Rain washes away Gandhi memorabilia

CHENNAI: A visitor’s diary with Mahatma Gandhi’s signature, original copies of ‘Young India’ and ‘Harijan’, and rare photographs of pre-Independence era are among the invaluable possessions the Gandhi Study Centre in the city has lost in the recent rain and floods.
With more than 10,000 books, the Gandhi Study Centre at the Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya in T Nagar once boasted of a rare collection.Today, the library has lost 90% of its books. At least 5,000 books that belonged to the rare category and printed before Independence have been lost, and these include original copies of ‘Harijan’ and ‘Young India.’
As part of an ongoing project, the staff had digitised 300 books. Apparently, half of the hardcopy of an ongoing project called ‘Gandhi in Tamil Nadu’ documenting Gandhi’s 20 visits to Tamil Nadu has been lost, as the team could document only the first part of it. “The water level increased very fast and we didn’t have time to shift them to a safer place. It’s unfortunate,” said GSC director A Annamalai. Although the GSC was opened only in 1978, the books were accumulated in the form of donations from various personal collections dating back to the 1940s. “We lost a visitor’s book maintained by the Young Indian Association on which Gandhiji had signed when he visited Trichy in 1932. Another one was a signed copy of Krishna Kripalani’s ‘Gandhi: A Life’ which the author had gifted to Rajaji. We also lost many original volumes of Young India and Harijan,” he said.
Worse, half of the ongoing project ‘Gandhi in Tamil Nadu’ has been lost. “We could only digitise half of the project from the hard copy which is untraceable now. Some rare photographs were also damaged. Even though we have copies of most of the photographs, we have lost some rare ones,” said Annamalai, adding that many exhibition materials were lost.
GSC is now planning to write to other centres across India to reestablish the library. “We request other GSCs across India to contribute books to us. If any centre has two copies of the same book, it can donate one to us. We are also working on a digital library at the centre,” he said.
GSC could maintain the library only though help from the public. “Most of these books are donated by people from various walks of life. We are hopeful that we can reopen the library with the help of the public. We hope the TN government will also look into the matter,” he said.