The Joy of seeing a Rare Book digitized and immortalized online keeps me going
- In Interviews
- 02:36 PM, Feb 18, 2017
- Myind Staff
MyInd Interview with Chetan Pandey
Please give us your background and what motivated you to become a Manuscript-eBook Activist and an Open Access Advocate?
It all began with innate love for Sanskrit I was born with. I was meant to serve Sanskrit. Even though I am a technology Graduate from USA, I managed to do two Master's in Sanskrit via Long Distance without any formal training. The idea that books and manuscripts were out of reach of people hurt me. There is a huge lacuna of information especially Agama Shastra and Kashmir Shaivism - my most beloved fields of Study - that are so fundamental to understand Consciousness and what it means to be human. I still remember how reading the Vigyan Bhairava at Age 17 influenced me so profoundly. I was lucky that Sahitya Akademi Library, New Delhi had a good Sanskrit Collection and found many remarkable books to read there. I wish to replicate Good Collections like these online, so that more people stumble upon Vigyan Bhairava not just in Sahitya Academy Library but over the Net.
Besides, I am convinced, Abhinavagupta is India's greatest Writer-Mystic. But what is most painful, not a single critical edition of his works are available. By putting manuscripts online - not just Abhinava, we are crowd-sourcing critical editions and democratizing information.
Why Digitize? Is Internet safe and everlasting? Isn't the Internet prone to attacks as well?
Digitization and Digital Open-Availability is so critical to sustain Modern Scholarship and Research. A whole generation of scholarship is languishing when Government of India and their agencies and libraries starve scholars by keeping them off-access to their resources. In BHU, you cannot get more than 10 pages of any manuscript that you want to work with. Most government repositories will do their utmost to prevent you from any access lest other Scholars follow in their trail and staff will actually have to put extra effort in Public Dealing.
Case in Point: The JK Culture Academy (Srinagar) 's Online Catalog available at
http://jkculture.nic.in/pdf/MANUSCRIPT.pdf
lists Utpal's Ishvar Pratyabhijna Vivritti ( Item 477 ) as one of the Texts in their possession.
We all know that that this lost text is possibly the most sought after manuscript of the country. Prof Torella has a thesis that the 33 odd pages that survive of this text and were first studied by KC Pandey in pre-Independence India and now in the National Archives, prove that Abhinava and Utpal are co-equal Giants. If this text in JK Archives is indeed the same work - we have a great gift to scholarship and the world of mysticism.
The Manuscript is digitized already but my attempts to get a copy of it met a solid wall. The official reason, Mr. Arif, the Editor of the JK Culture Academy's Urdu Magazine who I was instructed to liase with gave is that the State does not have any Manuscript Policy and hence no one can be entertained.
This attitude by the JK Culture Academy is indeed salutary as far as reducing officer workloads and preventing other people disturbing them in my trail but this can deprive World Mysticism of some of its most important texts.
To speak nothing of the fact that the last Kashmir Floods had destroyed a part of their Servers and they don't even have a Single backup or understand what a backup is and nobody in either State Government or Center has questioned them about the integrity of their digital archive.
As a manuscript activist I have interacted with a lot of institutions, most of the time they are as dismal as JK Culture Academy.
National Manuscript Mission for example has not even backed-up their Data from CD-ROMs to Hard Drives, preventive steps which even a pre-teen is wired for and will move his movies from his DVDs to his pen drive!
IGNCA in all these years of digitization has done nothing to make their offerings public. A lame reason is forwarded that they need permissions from original repositories. In 30 Odd years of their original digitization somebody couldn't get a state repository - subservient to the Center - to sign a Document allowing Open Availability. Permissions are made such a big-deal of which is actually policy-paralysis and bureaucratic apathy disguised as legal excuses. The actual reality of this permissions excuse is far simpler. Take the example of Shri Shailendra Kumar, IAS Officer , J&K handling Culture in 2014 who I had the great fortune to liase with. I spoke to him over phone from Singapore for mere 5 Minutes and explained my Project. He agreed on the spot to allow us to carry Digital Work in Dogra Art Museum, Jammu. If the IGNCA and NMM call him up, he would have equally magnanimously had had the procedures started to allow open availability. The whole thing is Very simple but people are making it ridiculously complex. And I am saying this for the umpteenth time, this attitude is hurting dissemination, research and scholarship. Every manuscript out there belongs to only one place the Net - and to every reader who wants to read them.
Internet is prone to attack but of-course there are always challenges and there are always good backup strategies.
You have often talked about your efforts leading to the creation of the World's Largest Collection of Handwritten Manuscripts (5 Million for India alone !!). This is an outstanding and gargantuan task. How are you funded and how can you maintain the Portal ?
If I were a millionaire, yes, I would like do that. But it is not so gargantuan. There are machines which automate digitization wherein you don’t have to even flip a Single Page. Google Books was using them. If each Page of Manuscript Digitization costs 1 Re and each Manuscript on an Average has say 200 pages, it’s still 100 Crore Rs, a small budget for Government of India - which unfortunately is hardly doing anything in this Regard.
I am not funded by anyone, I use my own hard earned money. British Library's Endangered Archives Program has accepted one Area of my digitization work in Kashmir. I hope to slash my monthly expenses to half by that, only to use the slashed amount for increased digitizations.
Narendra Modi is now considered the undisputed political and civilizational leader of India. Do you wish to make an appeal to him to suitably amend copyright laws so that all ancient manuscripts are made available for wider dissemination?
Especially the manuscripts owned by National Manuscript Mission (NMM), IGNCA and the Archives owned by Doordarshan, All India Radio, National Film Development Corporation etc ?
Yes, yes, yes. Shri Narendra Modi Sir is my Hero. He is the undisputed Political and Civilization Leader of India.
I wish to make an appeal to him that our civilizational values and cultural ideas are bereft of wings therefore don’t travel and the greatest enemy so far has been the state.
Recently at Hardayal Library, Chandni Chowk, at their Centenary Celebrations, there were some Rare and Old Books on display. I asked one of the Librarians there out of Courtesy if I could take pictures - I got a stern No. The next person I saw I asked them why do you not allow us to take pictures, but she said I could. This is how random the Government Policies are.
The National Policy for Manuscripts should be aggressively missionary.
All Major Repositories under State Control should be ordered to digitize everything they have and put them online free of Cost. All Digital Work done as at NMM, IGNCA should be immediately laid out to the Public.
Anywhere where any kind of Money is taken by the Government ex. Oriental Library Srinagar ( 25 Rs/Folio ) , the Govt is shooting itself in the foot. This is just an abominable practice of creating artifical barriers to the free flow of Gyana and any revenue made is a drop of the Ocean in the Coffers of the Govt and serves only one purpose - make Knowledge expensive, restricted. Who gets hurt! Knowedge, Indian Culture and its Dissemination.
I wish Prime Minister will restrict Copyright Laws for Books to 30 years max since First Publication.
When I can watch a popular movie such as 3 Idiots after a couple of Months of its Release on youtube for free, why should books have such an artificial Life-Line of 90 years after Death of Author. Why should an Author/Publisher be able to make a lifetime of Earnings through a Cash-Cow Model for such unnaturally and unreasonably Lengthy Periods.
Allowing books to be released into the Public Domain Pool will - as far as the Wider Dissemination of Their Ideas are Concerned - make them available for republication at royalty free prices by Other Publishers and there Digital Open Access Presence by Samaritans like me in the Net add to the Quality of Scholarship and Depth and General Elevation of Knowledge Standards.
I also urge PM Modi to put all archives of NMM, IGNCA, National Archives(Culture) Nehru Memorial, Delhi Doordarshan, AIR, National Film Cooperation, National Children Film Cooperation, National School of Drama and other Agencies put there Text-Audio-Video Archives online on a Channel like archive.org(Text)-Youtube(AV) so the dissemination of Culture will be comprehensive, complete and costless to the End User.
This includes archival material still in Microfilms, microfische, cassettes and other analog media into Digital Formats and then the WWW. At Nehru Memorial, last time seeing users working with microfilms of Old Newspapers and the mechanical stretch the film was being subjected to, it could have snapped the Film, I found that horrifying. Cos that could be the only surviving copy of that Antique Newspaper and a callous act could wipe it out from Human Memory.
The Information Explosion will spawn countless Knowledge Studies, Rediscoveries, Greater Accuracies besides Cultural Dissemination all at a one time Cost but timeless preservation.
Have there been similar efforts of the kind and scale that you are talking about taken place anywhere else in the globe ?
Google Books was the most bold initiative ever but they made a Lot of Publishers unhappy. The project got closed eventually but I wish Google restarts it again.
I know China and Norway are doing this kind of Comprehensive Digitization.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/11/norway-digitizing-all-books-national-library_n_4427164.html
Rekhta.org and Panjab Digital Library are working for Urdu and Punjab-focused digitizations respectively in India. Other Major Projects on Global Scale can be seen here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_digital_library_projects
Digital Library of India funded by Carnegie Mellon University was also a Major undertaking but unfortunately the shoddy scanning and Data Entry make a very miserable experience - they must have hired Data Entry Veterans from the people who do Voter Id Cards for Govt of India – an unfortunate choice.
I wish Govt can partner with Samaritans like Google and hand them the Major Repositories BORI, Asiatic Society etc and let them do the cutting edge Work and Open Access everything.
What keeps you going? From what we have seen of your work, it is immensely invaluable to Indic Civilization but an equally thankless job.
The Joy of seeing a Rare Book digitized and placed online - immortalized - keeps me going. It is not thankless because when I get the feedback of Scholars, I know its only the tip of the iceberg that I am getting to know and that at a very deep level cultural dissemination is happening.
How can Pravasis (NRI's, PIO's, Indic Enthusiasts and History Buffs) invest and collaborate with you ?
They can help me identify any repository where a significant Sanskrit Collection exists and the repository management is eager to have their Collection digitally preserved. They can help raise funds for the digitization. The Cost of digitization is bare minimal - less than 50 paisa/page.
My Promise is missionary and IoT( Internet of Things ) – they will all be online at CC-0 No Rights Reserved In Public Domain Licenses and within 1-2 days of digitization – I don’t want the scholars waiting.
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