PUNJAB : A click of a button is now enough to explore centuries of Punjab’s history, thanks to the Panjab Digital Library (PDL), which has digitised millions of manuscripts, maps, books, and photographs over the past 16 years. Since its establishment in 2009, the initiative has aimed to locate, collect, digitise, preserve, and make accessible the accumulated wisdom of the Punjab region.
More than 1.2 million people have reportedly benefitted from free access to PDL’s data, both online and offline. Approximately 50,000 users, including scholars, researchers, students, and members of the general public, visit the website each month. A new version of the site is expected to go live next month, further expanding access.
Talking to this newspaper, Davinder Pal Singh, founder of Panjab Digital Library, said, “Approximately 95 million digital files of manuscripts, books, official files, maps, newspapers, magazines, and dairies which relate information regarding the history of Punjab have been digitised to date. The organisation will touch the 100 million pages digitised mark by the end of this year, thus making it the biggest resource on Punjab in the world.”
PDL has digitised collections from 25 major institutional libraries, including the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh, Kurukshetra University Library, the Punjab Languages Department, Chief Khalsa Diwan in Amritsar, the Library of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC), the Punjab Archives Department, and the Punjab Vidhan Sabha.
The library has also digitised around 100 private libraries, including those of Tarlochan Singh, former Member of Parliament and ex-Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities; Giani Gurdit Singh; Dr. Gurdev Singh Sidhu; Dr. Kirpal Singh; Baba Sarbjot Singh Bedi; and Dr. Manjit Kaur.
Community engagement has been a priority for Singh. Since 2005, PDL has organised 20 exhibitions featuring storylines and artefacts, displayed at more than 100 locations worldwide, including the most recent in Richmond, United States, in May this year. Some exhibitions are permanent. Singh said: “We started curating exhibitions so that all the manuscripts and other documents which have been digitised should reach the people so that they can appreciate and learn about the history of the state. We are building a team of curators and researchers, and to date, we have 13 people in this team.”
Among its most significant collections, PDL has digitised 4,500 volumes of the Khalsa Darbar records from the era of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, with each volume exceeding 100 pages, amounting to around 450,000 pages. State records from the British era, including files from the Home Department, Commerce and Industry, and Agriculture, some of which relate to the planning of the Bhakra Dam in the early 1900s, have also been preserved.
The records of eight princely states of Punjab — Patiala, Nabha, Jind (now in Haryana), Malerkotla, Faridkot, Kapurthala, Nalagarh (now in Himachal Pradesh), and Kalsia (now in Haryana) — have been digitised, comprising more than 650,000 digital files.
Singh highlighted the library’s rare collections: “More than 95,000 books have been digitised. The unique and rare ones include that of Prince Waldemar of Prussia, who visited Punjab from 1844 to 1846. In 1845, the First Anglo-Sikh War took place. Thus, he participated in the war on the British side. The book is in the German language and has not been translated, as it was published in 1853. Also, another book, ‘Map of Hindoostan’, published in 1782 by James Rennell, the first surveyor general of India, has been digitised by us.”
The library has digitised 12,350 manuscripts, 11,634 maps, including the oldest official map of Punjab (1782) and the first road map of Punjab (1846), 33,245 coins, 19,721 Punjabi poems, 51,500 articles, 18,750 documents, 60,000 artefacts, and 5,931 legal documents. Additionally, 211,000 old and rare photographs have been digitised, including early works from Bourne and Shepherd studios and the first public photography of the Guru Ka Bagh Morcha in 1922.
The library has also preserved 4,006 pamphlets, 2,840 posters, 44,000 newspapers, 19,253 magazines, and 15,000 letters. Highlighting the library’s growth, Singh said: “Presently 50,000 pages are being digitised daily.” He said daily they get 10 to 12 emails requesting various documents and photos, and we cater to requests of 250 to 300 people as students doing PhD visits us daily, and scholars approach us for information”. PDL runs on donations and does projects for the government. It does not charge from non-government entities.
Currently, PDL is digitising Punjab State Archives records and 118,000 books from the Punjab Language Department, and plans to digitise the complete collection of theses and books of the Punjabi Sahitya Akademi. All data is stored and backed up at six locations.
Reflecting on the origins of the project, Singh said that in 1994-95, he realised that computers were the ideal platform to preserve history for future generations. So, he left his job in 2003 and launched the project using “my savings and also borrowed money from family and friends”.
By 2007, the project moved out of Singh’s home into a rented space. The library launched its first online collection in 2009, making 5 million pages of Punjab’s history available free of cost, including the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib (1653), another manuscript dated 1676 signed by Guru Tegh Bahadur Sahib, and various manuscripts of the Ramayana, the Quran, and newspapers dating back to 1886.