Hey Ram! Half of Gandhiji's 11,640 books missing, torn

What would be the value of Bapu's books? Books that he perhaps read himself, or he wished to read; books that were gifted to him; books that influenced him in his early years; that transformed him from Mohandas to Mahatma? Should they be conserved with naphthalene tablets in unlocked cupboards without indexing? Or maybe even scrapped because they are obviously over a century old and the pages are withering away!

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What is the value of Mahatma Gandhi's original certificates brought back by him a century ago from South Africa? At par with an average file you'd squeeze into a cupboard for want of space?
But this is exactly what the Maneklal Jethabhai Library (MJL) in the city has done to 11,640 books donated by Bapu in 1933 for the library. When the Sabarmati Ashram's library was disbanded as Bapu embarked on the Dandi Yatra, these books were given away to form the first books of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's public library. These also included Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's personal collection that he brought back from South Africa and lots of certificates granted to him in his early years. Only nine of those are available now.

Officials at the library categorically refuse to reveal how many of these are still available with them, but a rough estimate is that at least over 50% of them are missing. An old hand at the library confides as per the last hand-written estimate about five years ago, 4,000-5,000 were available. Whether they have been stolen or misplaced or destroyed purposely or inadvertently, no one can validate.

The young librarian at MJ Library Bipin Modi, a former student of Gujarat Vidyapeeth who has taken over this post a year ago, assures keenly that stock taking and digitising of records for these books is underway and one would soon know how many and which books exist today.

In the same breath, Modi concedes that it has been over 75 years since the books were donated by Gandhi and "over the years, they could have been issued to readers with or without record or scrapped by successive regimes of the library for a variety of reasons best known to them". He explains this perhaps without grasping entirely that these books were a crucial part of our history that is now lost forever. What's more, he draws out the nine original certificates of Gandhi - all in extremely decrepit condition.

"Basically, nobody now knows what happened to those books," says vice-chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapeeth Sudarshan Iyengar. "I wouldn't blame any person or institution but the essential Indian mentality of not realising the value of our heritage and conserving it," he adds.

Ahmedabad Mayor Asit Vora, who is also the chairman of MJ Library Management Board, confirms that they are conscious of the existence of this heritage in the library. "The books gifted by the Ashram are well maintained in the MJ Library. A few days ago, we had cleaned up the place where the books are stored to maintain it well," he says. However, he did not have details of number of books available in the library and referred to the librarian for details.

But is the Mayor's claim that the books still available are "well-maintained" correct? DNA saw a few thousand books stocked un-indexed in the basement of the library in cupboards titled 'Gandhi Sahitya'. "We get lots of inquiries from researchers about these books. Therefore, we are planning to prepare a CD to give them for a ready reference. Recently, Gandhiji's grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi had visited the library," Modi said. While a stock-taking is being done of the titles, there is no future plan to preserve these books in a manner that they don't degenerate further. When questioned about it, Modi draws a blank. One doesn't know whether the titles are in print or not; these may well be the last copies available.

An old librarian at the Library and Vidyapeeth, Kirit Bhavsar who has earlier seen the collection closely concedes that there were several rare books, cherished by Gandhi and his personal collection too.