Harking Back: City of learning slowly ‘unlearns’ … to our peril

In these testing times have you ever been to a library, or an archives collection, of even a museum? Attendance is a measure of a nation’s mental health. Lahore, the city of learning, it seems has unlearnt itself.

Of recent a few well-known persons of the sciences and arts have been writing about learning in the media, and how we as a people have stopped reading and questioning. The media stands invisibly gagged, and if one tells the truth they can ‘disappear’ in the name of patriotism, which anyway has been described by sages as “the pastime of scoundrels”. But let us stick to concrete examples.

When was the last time you visited a library? Have you ever heard of the Punjab Public Library in Lahore? Established in November 1884 in the ‘baradari’ of Wazir Khan, it was built in the reign of Mughal Emperor Shah Jehan, just behind the present Lahore Museum on The Mall. It is the place where Maharajah Ranjit Singh collected his forces to attack and conquer Lahore in 1799.

Later, when the East India Company took over in 1849 in its surroundings was set up Lahore’s first cantonment. In its lawns was built what came to be called Tollinton Market, the first Exhibition Hall of Lahore. My suggestion to our readers is that they visit this library and see for themselves its condition. Precious books lie scattered all over the place. It is the house of the finest Sanskrit collection donated by Prof Alfred Woolner (1878-1936) whose statue stands opposite the Lahore Museum, and the only one spared by our ‘single-subject’ zealots.

But as far as rare books and serious research goes, this is the place to visit. Its administration consists of 14 persons, ten of them serving bureaucrats, two retired bureaucrats, a lawyer and one ‘official’ educationist. A tour of the massive library showed most sections empty. On three different visits each time one managed to dust old rare books. It is, if anything, a reflection of the state of our ‘least interested’ bureaucracy. Officially, so the handout claims, almost 250 books, mostly official notifications, are issued every working day.

In the Mughal-era structure of Wazir Khan’s ‘baradari’ are placed newspapers, where a few interested persons, mostly aged, go through a few newspapers. To my utter amazement there were three youngsters, all reading ‘something’ on their mobile phones. It is a reflection of the times in which we live.

Let us walk over to the nearby Punjab Archives building inside the Punjab Secretariat. It is located in the tomb of Anarkali. So one seat of learning in a tomb and the other in a Mughal ‘baradari’. The massive archives date back to the 17th century from the times of the Mughal emperor Akbar. The oldest file is dated 1629. This absolutely world class archives collection has well over seven million files of events from Mughal times to the present, covering an area from Multan to Kashmir and from Kabul to Delhi.

What more can Lahore wish for? It is the world’s second largest collection of the area and era after the British Museum Archives. But then this is out of bounds for the people of Lahore and elsewhere. You will need special ‘high official’ permission to visit it. On one occasion the ‘clerk’ asked me what would I do with the rare document sought. “I will stuff it” was my angry youthful response.

This amazing rare archives collection is divided into two sections. One inside the tomb, all neat and clean and impressive for visitors, and the massive overwhelming remaining thrown in the old horse stable of the Sikh era. In an earlier column I had described its condition, but very briefly it needs repeating.

‘As I entered the locked horse stable the stench of urine flowing from a nearby washroom could be seen, let alone smelt. Paper, all looking ancient, lay falling from makeshift open wooden cupboards. I picked up a paper, partially wet. It was a letter from the legendary poet Mirza Ghalib to the East India Company wishing that his pension be restored’. Need more be said?

This was bureaucracy at its best. Lest one forgets to inform that the Archives, or a very small part of it, are allegedly being ‘digitalised’. Offers to help from leading foreign universities have been refused. The best thing is that the technology being used is well out of date. But then such technology changes every ten years, or now even lesser. Who is bothered about such detail!

Much later one learnt that the then chief secretary wished for a larger rest room and had the gardeners throw these papers in the horse stable. Education does strange things to those in power. My view is that with time the learning acquired by rote has been unlearnt. Reason and history have no longer a role in current governance, exceptions apart one must say for safety sake.

Let us skip over to the old walled city of Lahore. There was a time when every street with shops had an ‘Anna Library’. Here the people of the area, mostly women one can say with happiness, borrowed books to read in their spare time. It was that learning that produced the finest brains of the city. But then even these have shrunk, with a handful left. The ‘unlearning’ has started at the grassroots.

Let us move from the common person to the posh areas. We see the old Lawrence Hall in the old Lawrence Gardens. This was initially known as Company Bagh, and after 1947 as Jinnah Gardens. It housed the Old Lahore Gymkhana Club. In the 1980s Gen Ziaul Haq ordered that the club be shifted and a library be set up. Officially it has 125,000 books, magazines, newspapers in three different languages. This library attracts a small stream of students in search of textbooks.

There are other libraries that suffer the same fate, that being a lack of attendance. The ones I have visited include the Dyal Singh College library, the LUMS library, the Model Town library, and, naturally being an old Ravian, the Government College library. All of them are well endowed but the attendances is unimpressive, except for LUMS and GC. The reason for the last two being that active are the students wishing to find a workplace.

Let me share a funny story about libraries. There is a small library in the Punjab Assembly in Lahore, which when I was a political reporter in my youth I would visit. Most of the times I was alone. The librarian always welcomed me with the remark: “Thank the Lord someone has come”. As one ages and comments more than reports, one can understand the reasons.

So the process of ‘unlearning’ the little that we pick up because of our rote method of school examinations is before us. Becoming a principal is now more a question of seniority than competence. The outcome is a conspiracy-minded set of ‘literates’ … or should we even call them that.