NEW DELHI: Sixteen former faculty members of Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for Historical Studies have written to the vice chancellor expressing disappointment over the displacement of the CHS library and have urged him to reverse the decision.
The group, including historian Romila Thapar and ex-chairperson of the CHS, JNU and former director of the Nehru Memorial Museum, Mridula Mukherjee emphasised that the library possesses primary sources in the form of volumes of inscriptions, literary texts, and archival documents besides important collection of secondary sources of a high academic standing.
The library has even procured the rich personal collection of the eminent scholar Bernard Cohn from the University of Chicago. “The CHS faculty brought resources from archives and libraries across India and the world from Tamil Nadu to the French Archives to the library to facilitate teaching and research,” their letter said. The letter also stated that after the CHS was deemed a centre for advanced studies by the UGC, another grant was received which enabled a near doubling of the space in the CHS library by adding a floor and extending the existing building.
“Given the history of the CHS library, as faculty who have nurtured this institution over the past several decades, we feel that the library’s relocation and dispersal would essentially destroy this fine institution which was funded specifically for the purpose,” it further read.
Meanwhile the JNU students have been raising concerns since the speculations started making rounds that the administration may shut the library. However, the administration clarified on Friday (August 4) that it was not shutting the CHS library down and said that claims saying otherwise were “misinformation”.