest that's attacking his cattle. A librarian and a school organise extra computer classes for children. "In some ways, the library is allowing for different forms of association, both at the individual level and at the group level. It's allowing a sense of play to come back into community life and I love that," says Mahadevan Dasgupta.

Road to liberation

At one library she visited, Mahadevan Dasgupta saw a well-used chess board. The two "champs", as she puts it, were a tribal boy who attends a government school and a boy in a private school uniform. Both would face-off every evening. "I just thought that at a time when boundaries are being created between children, here is the library, a space that allows these boundaries to be blurred a bit."

As the rural societies redefined the library as a community space, it also became a safe space for girls to study, away from the pressures of household chores. "It's actually turning into a place for children to hang out and even shape their dreams, because who knows whether they even have the space within their homes for quiet study and to grow mentally," she says.

Mahadevan Dasgupta believes decentralisation is the main reason they were able to scale this idea across the State: "We kept it flexible, insisted on only the basics, and kept encouraging more things."

As she went down the library "rabbit hole", she read about how the institution was key to the Indian freedom movement. "There were thousands of little village libraries that came up because reading is liberation," she says. "These are the little ways in which countries like ours should solve problems."

The writer is a Bengaluru-based journalist and the co-founder of India Love Project on Instagram.