INTACH opposes demolition of a part of Khuda Bakhsh library

The Nawab of Rampur and Maulana Khuda Bakhsh are said to have competed with each other in bidding for rare manuscripts. And while the Maulana, a lawyer, did not have the kind of wealth the Nawab had, he is reputed to have invested almost all his earnings to indulge in his passion for acquiring rare books.

Maulana Khuda Baksh is believed to have turned down a handsome offer from the British Library in London for his collection which included priceless manuscripts. It had books from the personal collection of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and princess Jahanara and a rare copy of ‘Ode to Napoleon’ penned by Lord Byron, two additional stanzas written in his own hand.

Protest has been building up over a proposal to demolish a portion of the reading room and the front lawn of the library for an elevated road. Patna chapter of INTACH (Indian National trust for Artt and Cultural Heritage) has also written to the Bihar chief minister with a request to explore other options to ease traffic congestion in the area.

While sources in the government are tight-lipped, on condition of anonymity they say that the plan involved demolition of only a part of the reading room and use of the front lawn. They however concede that following the demolition it would become imperative to shift the library from the heritage building.

While INTACH has suggested that the elevated road could be re-directed through other routes, officials point out that the area is dotted with heritage buildings. While INTACH wants the government to use the Bankipore Club, even that is a heritage institution which was established in 1865, the sources said.

The library was formally opened for public in October, 1891 by the son of Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh with 4,000 manuscripts, of which he had inherited 1,400 from his father. Khuda Bakhsh donated his entire personal collection by a deed of trust. The Government of India declared the Library an Institution of National Importance by an act of Parliament in 1969. The Library, an autonomous institution is fully funded by the Ministry of Culture.

Maulvi Khuda Bakhsh was born into a distinguished family in 1842, in Siwan district of Bihar. His family had been record keepers for the Mughal emperors since Aurangzeb. Khuda Bakhsh’s father Muhammad Bakhsh was an advocate and a scholar.

The Library is a unique repository of past heritage, preserved in the form of manuscripts written on paper, palm-leaf, deer-skin, cloth and sundry materials. At the same time, it has printed books in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, English and Hindi, besides some in German, French, Punjabi, Japanese and Russian. The Library is a centre of research in Oriental studies and a public library catering to the needs of students, youth and senior citizens.

More than 2,000 manuscripts are now also available in digital format to readers and visiting scholars within the library. The Library has two reading rooms, one for researchers and scholars, and the other for casual readers. The Curzon Reading Room, a part of which is planned to be demolished, is named after Lord Curzon. A large number of newspapers, magazines in English, Urdu and Hindi, reference books and books for competitive exams are available in this Reading Room.

The library promotes research in Islamic Studies, Arabic, Persian and Urdu Literature, Comparative Religion, Tibb or Unani medicine, Tasawwuf of Mysticism, History of the Islamic land, Medieval Indian History and Culture and the National movement.

Relocating the library to a more spacious accommodation may well be technically feasible. But it will certainly be painful and upset thousands of its loyal members.