11,700 books from Karnataka Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi Library digitised

The collection includes work in 12 languages, and have been distributed to Gandhi Bhavans across the country to reach a larger audience.

Updated - August 26, 2024 12:41 pm IST - Bengaluru

Former Karnataka Lokayukta Justice N. Santosh Hegde and Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs H.K. Patil, at the valedictory session of international seminar on Mahatma Gandhi, organised by the Karnataka Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi, at Gandhi Bhavan, in Bengaluru on August 25, 2024.

Former Karnataka Lokayukta Justice N. Santosh Hegde and Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs H.K. Patil, at the valedictory session of international seminar on Mahatma Gandhi, organised by the Karnataka Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi, at Gandhi Bhavan, in Bengaluru on August 25, 2024. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K

Close to 11,700 books from the Karnataka Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi Library have been digitised over the last few months, and this has now been distributed to Gandhi Bhavans across the country to reach a larger audience.

Speaking after handing over the digitised books to the representatives, on Sunday, August 25, Carl Malamud, founder of Servants of Knowledge, a U.S.-based non-profit organisation that has been working to digitise the books, said that they were open to digitise more books with Gandhian principles.

“We are making these books available to the librarians of these organisations so that the literature is available to the public for non-commercial uses within the parameters of the copyright laws of India. We have also offered to digitise, at no additional cost, any additional literature related to Gandhi that may be available at the other institutions,” he said.

Among the works digitised are ‘The collected works of Gandhi’, the Nav Jeevan trust pamphlets, the biographies by Pyare Lal Nayyar, 126 audios of speeches Gandhi gave on All India Radio, and 107 volumes of ‘Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru’, books by Rana Kishan and Subhash Chandra Bose. The collection includes work in 12 languages.

The books were handed over at the closing ceremony of a two-day international seminar on ‘Gandhi for the 21st Century’, to commemorate the 75th year of Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi.

Speaking on the occasion, H.K. Patil, Minister of Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislation of Karnataka, expressed concerns over the loss of Gandhian values like Satyagraha. He opined that the newly instated criminal law code, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was trying to criminalise Satyagraha.

“The closest thing to Gandhi’s heart was Satyagraha. He used Satyagraha and hunger strikes to awaken the world. Under the BNS, 2023, whoever attempts to commit suicide to restrain a public servant from discharging his duty will be charged. This means, whoever goes on hunger strikes can be booked for this crime. There is an attempt to remove the very essence of Satyagraha from our laws,” Mr. Patil said.

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